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Early life, family, educational background
American actress Elizabeth Fearn ‘Finn’ Carter, was born on March 9, 1960 in Greenville, Mississippi, USA. She is the daughter of Hodding Carter III and his first wife, Margaret ‘Peggy’ Ainsworth Wolfe. Her father is a former Deputy Secretary of State of the United States Department of Public Affairs. Her mother went into labor while attending a play at Greenville Little Theater with her husband. Peggy and Hodding separated when Finn was very young.
She has two sisters, Catherine and Margaret, a brother, W. Hodding Carter IV, a stepsister, Brooke Derian, and two stepbrothers, Dr. Hodding. Craig Derian and Michael Derian. Margaret not only got the name from her mother, but is also an artist like her.
One of my favorite pictures of the beautiful actress, Finn Carter, who played ‘Rhonda LeBeck’.
Posted by Michael Gross On Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Peggy, Margaret and Catherine all live in Mississippi, where Catherine is a lawyer. Finn’s brother lives in Maine and is a famous adventurer and writer.
Finnish began performing in local stage productions at a young age and then went on to study at the San Francisco Ballet Company. She graduated from the Walnut Hill School for the Performing Arts in Natick, Massachusetts, and after graduating from high school attended the Jose Lemon Dance Company in Washington, DC, before moving to New York City to join Alvin Ailey’s American Dance Company. to close. She transferred from Skidmore College to Tulane University to focus on her theater studies, and she also joined community theater close to the university.
Career
Finn moved back to New York City in 1983 to focus on her acting career.
Theater
In New York she was a member of the Circle Repertory Company. At the Old Globe Theater in San Diego, she co-starred with Jon Tenney and Mary Louise Parker as Effie Herrington in the play ‘Up in Saratoga’ directed by Jack O’Brien and written by Terrence McNally.
She appeared in the revival of “Biloxi Blues” at the Pasadena Playhouse, her second performance at a West Coast theater. For an evening at the Altadena Junction, she wrote and performed stories and poetry.
Television
Finn played Sierra Estaban Reyes Montgomery on the CBS soap opera ‘As the World Turns’ from 1985 to 1988.
The soap is set in Oakdale, Illinois, a fictional town, and aired for a total of 54 years, from April 2, 1956 to September 17, 2010 – Finn briefly reprized her role in 1994. The show was created by Irna Phillips as a sister- show to “Guiding Light”, another soap opera created by Irna, and is the third longest ongoing run of an American soap opera, surpassed only by “Guiding Light” and “General Hospital”. The soap was produced in Manhattan for 43 years and in Brooklyn from 2000 to 2010. In the early stages of the show, episodes were 15 minutes long, then increased to 30 minutes, and on December 1, 1975, were extended to an hour. On August 21, 1967, the show switched to color.
The show averaged ten million viewers daily and was the most watched daytime drama from 1958 to 1978.
In 1989, Finn played Sister Catherine in the television movie “Dream Breakers,” also known as “In Evil’s Grasp,” and from 1990 to 1991, she had the recurring role of nurse, Linda Matlock Lanier, on the ABC drama series “China Strand.”
In 1997, she played Weaver, a regular cast member in ‘Secret Service Guy’, a short-lived sitcom on Fox. She also played Amy in the television movie ‘Love in Another Town’ also known as ‘Barbara Taylor Bradford’s Love in Another Town’.
Finn played Marilyn in the television movie ‘Missing Pieces’ and the following year she played Mary Lee Orr in the television movie ‘Taking Back Our Town’. In 2002, she appeared in another television movie, “The Pennsylvania Miners’ Story” as Missy Phillippi. Finn also guest starred in ‘CSI: Crime Scene Investigation’, ‘Law & Order’, ‘Murder, She Wrote’ and ‘The Outer Limits’.
Movie
In 1989, she starred as Nina Sachie in her film debut, “How I Got Into College”, opposite Anthony Edwards in the romantic comedy, which was produced by 20e Century Fox and directed by Savage Steve Holland. The movie also starred Lara Flynn Boyle and Corey Parker, and was also the screen debut of Tom Kenny, who eventually became a famous voice actor.
