Carol Bruce was an American band singer, Broadway star, and film and television actress.

Bruce was born Shirley Levy in Great Neck, New York

Great Neck, New York

The term Great Neck is commonly applied to a peninsula on the North Shore of Long Island, which includes the village of Great Neck, the village of Great Neck Estates, the village of Great Neck Plaza, and others, as well as an area south of the peninsula near Lake Success and the border of Queens...

, the daughter of Beatrice and Harry Levy. She began her career as a singer in the late 1930s with Larry Clinton

Larry Clinton

Larry Clinton was a trumpeter who became a prominent American bandleader.-Biography:Clinton was born in Brooklyn, New York. He became a versatile musician, capable of playing trumpet, trombone, and clarinet...

 and his band. A graduate of Erasmus Hall High School

Erasmus Hall High School

Erasmus Hall Campus High School is a four-year public high school in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, United States operated by the New York City Department of Education....

 in Brooklyn, New York, she made her Broadway debut in Louisiana Purchase," with songs by Irving Berlin who discovered her at a nightclub in Newark, New Jersey. She was the first actress to play the role of Julie in a Broadway production of Jerome Kern

Jerome Kern

Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A...

 and Oscar Hammerstein II

Oscar Hammerstein II

Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was an American librettist, theatrical producer, and theatre director of musicals for almost forty years. Hammerstein won eight Tony Awards and was twice awarded an Academy Award for "Best Original Song". Many of his songs are standard repertoire for...

's Show Boat

Show Boat

Show Boat is a musical in two acts with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It was originally produced in New York in 1927 and in London in 1928, and was based on the 1926 novel of the same name by Edna Ferber. The plot chronicles the lives of those living and working...

since the 1932 Broadway revival. Bruce played the role onstage in 1946 and garnered favorable comparisons to Helen Morgan

Helen Morgan

Helen Morgan was an American singer and actress who worked in films and on the stage. A quintessential torch singer, she made a big splash in the Chicago club scene in the 1920s...

, who had originated the role onstage in 1927 and repeated it in both the 1932 revival and the 1936 film

Show Boat (1936 film)

Show Boat is a 1936 film based on the musical play by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II , which the team adapted from the novel by Edna Ferber....

, but had died prematurely in 1941.

After a long career as a singer and in films, Bruce is probably best-remembered for her recurring role as the domineering and meddlesome "Mama Carlson" (mother of the station manager played by Gordon Jump

Gordon Jump

Alexander Gordon Jump was an American actor best known as the clueless radio station manager Arthur "Big Guy" Carlson in the TV series WKRP in Cincinnati and the incompetent "Chief of Police Tinkler" in the sitcom Soap...

) on CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

' WKRP in Cincinnati

WKRP in Cincinnati

WKRP in Cincinnati is an American situation comedy that featured the misadventures of the staff of a struggling fictional radio station in Cincinnati, Ohio. The show was created by Hugh Wilson and was based upon his experiences working in advertising sales at Top 40 radio station WQXI in Atlanta...

. Sylvia Sidney played Mr. Carlson's mother in the Pilot episode.

Her only marriage (to Milton Nathanson, which ended in divorce) produced a daughter, Julie, an actress, singer and playwright who married jazz guitarist Larry Coryell

Larry Coryell

Larry Coryell is an American jazz fusion guitarist.-Biography:Coryell was born in Galveston, Texas. He graduated from Richland High School, in Richland, Washington, where he played in local bands The Jailers, The Rumblers, The Royals, and The Flames. He also played with The Checkers from nearby...

. Bruce's grandchildren, Murali Coryell

Murali Coryell

Murali Coryell is an American blues guitarist and singer. Best known for performing live in small venues in New York State, Coryell has also opened for George Thorogood, Gregg Allman, B.B. King and Wilson Pickett...

 and Julian Coryell

Julian Coryell

-Biography:Coryell was born in Pennsylvania in 1973 to famed jazz guitarist Larry Coryell and writer/actor /musician Julie Coryell, and grew up in Connecticut, New York and California. Coryell began playing the piano and drums at the age of 5, switched to violin at the age of 8, then to bass at the...

, are both musicians as well. Bruce died from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease , also known as chronic obstructive lung disease , chronic obstructive airway disease , chronic airflow limitation and chronic obstructive respiratory disease , is the co-occurrence of chronic bronchitis and emphysema, a pair of commonly co-existing diseases...

 at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, a month before her 88th birthday.

Additional reading

• "Carol Bruce, 87; singer, actress had role in 'WKRP in Cincinnati'." Los Angeles Times. October 14, 2007.
• Peterson, Alison J. "Carol Bruce, Actress on Film, Stage and TV, Dies at 87." New York Times. October 16, 2007.

External links