A young girl has just left our office at MOTION PICTURE. Her name is Carol Kane, and we think she is going to become a major star. She's a small, pale, frizzy-haired 20-year-old who is co-starred with Donald Pleasance in Avco Embassy's Wedding in White, a film about a Canadian family in 1943. Carol plays the part of Jeannie, a naive 16-year-old who is raped by her soldier-brother's soldier-buddy, becomes pregnant, and is denounced as a tramp by her strongly pro-military father.
Carol portrays the girl with extraordinary sensitivity and credibility. Until now, actresses on screen have always awakened from full nights of sleep and died horrible deaths in makeup complete to false eyelashes. But Carol plays Jeannie without any makeup at all. In her first moments on screen, before she has uttered a word, her bare, homely face has already struck our "truth nerve." Until now, Hollywood has remained fixed in its image of the actress as glamor girl. Perhaps Carol Kane will spur Hollywood's acceptance of the actress as artist.
We asked Carol if many girls had tried for the part of Jeannie, and she admitted that they had. ("How can I say this without sounding like I'm boasting?") The competition, in fact, was stiffer than usual. Fifty percent of the film was paid for by the National Film Board of Canada, and, by law, no film that is sponsored by them can have more than two non-Canadians in it. Therefore, many Canadian girls were auditioned before Carol- who is an American born in Ohio and living in New York- was allowed to read for the part. But Carol was chosen. She related all this to us hesitatingly. She is reluctant to shine.
Wedding in White is not Carol's first film. You might recognize her as the wraith-like young hippie who became Arthur Garfunkle's girlfriend in Mike Nichols' Carnal Knowledge. She says making that movie was her most pleasurable acting experience because Nichols was so great, treating his cast warmly, even showing them movies in their timeoff. (She's reunited with Jack Nicholson in Hal Ashby's The Last Detail.)
In addition to the cast of Carnal Knowledge, Carol told us other people with whom she would like to work-among them: Ruth Gordon, Orson Welles, Ingmar Bergman, Ken Russell, Bette Davis and Katherine Hepburn. It is fitting that she named these last two. Both Davis and Hepburn achieved their greatest triumphs after they had broken free of the glamor-girl mold into which Hollywood had forced them and for which they, like Carol, were never suited. Carol lacks, however, the strong style and personality that distinguish these two women and are incorporated into the characters they create.
Both on screen and off, Carol is somewhat unprepossessing. Her voice is soft, tremulous, singsong. Her clothesw are, well- schleppy. She arrived in our offices wearing a shapeless purple velvet dress, black rubber boots and a long, white, heavyknit cardigan- an outfit that nowhere approached the panache of Hepburn's baggy trousers and peaked cap.
Although amiable and cooperative, Carol is difficult to interview, because she has little to say about herself or her life away from films and the theater. She has no hobbies and is nonathletic. When not working, she usually just stays at home with friends (all actors) or watches movies. Her other interest is poetry, and her favorite poet is Dylan Thomas. She used to compose poetry of her own. ("But don't even write about that- that was a long time ago," she adds quickly, thereby squelching another topic of conversation.) With a lot of prodding, she reveals she has a pet panther. Ah! Is there, perhaps, an exciting story connected with this? But, no, she refuses to even divulges the animal's name and isn't interested in telling us about him.
She has no causes about which she is stridently outspoken. She is accord with the majority of young people of her time and milieu on such subjects as Women's Liberation and the involvement of actors in politics. She believes in equality, for every one. (It goes back to the Bible") and she endorses celebrities who publicly support gthe candidates of their choice. ("It is fantastic that actors can create change"). Her opinions are offered quietly and only in response ot our, by now, somewhat desperate questioning. She mentions that she is a vegetarian, for moral reasons, but this, too, is a personal thing and she doesn't elaborate on it. She has no desire to subjugate her career to crusades. "Acting is pretty much my whole life," she keeps insisting and we've begun to believe it.
Her lack of charisma, of strongly identifiable and magnetic traits, might work to her advantage, however. Considering her great talent, she may well become a female Dustin Hoffman, one of our best film actors. Dustin, too, is unexpansive, understated. And it is for this reason that he is so malleable in his roles. He presents, and we accept, with equal believability a 121 year-old man, a college "Graduate," a Forty-second Street pimp. If Carol can match his scope, she'll surely have a brilliant career.
Caro says she prefers acting in films to acting in plays because she likes to "work small." In the theater, a lot of energy must be expended on projecting the character to the audience, whereas in movies, the director and cameraman handle that aspect and the actress is free to work on developing the character. In spite of her preference, Carol's next project is a play, a revival of The Enchanted, with Elizabeth Ashley. She has worked with Elizabeth before and adores her.
Carol, in fact, claims to have liked and admired all of the people with whom she has worked, a fortunate situation, if true and not just a statement for publication. We find ourselves believing her, because by now we are convinced that Carol has two major attributes: First, she's enormously gifted; and second, she's totally, incredibly real. Hollywood needs her.

The article is accompanied by a small oval black and white photo of Carol Kane from the neck up.