Grace Carney

Grace Carney (September 15, 1911 – March 25, 2009) was an American actress and businesswoman born in Hartford, Connecticut, whose Broadway career spanned from 1933 to 1979. Her father, John J. Carney, founded United Tool and Die in the 1920s. After completing her education at Hartford's Bulkeley High School, Carney relocated to New York City to pursue acting.

Carney began her stage career in theatrical stock companies before making her Broadway debut in Fantasia in 1933, performing as part of the ensemble. Her subsequent Broadway roles included Birdie Monyhan in Donnybrook! (1961), understudy for both Madge and Lizzy Sweeney in Philadelphia, Here I Come! (1966), Mrs. Winemiller in The Eccentricities of a Nightingale (1976), Angel in Vieux Carré (1977), Mrs. Snowden in Angela (1978), and Mrs. Polianoffsky in My Old Friends (1979).

Alongside her stage work, Carney built a substantial television career during the medium's early years, when most productions originated from New York City. On May 24, 1946, she appeared as the Divorcee in Angels Don't Marry, broadcast live on the DuMont Television Network. Between 1949 and 1956, she appeared in at least four episodes of Kraft Television Theatre, including Payment Deferred (1949) and Time Lock (1956). From 1950 to 1954, Carney portrayed Mabel King on the DuMont series Rocky King Detective. Due to budget constraints at DuMont, Carney was heard but never seen on screen as Detective Rocky King's wife. In an early episode, the production's limited resources required her to play both Mabel and a woman connected to the crime under investigation; because the thirty-minute program aired live, there was no opportunity to change her appearance between roles, so she delivered Mabel's lines from offscreen. Audiences responded positively to the unseen character, and the arrangement became a permanent feature of the series. Carney also appeared in episodes of The Phil Silvers Show and Route 66, and played Mrs. Weyderhaus in the 1979 film The Owl and the Pussycat.

In 1979, at the age of 67, Carney assumed the presidency of United Tool and Die, the aircraft components manufacturer her father had established, in order to preserve the company's family ownership. During her tenure she donated $1.2 million to the University of Hartford for scholarships. After leading the company for thirteen years, she transferred operational control in 1997 to Joseph Wagner, a longtime employee and administrator. Carney died on March 25, 2009, in Westport, Connecticut, at the age of 97.