Carol Mayo Jenkins

Carol Mayo Jenkins was born November 24, 1938 in Knoxville, Tennessee, US.^[1] She is an American actress who is most famous for playing Elizabeth Sherwood, a liberal and stern but fair-minded English teacher at New York City's High School for the Performing Arts on T.V. series Fame.^[2][3][4] She left the show at the end of its fifth season in 1986 but made a return for the series finale a year later.

Carol Mayo Jenkins
Jenkins in 1977
Born	(1938-11-24) November 24, 1938 (age 86) Knoxville, Tennessee, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Known for	Fame

She also appeared in the television shows Aaron's Way, Matlock, and Max Headroom.^[5]

Education

Her parents enrolled her in acting lessons at the Bijou Theatre where she was taught by Irene Hayes Hodges. They pulled her from acting lessons because they didn’t feel she was learning anything and later enrolled in acting lessons taught by Mrs. Emily Faust. Faust’s other students included Mary Costa and Patricia Neal.^[6]

She was enrolled at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London for three years. While in London, she co-founded Drama Centre London which is “considered one of the leading theatre schools in England”.^[7]

Career

She toured throughout The United States, Russia, and Lithuania in Edward Albee's play, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, as Martha where she was cast by the playwright.^[7]

She taught acting at the University of Tennessee,^[8] from 2001 until her retirement in September, 2023.^[9] She appeared frequently on the Clarence Brown Theatre stage ^[10] with her most recent performance being in the productions of Murder on the Orient Express as Princess Natalya Dragomiroff in 2023. ^[11]

Work

Film

Year	Title	Role	Ref
1983	Happy Endings	Jan Wilkerson	[12]
1990	Hollywood Heartbreak	Lottie	[13]
1992	Seduction: Three Tales From the Inner Sanctum		[13]

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes	Ref
1977	Another World	Vera Finley		[5]
1982-1987	Fame	Elizabeth Sherwood		[13]
1987	Max Headroom	Valerie Towne	1 Episode	[5]
1988	Aaron's Way	Mrs. Seward	1 Episode	[13][5]
1990	Dragnet		1 Episode	[14]
1991	Matlock	Dr. Doris Massler	1 Episode	[15]

The Clarence Brown Theatre on the campus of The University of Tennessee/Knoxville.

Broadway

Year	Title	Role	Ref
1969	The Three Sisters	Natalya Ivanovna	[1]
1972	There's One in Every Marriage	Hotel Guest	[1]
1976	Kings	Jocasta	[1]
1978	First Monday in October	Miss Birnbaum	[1]
1980	The Suicide	Margarita Ivanovna	[1]