Williams, Carola Bell

Carola Bell Williams, actress and monologue writer, was born in 1900 in Cleveland, Ohio. She attended local schools. After her father's death in 1913, her mother took her to Europe where she studied drama at a French boarding school in Munich. Her shock at seeing war preparations and troop movements was later expressed in the monologue "Good-Bye John".

CBW received her A.B. (1921) from Flora Mather College of Western Reserve University and did graduate work at Radcliffe (1921-1923), where she joined the 47 Workshop under the direction of George Pierce Baker, and studied playwriting, acting, costumes, and stage design.

CBW married Robert I. Williams, a patent attorney, and they had two sons, David and Hall. The family home was in Ossining, New York. David became a school principal and Hall, a physician. CBW's husband died in 1988.

CBW's theatrical career, writing, directing, and acting in her own monologues, began in the mid 1940's following a serious illness and a series of jaw operations. In an interview, CBW described how "my jaw was wired and twisted, the mobility of my mouth gone. I had given up all hopes of ever acting again. But when you feel that you cannot do a thing, you find that you can." Her monologues provided CBW with the means to express her political, artistic, and religious convictions. CBW researched her characters thoroughly, and was meticulous in all details of language and costume. She focused on a wide spectrum of women who were exceptional in character and accomplishments and broke barriers by their courage, persistence, and grace in living.

In 1949, CBW attended her first CFO (Camps Farthest Out) gathering, an interdenominational, interracial Christian movement with many camp conferences throughout the United States and Canada. This proved to be a personal and artistic turning point: her religious convictions present even in her early monologues, became more evident in her later work, culminating in 1951, with her monologue play, "The Supreme Court". Subsequently, almost all of CBW's artistic work centered on devotional subjects.