| Carol Wayne | |
| Birth Name: | Carol Marie Wayne |
| Birth Date: | 1942 9, mf=yes |
| Birth Place: | Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Death Place: | Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico |
| Occupation: | Actress |
| Years Active: | 1966–1985 |
| Spouse: | |
| Children: | 1 |
| Relatives: | Nina Wayne (sister) |
Carol Marie Wayne (September 6, 1942 – January 13, 1985) was an American television and film actress. She appeared regularly on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson as the Matinee Lady in the Art Fern's Tea Time Movie sketches.
Born in Chicago, Wayne began her show business career as a teenage figure skater in the Ice Capades along with her younger sister, Nina.[1]
Wayne did television guest shots on The Man from U.N.C.L.E., I Spy (as the title character in the episode "Trouble with Temple"), Bewitched (as a rabbit turned into a cocktail bunny), I Dream of Jeannie (as dim-witted starlet Bootsie Nightingale), Love American Style, Emergency! and The Fall Guy, and appeared in many sketches on The Red Skelton Show.
Wayne said she was "discovered" at a Hollywood party and auditioned for The Tonight Show after appearances as a Las Vegas chorus line dancer.[2] [3]
She gained her greatest fame for appearances (1967–1984) on The Tonight Show,[4] including 100-plus appearances (1971–1984) as the buxom Matinée Lady on The Tonight Show in Johnny Carson's popular Art Fern's Tea Time Movie sketches, which were filled with sexual double entendres. After her death, Carson kept the Art Fern character off the air for most of the next year. He eventually hired Danuta Wesley and later Teresa Ganzel to be his new Matinée Lady.
Wayne made appearances on several game shows during the 1970s including Mantrap and Hollywood Squares. She was a regular panelist on Celebrity Sweepstakes. She landed roles in several films, including Gunn, The Party (both directed by Blake Edwards), Scavenger Hunt, Savannah Smiles and Surf II. Her final onscreen appearance came in the 1984 drama Heartbreakers, for which she received the best reviews of her career. Critic Roger Ebert wrote, "Her performance is so good, so heartbreaking, if you will, that it pulls the whole movie together."[5] In February 1984, Wayne appeared nude in a pictorial for Playboy magazine.[2] The same year, she filed for bankruptcy.[6] [7]
Wayne was married three times. She married her first husband, Loreto "Larry" Cera, on May 1, 1965; they divorced in June 1967. In 1969, Wayne married her second husband, rock-music photographer Barry Feinstein, with whom she had a son, Alex Feinstein (b. 1970).[3] [8] The couple divorced in 1974. A year later, she married television and film producer Burt Sugarman, who served as producer on Celebrity Sweepstakes.[9] They divorced in 1980.[10]
Wayne told Johnny Carson in an interview on April 30, 1974, one of 38 appearances, that she enjoyed gardening and growing bonsai trees, and in another interview, breeding Andalusian horses.
In January 1985, Wayne vacationed at the Las Hadas Resort in Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico, with companion Edward Durston, a car salesman.[11] [6] [12] After an argument, Wayne reportedly took a walk on the beach. Three days later, a local fisherman found Wayne's body in a shallow bay. An autopsy performed in Mexico revealed no signs of alcohol or other drugs in her body, and her death was ruled "accidental."[11] [7]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1967 | Gunn | Ernestine | ||
| 1968 | June Warren | |||
| 1979 | Scavenger Hunt | Nurse | ||
| 1980 | Gypsy Angels | Waitress | ||
| 1982 | Savannah Smiles | Doreen | ||
| 1984 | Surf II | Mrs. O'Finlay | Alternative title: Surf II: The End of the Trilogy | |
| 1984 | Heartbreakers | Candy | ||
| 1984 | E. Nick: A Legend in His Own Mind | Regine |
| Year | Title | Role | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1966 | Ginger LaVeer | Episode: "The Super-Colossal Affair" | ||
| 1966 | Shelia | Episode: "The Faustus Affair" | ||
| 1967 | I Spy | Temple | Episode: "The Trouble with Temple" | |
| 1967 | Occasional Wife | Miss Orange Grove | Episode: "The New Secretary" | |
| 1967 | I Dream of Jeannie | Bootsie Nightingale | Episode: "Here Comes Bootsie Nightingale" | |
| 1969 | Bewitched | Bunny | Episode: "A Bunny for Tabitha" | |
| 1970 | NBC Soundstage Tour Guide Chambermaid | Episodes: "The Magic Act" "The Private Detective" | ||
| 1970–1972 | Love, American Style | Various | 6 episodes | |
| 1971 | Sarge | Receptionist | Episode: "Psst! Wanna Buy a Dirty Picture?" | |
| 1971 | Christie Mullins | Episode: "The Letter of the Law" | ||
| 1971–1984 | Art Fern's Tea-Time Movie Lady[13] | Multiple appearances at irregular intervals. | ||
| 1972 | Mannix | Bobbi | Episode: "A Puzzle for One" | |
| 1972 | Every Man Needs One | Nancy | Television movie | |
| 1973 | Mimi | Episode: "John & Sally & Fred & Linda" | ||
| 1974 | Medical Center | Blanche | Episode: "Adults Only" | |
| 1974 | Emergency! | Renee, Miss October | Episode: "The Screenwriter" | |
| 1974-1976 | Celebrity Sweepstakes | Herself (regular panelist)[14] [15] | Television game show | |
| 1979 | Whew! | Herself (celebrity player) | Television game show | |
| 1979 | Heaven on Earth | Television movie | ||
| 1981 | Allegra Farrenpour | Television movie | ||
| 1981 | Rose | Episodes: "The Meek Shall Inherit Rhonda" "The Japanese Connection" |