Tina Carver

Tina Carver

Birth : 1922-03-24, Memphis, Tennessee, USA

Death : 1982-02-18

History

Smoky-voiced, sultry Tina Carver began her career in the post-war stages of Germany and France. Having married an Indiana academic who served the High Commission for Occupied Germany in a legal capacity, her acting opportunities were confined to entertaining troops under the auspices of the Special Services. Nonetheless, she had both the looks and the talent to secure leads in quality plays like "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Miranda". In 1953, she joined a theatrical ensemble in Bad Godesberg, while her husband ran a drama workshop on the side. However, her marriage subsequently went on the rocks, resulting in an acrimonious divorce and a return to the States. Tina's screen career got off to a start with steady radio and television work in New York. In 1954, she moved to California for guest spots on two fashionable crime shows, The Whistler (1954) and The Lone Wolf (1954). This exposure resulted in several small supporting roles in feature films, and she was eventually signed under contract by Columbia. Her first role saw her third-billed, as partner-in-crime to a racketeer (played by Pat O'Brien) in Inside Detroit (1956), an expose of corruption in the Auto Workers Union. This solitary lead, in what was a relatively decent minor film noir, was unaccountably followed by a return to supporting roles in bottom-of-the-bill second-raters, like Uranium Boom (1956) and The Man Who Turned to Stone (1957). There was also an uncredited bit in the A-grade boxing drama The Harder They Fall (1956), starring Humphrey Bogart. It begs the question, who did Tina upset to drop from starlet to bit player within a year? It got worse: upon leaving Columbia, Tina took another step down the ladder to Allied Artists, where she was cast opposite Tod Andrews in the laughable creature feature From Hell It Came (1957). The monster in this typical 50's 'mutation by radiation' offering, was a walking tree stump, created by Paul Blaisdell, who later breathed life into various other beasts for Roger Corman. While this film has since attained something of a cult following (perhaps, because it is so bad, that it becomes enjoyable on a comedic level), a contemporary reviewer allegedly wrote about 'From Hell, it Came'.. .and to Hell it can go". For the remaining four years of her short tenure in Hollywood, Tina acted exclusively on the small screen, guesting in a handful of popular TV shows like Perry Mason (1957) and Bronco (1958). In January 1958, her five-year-old daughter. Katherine. was struck and killed by a car in the school zone where she was playing. As a result of her ongoing grief over this tragic accident, she lost interest in acting. She passed away in 1982 after a short illness.

Profile

Tina Carver

Movies

From Hell It Came
Dr. Terry Mason
A wrongfully accused South Seas prince is executed, and returns as a walking tree stump.
The Man Who Turned to Stone
Big Marge Collins
A new social worker at a girls' reformatory discovers that her charges are being used by a group of ancient alchemists, who have insinuated themselves as the prison's chief staffers, to keep themselves alive and free from an insidious petrification, which is already afflicting one of their number.
Chain of Evidence
Claire Ramsey
A police lieutenant fights to prove a boy's innocence after he's accused of murder. The fourth of five Ben Schwab productions that starred Bill Elliott as a detective lieutenant in the L.A. Sheriff's department.
A Cry in the Night
Marie Holzapple
A police captain's emotions get in the way when his daughter is kidnapped.
The Harder They Fall
Mrs. Benko (uncredited)
Jobless sportswriter Eddie Willis is hired by corrupt fight promoter Nick Benko to promote his current protégé, an unknown Argentinian boxer named Toro Moreno. Although Moreno is a hulking giant, his chances for success are hampered by a powder-puff punch and a glass jaw. Exploiting Willis' reputation for integrity and standing in the boxing community, Benko arranges a series of fixed fights that propel the unsophisticated Moreno to #1 contender for the championship. The reigning champ, the sadistic Buddy Brannen, harbors resentment at the publicity Toro has been receiving and vows to viciously punish him in the ring. Eddie must now decide whether or not to tell the naive Toro the truth.
Uranium Boom
Gail Windsor
Ex-lumberjack Brad Collins (Dennis Morgan) and mining engineer Grady Mathews (William Talman) find uranium in the Colorado badlands. While Grady guards the claim, Brad goes to register it in town, where he meets and marries Jean Williams (Patricia Medina.) Returning to the claim, Brad learns that Jean was once Grady's fiancee. Grady, as one would expect, is somewhat put out and leaves the mine in Brad's hands, while he hooks up with a confidence man and engineers a scheme to break the back of Brad's somewhat rapidly-created mining empire.
Inside Detroit
Joni Calvin
Gus Linden, former racketeer head of a Detroit local of the United Automobile Workers of America, A.F.L, attempts to destroy his successor, Blair Vicker, so he can put his old rackets back into the auto factories. Vickers fights him off, ultimately winning help from Linden's attractive daughter Barbara and from Joni Calvin, Vickers' moll.
Hell on Frisco Bay
Bessie Coster
A cop framed for a murder he did not commit hunts the San Francisco waterfront for the Mob racketeers who are responsible.
A Bullet for Joey
Counter Girl
Raoul Leduc is a police inspector trailing a spy who plots to kidnap an important American atomic scientist. Joe Victor a gangster who is hired to carry out the abduction, balks when he learns what is at stake and helps Leduc out instead.