Carole Fielding, 1934-1994
Few individuals have been as dedicated to UFVA and its members as Carole Fielding. She attended every Association conference for more than twenty-five years, contributed to the Association’s activities and made a legion of friends in the organization. Her work to advance the Association and its mission increased further when her husband, Ray, became president of the organization in 1967, and she accompanied him on his trips to Europe when he served as Vice President of the International Congress of Schools of Cinema and Television. Her enthusiastic work for UFVA and affection for its members made her one of the organization’s most popular people and she is remembered with fondness and appreciation. The UFVA’s annual Carole Fielding Scholarship was created to honor her and has continued to fund outstanding student work for over 20 years.
Carole Fielding began a career in theater and show business at the age of eleven as a child actor on the NBC network radio show, “Let’s Pretend.” Born in New York City, she and her brother spent five years of their early lives on the island of Madeira, Portugal, close to the factories of their father who was the founder and CEO of Imperial Linens Corporation. With the outbreak of war, the family returned to Manhattan in 1940. Their trip back home was featured in a New York Times photo as the first family of four to cross the Atlantic by Pan American Airlines Clipper – the only time, she said, that her photo ever made it into the Times. In the years that followed, she attended Emerson College in Boston as a theater major and acted regularly as lead performer in musical comedies produced for the newly built theater of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology across the Charles River.
Following graduation from college she moved to Los Angeles in 1962 and began work as departmental secretary at the UCLA Film School. In those days, apart from its academic prestige, UCLA was also unofficially known as the largest matrimonial agency in Los Angeles and it was there that she met her future husband, Ray Fielding, then an Assistant Professor.
A few years later, shortly after Ray was promoted to associate professor at UCLA, he was invited to a year’s visiting professorship at the University of Iowa. They went and stayed for four years, during which Carole appeared regularly as a performer in University Theater and Community Theater.
Her career in the communication industry continued following their move to Temple University in 1965. She worked in local production at the ABC network television station, WFIL in Philadelphia and later as executive secretary to the Controller of TV Guide magazine in Radnor, Pennsylvania. Further moves with Ray to the University of Houston and then to Florida State University in Tallahassee followed.