Carol Harriton Cartwright, 96, died of natural causes in the home of her daughter Katharine (Katchie) and son-in-law Richard Oppenheim in San Antonio, Texas on March 3, 2021.

The eldest child of David Moses Harriton and Helen May Smith, she was born in New York City, where she and her brother Lewis attended the Little Red Schoolhouse, the first progressive school in the city. Her father, who was born in Romania in 1895, worked as a sign painter on Manhattan’s Lower East Side as a youth before co-founding Harriton Carved Glass, an acclaimed architectural glass firm whose work decorates the glass dome of the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington. Carol’s mother came from a large rural family in California’s San Joaquin valley.

Carol was trained as a singer, actress, and dancer, studying with such notable artists as avant-garde composer Otto Luening, choreographer Martha Graham, and acting guru Sanford Meisner, a pioneer of the “method” acting technique. Her first break came in 1946, when she joined the chorus of the original revival of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein’s Showboat.

In 1949, she married airline pilot and builder David Churchill Cartwright in Rome, Italy. They settled in northeastern Pennsylvania’s Delaware Water Gap area. Carol and David welcomed their first son, Erik Christopher, in 1950, and Carol gave up her dreams of a career on Broadway to raise a growing family.

A longtime member of the Actors’ Equity union, she continued to perform regularly in summer stock theatre in Pennsylvania. Her last public musical performances were with the Delaware Water Gap Celebration of the Arts, where she performed in the Jazz Mass for many years.

Carol is survived by a daughter, Katharine (Katchie) Cartwright of San Antonio; a son, Brett Cartwright of Nashville; and two grandchildren, Eleonore Oppenheim and Mae Cartwright.

Funeral services will be held via Zoom on March 13, 2021 from 3-4:30 p.m. CST.
Meeting ID: 919 4722 0692
Passcode: 334656

In lieu of flowers, donations in her memory may be made to the Actors Fund Home.