Carolyn Kearney Bio "My Brother's Keeper"

Post by **Adamant** » Sat Mar 03, 2012 4:17 pm

Carolyn Kearney plays Sheila Reardon in the episode, "My Brother's Keeper."

cap by January

Carolyn Kearney had a promising acting career but gave it up in the mid sixties to raise her family of two daughters although she still worked in community theater.

Kearney was born in Detroit, Michigan, August 28, 1930 but was raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. She started tap and ballet classes at the age of five and that must have put the idea of performing in her head because when she was older, Carolyn moved to California and studied in the Pasadena Playhouse. She was soon acting in productions with the likes of Cecil Kellaway and Leo G. Carroll.

In 1958, she made the movie for which she still has fans, The Thing that Couldn’t Die. In the movie, a Sci Fi cult classic, Kearney plays the teenage dowser, Jessica Burns, who finds the head of “The Thing…”

The synopsis of the movie is thus:

A young woman plays with a divining rod and ends up finding much more than water in this horror movie. Instead of the desired liquid, the woman finds a 400 year old head and it is still alive. The horrific creature, seeing the woman is properly innocent, hypnotizes her into looking for the rest of his body. Run time: 1 hour and 9 mins.

Also in 1958, Kearney made the movie Damn Citizen and it was filmed in New Orleans, her old, familiar stomping grounds. In it she plays a drug addict.

Actually, the role is prescient, because in the 1980’s, Kearney was in a train accident and being traumatized by her entrapment in her compartment for hours, she was given Xanax. Due to the physician’s error, she remained addicted to Xanax for two and a half years. She finally freed herself from the addiction and wrote an essay for the book, Prescription Drug Addict. Because she knew how horrible it had been to be addicted to a substance, Kearney helped found “Benzodiazepine Anonymous,” a twelve step program for recovering prescription drug addicts.

In the 60’s, Kearney guest starred in many television shows including Ben Casey, Bonanza, Wagon Train, Route 66, The Virginian and Dr. Kildare.

Kearney died November 18, 2005 in Los Angeles, California of heart complications. She had two daughters, one with each of her two husbands. Kearney was married to screenwriter Harold Jack Bloom from June 12, 1958 -? and to Alan Hershfeld from Aril 8, 1965 to her death.