Carole Shelley

Carole Augusta Shelley (16 August 1939 – 31 August 2018) was an English actress who made her career in the United States and United Kingdom. Her many stage roles included originating the roles of Gwendolyn Pigeon in The Odd Couple and Madame Morrible in Wicked. She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance in The Elephant Man (1979) and received additional nominations for her work on Absurd Person Singular (1975), Stepping Out (1987), and Billy Elliot (2009). Early life Shelley was born in London, England, the daughter of Deborah ( Bloomstein), an opera singer of Russian Jewish descent, and Curtis Shelley, a composer of German Jewish origin. Her father had emigrated to London before World War II. Career Stage career Shelley made her Broadway debut as Gwendolyn Pigeon in the original 1965 production of The Odd Couple (starring Art Carney and Walter Matthau). She reprised the role for the 1968 film version (with Jack Lemmon replacing Carney), and the first season of the subsequent television series (starring Tony Randall and Jack Klugman). She and Monica Evans, who co-starred as her sister Cecily Pigeon, were the only two performers to appear in the original play The Odd Couple and both the film and original television adaptation—and in the same roles.