Laura Shelton

Carol Monson (aka Laura Shelton) was born Carol Jean Ready Shelton on September 5, 1935 in Eastland, Texas, and raised primarily in El Paso, Texas. She graduated from Austin High School in 1953. She was married briefly to classmate Frank Grimmer while attending Texas Western College (now the University of Texas at El Paso). After divorcing and winning a contest to appear on a television game show, she was offered a scholarship to the prestigious Pasadena Playhouse's School of Theatre, known as the Hollywood "Star Factory", where her contemporaries included Oscar-winner Gene Hackman and Rue McClanahan. While there she met and later married actor/director Carl Monson in 1961. In 1964, with Carl, she founded the Curtain Call Theater in North Hollywood, a critically acclaimed invitational playhouse run by professional actors on a cooperative basis. In addition to working in the theater throughout the 1960s, Ms. Monson focused on her television career as "Laura Shelton" and her two children, Clay Monson (born 1964) and Cristen Monson (born 1969). Her last stage appearance was as "Elsa Schraeder" in "The Sound of Music", starring Oscar-nominated Ann Blyth for Houston's Theatre Under the Stars in 1969. After her second marriage ended in 1972, Ms. Monson moved from California back to El Paso to provide a home for her children.