Carol Marsh

Carol Marsh was an English actress from Southgate, an urban area which at the time of her birth was outside London. She was in the prime of her career during the late 1940s and the 1950s. She worked frequently in radio plays until the 1980s. Her later life was reportedly reclusive. Marsh was educated at a convent school. During her school years, she often appeared in school plays. She later decided to follow an acting career, and won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music (RAM). She was trained in both acting and singing. She also received speech lessons, and additional additional lessons through joining "The Company of Youth", an acting school for young contract players maintained by British film studio The Rank Organisation. In 1947, Marsh won an audition to play the role of Rose Brown in the film noir Brighton Rock (1948) (1948). The film was based on the popular thriller novel of the same title by Graham Greene, published in 1938, which had previously been adapted into a hit play. Marsh's character was the frail and naive wife of psychopathic gangster Pinkie Brown (played by Richard Attenborough), who is unaware that he had ulterior motives when he romanced her. Reportedly over 3,000 women had auditioned for the role. Marsh, a then-obscure rookie, was chosen due to closely matching the character's appearance and vulnerability. This was her film debut, and it is still regarded as her most popular role. Marsh was next chosen for the lead role of Alice in a French film, "Alice in Wonderland" (1949). The film was based on the novel by Lewis Carroll, and most of Wonderland's characters were portrayed by stop-motion animated puppets. The film was not distributed in the United Kingdom, due to including a satirical version of Queen Victoria. Marsh's third film was the romantic comedy Marry Me (1949) (1949). It included a frame story of a journalist investigating a matchmaking service, but it depicted the stories of various people involved in the service, in the style of an anthology. Marsh had the leading role of teenaged heiress Susan Graham in the romantic comedy "Helter Skelter" (1949). The film depicts Susan's efforts to avoid the matchmaking efforts of her legal guardians, to cure herself from a persistent case of hiccups, and to face the overbearing mother of her new boyfriend. Marsh's next significant film role was in the Christmas film "Scrooge" (1951), an adaptation of the novella "A Christmas Carol" (1843) by Charles Dickens. Marsh played the role of Fan Scrooge, the beloved sister of Ebenezer Scrooge (played by Alastair Sim). The film expanded Ebenezer's backstory, fleshed out his business career, and explored his ambivalent relationship with his family; it was one of the most popular films in Britain during 1952. Marsh next had the female lead role in the "Salute the Toff" (1952). The film was the sixth part in a film series about the upper-class detective The Toff/Richard Rollinson, based on the novels of John Creasey (1908-1973). Marsh played Fay Gretton, the woman who hires Rollinson and tasks him with locating her missing employer. The film was popular at the time of its release, but was considered lost for decades. It was rediscovered in the early 2010s, and received its first home video release. Marsh worked extensively in radio and television during the 1950s, but her film career went on hiatus. She made a comeback in the horror film "Dracula" (1958), in her first film role since 1952. The film was a loose adaptation of the novel by Bram Stoker. Marsh played the female vampire Lucy Holmwood, based on the novel's Lucy Westenra. Marsh was one of the first actresses to portray female vampires for Hammer Film Productions, a film studio that specialized on horror films. Marsh next played the female lead in the crime film "Man Accused" (1959), playing Kathy, a baronet's daughter. The film's protagonist Bob Jensen (played by Ronald Howard) is Kathy's fiance. Bob has been framed for murder, and tries to discover the identities of the real killers. The film was poorly received, in part due to its plot recycling elements from previous works. This was Marsh's last film role. Marsh continued working extensively on radio, and it is estimated that she performed in over a hundred BBC radio plays. She also voiced roles for BBC's radio anthology "Children's Hour" (1922-1964), which was primarily aimed at an audience of children. During the 1970s, Marsh had a role in theatrical productions of the play "The Mousetrap" (1952) by Agatha Christie. The play features a small group of staff and residents in a guesthouse, as they start to suspect that one of them is a wanted killer. Christie used elements of the real-life Dennis O'Neill manslaughter case (1945) as elements in the origin of the play's killer. Marsh retired in the 1980s. She spent the rest of her life in Bloomsbury, London, living alone. She never married, and (according to her obituary) became a recluse. In March 2010, she died in London, aged 83. Her name remains familiar to fans of classic British (and French) cinema, due to several of her films having had cult followings.