Carol White

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Carol White
Born Carole Joan White
April 1, 1941(1941-04-01)
London, England
Died September 16, 1991 (aged 50)
Miami, Florida
Years active 1949 - 1990

Carol White (1 April 1941 - 16 September 1991) was a British actress best known for her roles in the television play Cathy Come Home (1966) and the film Poor Cow (1967).

Considered to be one of the most promising actresses of the British cinema at the end of the 1960s, she never attained the level of stardom predicted for her, due to substance abuse and a series of tumultuous relationships with some of the most famous male film stars of the 1960s and 1970s, including people such as Richard Burton, Frank Sinatra and Oliver Reed.

White attended The Corona Academy Stage School in London, and - at the start of her career - was dubbed 'The Poor Man's Julie Christie'.

After living in Hollywood for several years, White returned to London to star in Nell Dunn's play Steaming at the West End's Comedy Theatre. In spite of excellent reviews, she was often late, regularly missed performances, and was finally sacked[citation needed]. It was at this same time, 1981, that her biography, Carol Comes Home, by Clifford Thurlow, was published. The combination of the play and the book brought Carol White back to public notice in her home country, but her tendency to self-destruction closed the doors that were opening for her and she went back to the United States, never to return to England again. White died in 1991, at the age of 50, although the exact cause of her death is disputed, with some sources claiming she took a drug overdose, whilst others have suggested she succumbed to liver disease [1].

A TV film of her life, 'The Battersea Bardot', was shown in 1994 with Wendy Morgan as White.

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