1972 was a banner year for Carol Lynley. It began with her playing the supportive girlfriend to reporter Darren McGavin in the Dan Curtis-produced made-for-TV vampire horror film The Night Stalker, the highest rated TV-movie up to that point in time with over 50% of all households TVs tuned in, and ended the year as a terrified hippie rock singer in the classic disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure the highest grossing movie of 1973. Read more in my BearManor Media book Carol Lynley: Her Film & TV Career in Thrillers, Fantasy & Suspense
25+ Days to Christmas
Beginning my shopping days to Christmas highlighting performers from my BearManor Media Books Today is Carol Lynley in her first fantasy role playing the lovely Rapunzel to Agnes Moorhead’s wicked witch on Shirley Temple’s Storybook. Read more in my book Carol Lynley: Her Film & TV Career in Thrillers, Fantasy & Suspense available at Amazon.com.
CAROL LYNLEY
Although my Carol Lynley book (it is NOT a bio, as some disappointed folks seemed to believe, but a career retrospective) focuses on her genre work, I do discuss her work in comedies, romances, melodramas, etc. One of her most praise-worthy roles was that of the ill-fated Mona Fermoyle who goes from nice Irish Catholic girl to a tango-dancing prostitute in Otto Preminger’s Golden Globe-winning, multi-million dollar epic The Cardinal (1963). It traced the rise of Steven Fermoyle (Tom Tryon) from parish priest in Boston ca. 1910s to Cardinal in the 1940s. When the runaway Mona is found she is about to give birth and her priest brother must decide to either save the mother or the baby. He chooses the later due to Catholic dogma, and the final scene of Mona being rolled to her death and letting out one final scream, “Steve!” is chilling.
Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awwards
Only 2 days left to vote! Voting ends on Sunday April 25 at 11:59 pm.
If you liked my BearManor Media book Carol Lynley: Her Film & TV Career in Thrillers, Fantasy & Suspense or want to show Carol Lynley some love then vote for Book of the Year Nonfiction from the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards.
Below is Carol Lynley is some of her later horror-themed performances.
If It’s a Man, Hang Up!
The Cat and the Canary
One of her many appearances on Fantasy Island
With Christopher Cazenove in “In Possession” on Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense
Blackout