- Born
- Birth nameCarolyn Laurie Kane
- Height5′ 2″ (1.57 m)
- American stage, screen and television actress, and comedian Carol Kane (b. Carolyn Laurie Kane, June 18, 1952, in Cleveland, Ohio), was born to Elaine Joy (née Fetterman), a jazz singer and pianist, and Michael Myron Kane, an architect. Her family is Jewish (from Russia, Poland, and Austria). Due to her parents' divorce, Carol spent most of her childhood in boarding schools until 1965. She also attended Professional Children's School in Upper West Side New York, and made her professional theater debut in a 1966 production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) starring Tammy Grimes. Kane, just 14 years old.
At 20 years old, Kane landed the lead role in William Fruets World War II film, Wedding in White (1972). Kane starred as Jeannie Dougall, a teenager whom after is raped is left with a moral dilemma when she discovers that the incident has left her pregnant. The actress received a surprise Academy Award nomination for her performance in the 1974 independent film, Hester Street (1975); Times of Israel describes Kane's character, Gitl, as "a straight-from-the-shtetl immigrant who, with her young son, joins her husband (Steven Keats) who is already halfway assimilated in New York's Lower East Side; the push and the pull between tradition and change drive the story to its bittersweet conclusion."
The following decade, from 1980-1983, she appeared on the television series Taxi (1978). Kane portrayed Simka Dahblitz-Gravas, wife of Latka Gravas (Andy Kaufman). She received two Emmy Awards, and a Golden Globe nomination for her work in the series. Over the years, Kane racked up tons of credits from Taxi and The Princess Bride (1987), to Scrooged (1988), and more recently, the Netflix series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2015); the actress is making audiences laugh by playing Lillian Kaushtupper, in a recent interview, Kane described Lillian as "a hardworking landlady in Harlem who is very attached to the life in New York as she's known it."- IMDb Mini Biography By: Anthony Ronald Vario
- ParentsElaine Joy FettermanMichael Myron Kane
- Her small raspy voice
- Curly hair and wide-eyed expression
- Frequently plays the wife or mother of the protagonist
- Was the only Taxi (1978) cast member to attend Andy Kaufman's funeral.
- Friend of Bette Davis. Davis once said she'd most like to see Kane portray her in a film biography. Kane portrayed Bette Davis in Craig Lucas' 2013 play, the Lying Lesson.
- Longtime close friend of Diane Keaton. They have appeared in three films together: Harry and Walter Go to New York (1976), Annie Hall (1977) and The Lemon Sisters (1989).
- In the 1988 American Christmas comedy, Scrooged (1988) , when Kane grabbed Bill Murray's lip, she did so with such force that it actually injured him, tearing his lip and halting production for a few days.
- A self-professed "Upper West Side gal". She grew up on West 68th Street in the Dorchester Towers, and bought her first studio apartment a block away for $25,000 in the '70s and still lives in the neighborhood.
- [on working with Jack Nicholson] Jack prefers the actresses with whom he works to be on the short side. I wasn't tall, so I was immediately in. The reason for this is that he is no more than five foot seven or so himself. When he has no other choice but to play opposite a lanky actress, he will wear elevator shoes.
- [on her reasons why she doesn't want to quit acting for another job] I don't put together cars, I put together people. It makes me happy to construct these people, to build another world. I feel happy and free and very consumed.
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