Eugenia Gingold, Carole King's Mother, Dies at 94

According to the Miami Herald, Eugenia Gingold, the mother of famous singer-songwriter Carole King, died of congestive heart failure on Dec. 22 in the Hospice Care unit at Delray Medical Center, Delray Beach, her daughter said. Gingold, a South Florida resident since the mid-1970s and an Actor's Equity member, was 94.

Gingold appeared in various New York and South Florida theaters where she performed and directed -- and later inn life she became known for her job as a theater critic for Florida Stage and Screen News.

Born Eugenia Cammer in Brooklyn, N.Y., on July 31, 1916, Gingold acted in high school plays and won awards for excellence in speech. Known to most as Genie, she graduated from Brooklyn College with a degree in English and drama, then worked as a speech therapist in New York City public schools.

Gingold married Sidney Klein, and gave birth in 1942 to daughter Carol then to son Richard, in 1948.
Her daughter recalls that Gingold produced and directed school and neighborhood plays and musicals.

``She brought out the best in all the neighborhood actors, including me as a bratty little 8-year-old,' King told the Miami Herald.

King said her mother was her first music teacher and later, her acting coach.

``She had a lovely voice. She exposed me to music from the time I was in the womb,' King said.

``And when I made my Broadway debut in Blood Brothers in 1994, she was my coach. Later, she came to Dublin to coach me when I played Kate [the character based on playwright Neil Simon's mother] in Brighton Beach Memoirs. I channeled all my ancestors in that.'

In the 1980s, Gingold directed and acted in plays presented by Ruth Foreman. Joseph Adler, the award-winning artistic director at GableStage in Coral Gables, directed Gingold in Foreman's productions of "Social Security" and "Crossing Delancey."

Then in the late 1980s, Gingold shifted to theater criticism becoming a voter in the region's Carbonell Awards program and joining the American Theater Critics Association.

In addition to her son and daughter, Gingold is survived by sister Gladys Lipton.

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