Carol Duvall, who made her name with a folksy crafting act on local and then network TV, died July 31 in Traverse City, Michigan. She was 97.
Duvall hosted The Carol Duvall Show on HGTV for more than a decade.
Carol-Jean Reihmer was born on Jan. 10, 1926, in Milwaukee. The family moved to Grand Rapids when she was 11. She studied theater as a student at Michigan State University, and appeared in local stage productions.
Her TV work began at WOOD Grand Rapids, where she was on children’s show Jiffy Carnival, according to the New York Times, in 1951. She moved to WWJ Detroit years later, and hosted morning show Living. She later hosted the five-minute gap between a travel show and a WWJ newscast in the evenings. Without much guidance about filling the time, Duvall started performing crafts.
She did the craft segments for 14 years and retired, then came on board at ABC’s daytime show Home, which ran from 1988 to 1994.
In 1994 Duvall began hosting The Carol Duvall Show on HGTV, where she showed viewers how to pull off crafts that did not require expert skills. Over 1,000 episodes were produced before it ended in 2005.
Duvall’s books include Wanna Make Something Out of It? and Paper Crafting With Carol Duvall.
The New York Times shared a bit about Dennis Franz, star of NYPD Blue, approaching Duvall at a Television Critics Association press event in Pasadena in 1997. She introduced herself, but Franz said that was not necessary.
“You’re in my kitchen every morning,” he responded.
