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Becoming known as "the girl who sings the song about John Foster Dulles," Carol landed the lead role in Once Upon a Mattress. The show and Carol (as Winifred, the Pea Princess) were hits. In the middle of Mattress' long run, Carol was signed on as a regular with The Garry Moore Show. It meant rehearsing the television show during the day every day, doing the Broadway show every night plus matinees on Wednesday and Saturday. Carol, who is normally a slim 121 Ibs. (5 ft. 7 in.), dwindled to 106, recalls: "I looked like John Carradine in drag." Curlers & Pratfalls. Married to a college friend, Don Saroyan ("Any kin? Maybe—I suppose all Armenians are re lated somehow"), she and her husband were separated 2 years ago, plan a divorce this summer. Carol was surprised when gossip columnists paired her off with Dick (Dr. Kildare) Chamberlain, whom she barely knows. ("When I met him I had my hair in curlers and looked like I was trying to tune in Mars. I think I scared him. But I like him; he's so squeaky clean.'')
Now confident enough to strike out on her own, Carol leaves the warm and woolly Garry Moore Show next week; next year she will make guest appearances, has decided not to push on to a TV show of her own. She has had movie offers, has declined them so far because "I know I'd end up playing Binkie, the heroine's best friend.'' Another possibility is the lead in the Jule Styne-Jerome Robbins musical about Fanny Brice next fall. Definitely on the books are an appearance at The Sands in Las Vegas this summer and an early-autumn engagement at Manhattan's prestigious Persian Room. But as for serious "dray-mah," she does not want to pratfall into the trap of so many funny folk who long to play tragedy: "I would miss the laughs. And probably if I did something serious, I'd get them."