Carol Grace

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Carol Grace (September 11, 1924 - July 20, 2003), was an American actress and author.

She is also referred to as Carol Marcus, Carol Marcus Saroyan, Carol Matthau or Carol Saroyan Matthau.

Carol Grace was born in New York City's lower East side to the sixteen-year-old daughter of Russian-Jewish immigrants, and an unknown father. She was eventually placed in foster care until the age of eight when her mother married Charles Marcus, the wealthy head of the Bendix Corp., whose name she took. She initially appeared on stage as "Carol Marcus", but in all her later stage work and her two feature films “Gangster Story” (1960) and “Mikey and Nicky” (1976) she was known as "Carol Grace".

She twice married and divorced the Pulitzer-Prize winning writer William Saroyan, with whom she had two children, Aram Saroyan, now an internationally known writer, and Lucy Saroyan, who became an actress.

She was married to the actor Walter Matthau from August 21, 1959 until his death on July 1, 2000; they had one son, Charlie Matthau.

In 1955 she published a well-received novel, The Secret in the Daisy (as Carol Grace), and in 1992 she published a memoir, Among the Porcupines (as Carol Matthau).

She was also the focus of a book, Trio: Portrait of an Intimate Friendship, by her son Aram Saroyan, which detailed the friendship between Carol Matthau, Oona O'Neill and Gloria Vanderbilt.

It is reported that she is the real-life inspiration for the character Holly Golightly in the 1958 novella Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote and played by Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 movie of the same name.

Carol Matthau died of a cerebral aneurysm on July 20, 2003 at the age of 78. Her daughter, Lucy Saroyan, had died in April of the same year.