Carol Lynley is that rarest of rarities, a famous little girl who grew up to be a famous woman. Never a spoiled prodigy, but always prodigiously pretty in a natural-blonde way, she was New York's top junior mannequin before reaching her teens. At 15, having found modeling "iffy," she launched her acting career with a major role in Broadway's The Potting Shed, and the same year added a cover story in Life to her more than 50 magazine credits. Carol then assessed her future as being "where the money is," and also predicted that by 21 she would quit, marry and raise a family. Moving faster than foreseen, Carol was not only married and a mother by that age, but a divorcee as well. Far from retiring, however, she was just beginning to earn big cabbage. Her delineation of the unwed mother in Blue Denim--at 17-- had won her numerous TV and film parts; but most of them portrayed her as a fluffy-brained teenager. Claiming she merited "adult, sexy roles," Carol made her point in The Cardinal, in which she played a hard-bitten taxi dancer. She continued to prove her maturity with sophisticated parts in Under the Yum Yum Tree, Shock Treatment, The Pleasure Seekers and, not least of all, this portfolio of exclusive photographs for Playboy.
