Carmen Sylvia Mathews (May 8, 1911 – August 31, 1995) was an American actress and environmentalist.^[1]

Biography

Mathews was born in Philadelphia. She studied first at Bennett Junior College and then in London at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.^[2] She began her professional acting appearance with the Stratford-on-Avon Shakespearean Company before moving back to the United States.^[1]

Her Shakespearean roles included Ophelia in Hamlet and the Queen in Richard II.^[1] She also starred as Theresa Tapper in the William Roos, Jack Lawrence, and Don Walker 1951 Broadway musical Courtin' Time.^[3] Her film credits include Butterfield 8 (1960), A Rage to Live (1965), Rabbit, Run (1970), Sounder (1972), Top of the Hill (1980) and Daniel (1983). On television she performed on a wide variety of series over a span of four decades. A few of those series include appearances on six episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955–65), as well as roles in a 1961 episode of The Twilight Zone, a 1964 episode of The Fugitive,^[4] and a 1972 episode of Cannon. One of her more memorable televised performances is as Colonel Lilian Rayburn on Episode 150 of M*A*S*H. Toward the end of her career, in 1990, she was cast in the Last Best Year with Mary Tyler Moore and Bernadette Peters.

In 1975, Mathews set up and ran a residential summer camp for disadvantaged children on her 100-acre farm in Redding, Connecticut.^{[citation needed]} Toward the end of her life, Mathews, a passionate environmentalist, made a perpetual donation of her 100-acre New Pond Farm to the Redding Land Trust,^[5] to ensure that it would retain its woods, fields, pond and marsh. The United Nations Association of the United States of America named Mathews one of Connecticut's outstanding women in 1987.^[6][1]

Death

Mathews died at her farm in Redding, Connecticut in 1995, aged 84, from undisclosed causes.^[1]

Filmography