Carol Forman (19 June 1919,

Epes, Alabama Epes is a town in Sumter County, Alabama, United States. Initially called Epes Station, it was incorporated as Epes in 1899. At the 2010 census the population was 192, down from 206 in 2000. Geography Epes is located near Jones Bluff, overlooki ...

– 9 July 1997,

Burbank, California Burbank is a city in the southeastern end of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Located northwest of downtown Los Angeles, Burbank has a population of 107,337. The city was named after David Burbank, wh ...

) was an American actress best known for playing exotic villains in action serials, particularly Spider Lady in the 1948 Superman serial, as well as Sombra, the lead villainess in the 1947 Republic serial '' The Black Widow''.Cline, William C. "Filmography". In the Nick of Time. McFarland & Company, Inc. .

Early life

Born Maude Carolyn Sawls in

on July 19, 1919 (some sources indicate 1918), the eldest of two children of Edward D. Sawls, a carpenter, and Annabelle Fleming, a homemaker. Her interest in acting began as a youngster. By the time she was six years old, she was starring in school plays. She would continuing acting throughout high school. As a teenager, she moved to Memphis. While in Memphis, she worked as a cosmetics salesperson. It was there that she met and married her first husband, Robert D. Forman in 1940. The marriage didn't last long.

Career

By the mid-1940s, Forman had moved to California. While working in small community theater productions, mostly in unsympathetic roles, she was discovered by a talent scout from RKO Pictures. In 1946, RKO signed her to a contract. One of her early roles was playing Raymond Burr's girlfriend in his first film, '' Code of the West''. She played opposite Burr again in ''

San Quentin San Quentin State Prison (SQ) is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated place of San Quentin in Marin County. Opened in July 1852, San Quentin is th ...

''. However, Forman would be best known for appearing in movie serials. In serials, Forman differed from other actresses by playing villainesses exclusively. Her characters occasionally used disguises to go undercover or to impersonate other characters, in the same manner as Batman, or Artemis Gordon in ''

The Wild Wild West ''The Wild Wild West'' is an American Western, espionage, and science fiction television series that ran on the CBS television network for four seasons from September 17, 1965, to April 11, 1969. Two satirical comedy television film sequels ...

'' TV series years later. In 1952, in the nostalgic musical comedy '' By the Light of the Silvery Moon'' starring Doris Day, Forman spoofed her serial persona by appearing briefly as an evil woman in a young boy's daydream. She also made guest appearances on ''

The Cisco Kid The Cisco Kid is a fictional character found in numerous film, radio, television and comic book series based on the fictional Western character created by O. Henry in his 1907 short story "The Caballero's Way", published in ''Everybody's Magaz ...

'' starring

Duncan Renaldo Renault Renaldo Duncan (April 23, 1904 – September 3, 1980), better known as Duncan Renaldo, was a Romanian-born American actor best remembered for his portrayal of The Cisco Kid in films and on the 1950–1956 American TV series '' The Cisco ...

and

Leo Carillo Leopoldo Antonio Carrillo (; August 6, 1880 – September 10, 1961), known professionally as Leo Carrillo, was an American actor, vaudevillian, political cartoonist, and conservationist. He was best known for playing Pancho in the televisio ...

in the early 1950s.

Filmography

Death

She died in

on July 9, 1997, of natural causes.

References

External links

* 1919 births 1997 deaths American television actresses Actresses from Alabama 20th-century American actresses {{US-tv-actor-1910s-stub