Pat Carroll

Actress • Comedian
Birth Date: May 5, 1927
Death Date: July 30, 2022 — 95 years old
Birth Place: Shreveport, Louisiana
With her short white-blond hair and gregarious laugh, Pat Carroll delighted audiences for more than 50 years. But, truth be told, her TV work was a means of financing a lifestyle that allowed her to pursue a regular career as a theater performer and director. She is perhaps best remembered as Bunny Halper, wife of nightclub owner Sid Melton, on "The Danny Thomas Show" (CBS, 1961-1964) and as the inveterate matchmaker to Doris Day in the feature "With Six You Get Eggroll" (1968).
Younger audiences might recognized Carroll for her stage turn in "Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein," which she played on Broadway and at colleges around the USA, or, more likely, as the voice of the villainous Ursula in Disney's "The Little Mermaid" (1989). Born in Louisiana and raised in Los Angeles, Carroll made her professional stage debut in 1947 alongside Gloria Swanson in "A Goose for the Gander." Heading East, she hit the nightclub circuit, debuting in the revue at Le Ruban Bleu in 1950.
By the time she made her Broadway debut in "Catch a Star" in 1955, she was a recognized TV performer; Carroll was a sketch performer on "The Red Buttons Show" (CBS, 1952-1953), and "Saturday Night Revue" (NBC, 1954). "Caesar's Hour" (NBC, 1956-1957), on which she is best recalled for playing Carl Reiner's wife in ongoing sketches, earned her a Supporting Actress Emmy Award. For much of the decade, Carroll also appeared on many of the proliferating quiz and panel shows, including "Masquerade Party" (CBS, 1958) and "Keep Talking" (CBS, 1958-1959).
Among her later small screen credits were turns as a motherly landlady to Bobby Sherman in the short-lived "Getting Together" (ABC, 1971-72), the overprotective mother of Adam Arkin in "Busting Loose" (CBS, 1977), a newspaper publisher and foil for the star in the syndicated "The Ted Knight Show" (1986) and Suzanne Somers' mother on the syndicated sitcom "She's the Sheriff" (1987). As a guest performer, she was particularly memorable on a 1971 episode of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" (CBS) playing an unpleasant woman with whom Mary Richards shares a hospital room and a generation recalled her as the Wicked Stepmother to Lesley Ann Warren's "Cinderella" (CBS, 1966).
More recently, Carroll was utterly charming as a talkative ticket seller at an old movie palace with dreams of dancing on stage one more time in the American Movie Classics original drama "The Royale" (1997). For much of the 80s and 90s, Carroll performed onstage, notably at Washington, DC's The Shakespeare Theatre. After a well-received turn as the Nurse in "Romeo and Juliet" the veteran actress made theatrical history playing Sir John Falstaff in "The Merry Wives of Windsor" in 1990. Carroll tackled Brecht's "Mother Courage" in 1993 and then donned trousers again for a go at the title role of Ben Jonson's "Volpone" in 1996.
Pat Carroll died on July 30, 2022 at the age of 95.
Expand Bio▼Credits

Tangled: Short Cuts

Mary Tyler Moore: A Celebration

BFFs

Troupers

Freedom WritersStream

A Casa dos Vilões da Disney

Mickey's Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of MouseStream

Songcatcher

The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea

ERStream

Garfield's Thanksgiving

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue RangersStream

The Little MermaidStream

A Pup Named Scooby-DooStream

A Garfield Christmas Special

She's the Sheriff

Designing WomenStream

Galaxy High School

Pound Puppies

Super PasswordStream

Trapper John, M.D.

Tropic of Desire

Good Heavens

Laverne & ShirleyStream

Police WomanStream

Police StoryStream

Second Chance

The Brothers O'Toole

Getting Together

The Mary Tyler Moore ShowStream

The Interns

Love, American Style

Sześcioro to już tłum

With Six You Get EggrollStream

The Carol Burnett ShowStream

Please Don't Eat the Daisies

CinderellaStream

The Danny Kaye Show

Fractured Flickers

You're in the Picture

My Three SonsStream

The June Allyson Show

Variety

Max Liebman Presents: Spotlight

The Saturday Night Revue

The Red Skelton ShowStream
