Carole Mallory is an American author, actress, former model, teacher and critic who appeared in the films Looking for Mr. Goodbar and The Stepford Wives. She was the nine-year companion of writer Norman Mailer and kept notes and her writings with his edits, selling them to Harvard University in 2008, after his death.
Education and early career
Mallory was awarded an art scholarship to Pennsylvania State University. She graduated from there with a Bachelor of Science degree in Art Education. After attending Temple University's Tyler School of Art for her Master's, she taught art in Pennsylvania schools for two years. She became a Pan American Airlines stewardess and began modeling in Paris while still employed by the airline. Her first assignment was for Vogue Paris. Mallory has appeared on the covers of a variety of magazines including Cosmopolitan,Newsweek, and three separate New York Magazine covers.
Acting
Mallory filmed over fifty commercials. Her first spot was for Olympic Airlines, the award-winning ‘no dancing in the aisles’ campaign, while on leave of absence from Pan American Airlines. She also appeared in the "English Leather" commercial campaign commercial campaign, which ran for ten years. Her commercial for Faberge's "Tigress" campaign titled "Are You Wild Enough to Wear It?" directed by Michael Cimino was banned as too risque for one of the networks because her crocheted bathing suit with its spider web effect did not have support. As she ran towards the camera while performing a strip tease, her breasts jiggled. In the early seventies "jiggling breasts" were forbidden on TV. 60 Minutes aired her Faberge Tigress commercial in one of its segments about sex in television. Mallory starred as Madge in the play Picnic, and as Tiffany in Mary, Mary at the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pennsylvania. During the early seventies she studied with Wynn Handman, the director of The American Place Theatre, in New York. When she moved to Hollywood, she studied with Harvey Lembeck in his Comedy Improvisation Workshop.
My Friendship with Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller
My Friendship with Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal , 2013.
She has taught at Rosemont College, Cheltenham Adult School and Widener University and worked as a book reviewer for The Philadelphia Inquirer. In 1983, she began a nine-year relationship with Norman Mailer, who urged her to quit acting and pursue writing. She went on to study writing at UCLA, NYU, and Columbia University. After Mailer's death, she sold seven boxes of documents and photographs to Harvard University, containing extracts of her letters, books and journals.
Public speaking
On June 28, 1987, when Mallory's story of overcoming alcoholism was the cover story of Parade Magazine, she was asked to speak at her alma mater, Pennsylvania State University, for a D.U.I. convention of mothers who had lost children to drunk drivers. On October 5, 2013, she was invited to be keynote speaker at Tucson Modernism Week, in Tucson, Arizona—a celebration of mid-century modernism in art and architecture. Because she was a Pan Am airline hostess in the 1960s, Mallory was asked to speak about how this propelled her into becoming a model, an actress, an author, a critic and a teacher. On October 16, 2013, she was asked to speak at the Elkin's Park Library about her memoir Picasso's Ghost. She also spoke about this book on January 13, 2013, at the Lower Providence Library about Picasso's Ghost. In March 2014, in celebration of Woman's History Month, the Chester County Library asked Mallory to speak about her life experiences and career, both to celebrate the history and empowerment of women.
