Carol Bruce

Biography

Carol Bruce was an American band singer, Broadway star, and film and television actress. Bruce began her career as a singer in the late 1930s with Larry Clinton and his band, and later sang with Ben Bernie's orchestra in 1940-1941. Bruce 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 and Oscar Hammerstein II's Show Boat since the 1932 Broadway revival. Bruce played the role onstage in 1946 and garnered favorable comparisons to Helen Morgan, who had originated the role onstage in 1927 and repeated it in both the 1932 revival and the 1936 film. Bruce appeared with Abbott and Costello in Keep 'Em Flying (1941). Her first serious film role was in This Woman Is Mine (1941). She had supporting roles many years later in the films American Gigolo (1980) and Planes, Trains and Automobiles. After a long career as a singer and in films, Bruce is probably best-remembered for her recurring role as the domineering and meddlesome Lillian "Mama" Carlson (mother of the station manager played by Gordon Jump) on CBS' WKRP in Cincinnati.

Most Known For

Diagnosis: Murder

as Constance Lockwood

The Twilight Zone

as (segment "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium")

The Golden Girls

as Lucille

Charlie's Angels

as Mrs. Pattison

Knots Landing

as Mrs. Cunningham

Studio One

The Merv Griffin Show

as Self

Party of Five

as Sarah's Grandmother

The Ed Sullivan Show

as Self

WKRP in Cincinnati

as Lillian Carlson

WKRP in Cincinnati

as Mama Carlson

Profiler

as Petra Strauss

Doogie Howser, M.D.

Jake and the Fatman

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

as Joy Page

American Gigolo

as Mrs. Sloan

The New WKRP in Cincinnati

Marblehead Manor

as Margaret Stonehill

The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists

as Old One (voice)

Behind the Eight Ball

as Joan Barry