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Alice In Wonderland star CAROL MARSH an article from "Picturegoer" magazine December 18th 1948

he star discovery story is not uncommon; the rare thing is for the discovery to possess genuine talent and to find a permanent place in pictures.     The Boulting Brothers announced that they had chosen an unknown to take the part of the tragic little waitress in Brighton Rock (1947). The unknown was a West London convent girl, so recently emerged from scholastic shelter that she had scarcely placed a foot on a stage. Carol Marsh surprised everyone, including the Boultings, by the quality of her work in Brighton Rock. Careful direction certainly helped her performance, but the basic quality was there, the instinctive feeling for character and the intuitive sense of emotional mood. Then, before the ink of the enthusiastic reviews of her Brighton Rock study was scarcely dry, she was given the coveted role of Alice in the screen version of Lewis Carroll's immortal story.     Apart from one or two "rushes" when she first began work, Carol has never seen herself on the screen. I should be much too frightened," she says. "Perhaps some day, when I am a really experienced actress, I shall go to see myself—but that won't be for a very long time."     Three years ago Carol was a typical London schoolgirl, travelling backwards and forwards between a Hammersmith convent and her home at Kensington each day, little thinking that by the time she was nineteen she would be a film star. orn in London, Carol. is the daughter of an architect and surveyor. Her real name is Norma Simpson and she lives at home with her mother and father and elder brother and sister. Her school career was not particularly brilliant. She first wanted to be a singer, but because she could not enter the Academy of Music for a year, she competed for the Anne M. Child scholarship to the Academy's dramatic section. Much to her surprise Carol won the scholarship.     Then, a year later, she was invited to join the J. Arthur Rank Company of Youth to train for a screen career.     Carol's big chance came when she was chosen from 2,000 applicants to play the part of Rose opposite Richard Attenborough in Brighton Rock. She was naturally delighted at getting the part but says she was very nervous throughout the production.     "I was concentrating so hard on being pathetic that I hardly had time to talk to anyone," she says.

Then came Alice in Wonderland, Lou Bunin's colour film of the English classic, which was made in France. Carol Marsh, as Alice, is the only live character in the production, although such well-known artists as Stephen Murray, Felix Aylmer and Pamela Brown are among those who take part in the prologue. All the other roles are played by puppets. A greater change for Carol could hardly be imagined. But, she says she hardly had time to realize the difference between playing the pathetic waitress and Alice. Everything happened in such a hurry. he was collecting the family rations from her local grocer one Saturday morning when she had a telephone message asking her to see producer Lou Bunin and Dallas Bower, director of the live action scenes, known for his work as associate producer on Henry V.     They took one look at Carol and felt that "their long search for Alice was ended". Within a fortnight she was in Paris and filming began.     Two versions of the picture were produced simultaneously — one in English, the other in French. It was a great test for Carol. She had to act most of the scenes entirely alone on an empty set. The puppets were added later. She insisted on doing some of the most difficult sequences herself, when a double would have been permissible. Falling down the rabbit hole to Wonderland entailed a hair-raising thirty-foot drop into a net. A famous French trapeze artist, blonde Mile. Roselie, showed her how to make the fall, but she completed the scene with bruised knees, scratched legs and six ruined pairs of stockings. Carol found the most difficult scene was the one where she slides down an enormous table leg. It was an almost perpendicular drop and Carol admits she was very frightened while doing it.     Returning from France, Carol spent some time with the Rank Organization's repertory company at Worthing. Her performance as Celia in "As You Like It" won high praise. hat does Carol think of her rapid success? "It is all very bewildering," she says, "I still can't believe it" She is surprisingly little affected by her sudden rise to stardom. Her modesty is genuine; so is her desire one day to become a really great actress. In her favour is her ability completely to submerge her own personality in that of the character she is playing. This gift and her great capacity for hard work are fast putting her close to Britain's top-line stars.     Carol herself says: "I have just been terribly lucky." That's true enough—but there is a solid backing of quality behind the luck.

Just a note about the above article. Remember it was written a long time ago and features like this were largely concocted from studio publicity handouts and flyers. What they didn't get from the handouts was, shall we say, an educated guess. So, don't take it too seriously or place too much reliance on the accuracy of some of the statements.

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