The film follows Lara’s character, Jessica, who tries to get accepted into a small college in Pennsylvania called Ramsey College, and Corey’s character, Marlon, who also tries to get accepted, but only because he has a crush on Jessica.
Finn starred opposite Fred Ward and Kevin Bacon as Rhonda LeBeck in the 1990 movie “Tremors”, the monster comedy written by SS Wilson, Brent Maddock and Ron Underwood, and produced by SS Wilson, Brent Maddock and Gale Anne Hurd, directed by Ron Underwood . Reba McEntire and Michael Gross also starred in the movie released by Universal Pictures which follows Fred’s character, Earl Bassett and Kevin’s character, repairman Val McKee who skips town because they are bored of their boring lives in Perfection, Nevada.
During their adventure, however, they encounter mysterious deaths. Finn’s character, a seismologist named Rhonda, is concerned about the anomalous readings she has been studying from underground. She pairs up with Val, Earl and an eccentric survival couple, Heather and Burt Gummer (played by Reba and Michael). Together they fight human-flesh-hungry monsters that resemble giant worms.
For her performance, Finn was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. At the box office, the film grossed $16 million.
She played the lead role of Sunny Justice in the 1992 movie ‘Sweet Justice’ also known as ‘Killer Instincts’ and in 1996 she played the supporting role of Cynthia Speetgens in Rob Reiner’s drama, ‘Ghosts of Mississippi’, which is also known as “Ghost from the Past.”
Her last appearance in a movie was in 2005 as Bonnie in “Halfway Decent”, starring opposite Ernie Hudson in the independent film.
Paint
After leaving Hollywood, she turned to painting and drawing. She studied in Prague for a year and her work was recognized and praised. Returning to Los Angeles, she exhibited her artwork at a gallery on July 22, 2017, calling the showcase “standing on fishes.” She currently still paints and sells her artwork.
Private life
On November 14, 1985, she married actor, director, writer and producer Steven Webber. The pair met on set when Steven played Kevin Gibson in ‘As the World Turns’. However, they divorced on September 1, 1994.
On May 24, 1997, she married attorney James Woodruff, but they divorced on July 27, 2007. They have two daughters together, Carter, born in 1997, and Josephine in 2000. When they married, Finn became the stepmother of James’ daughter from a previous relationship.
Finn was arrested on July 30, 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada, and booked on 14 counts for possession of a credit card without the cardholder’s consent, and one count for possession of a stolen vehicle. She was prosecuted and given 90 days to file a criminal complaint against the crimes she was charged with. A justice of the peace has released her on the condition that she must appear in court in October.
Appearance
Finn has brown hair and blue eyes. She is 5ft 8in (1.73m) tall.
Wealth and salary
Her net worth is estimated at $1 million, as of mid 2020.
The personal life of the family
Her father, William Hodding Carter, was born on April 7, 1935 in New Orleans. His mother, Betty Werlein, was born in 1910 and died in 2000, and his father, William Hodding Carter II, was a publisher and journalist born in 1907 and died in 1972.
William grew up in Greenville, Mississippi, and attended Princeton University, New Jersey. In 1957 he graduated summa cum laude and then married Margaret Ainsworth. Together they had a son, Hodding Carter IV and three daughters, Catherine, Margaret and Elizabeth – ‘Finn.’
They divorced in 1978, and later that year William married author and human rights official Patricia M. Derian; she wrote about civil rights, foreign policy and the “New South” and was a civil servant in Jimmy Carter’s administration.
After graduating from Princeton, William served in the United States Marine Corps for two years. He began working as a reporter for the Delta Democrat-Times in 1959, before moving to become an associate publisher and editor-in-chief of the newspaper.
He wrote “The South Strikes Back” in 1959 and won the 1961 Sigma Delta Chi National Profession Journalism Society Award for editorial writing.
He was politically and editorially active in civil rights movements throughout the 1960s. He co-chaired the “Loyal Democrats of Mississippi” in 1968, which replaced the all-white delegation to the Democratic National Convention in Mississippi. However, he later criticized the Delta Ministry in his editorials.
He worked on Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1964 presidential campaign and Jimmy Carter’s 1976 campaign. When the latter was elected president, he made William spokesman for the State Department and assistant secretary of state for public affairs. He became more famous than his successors and predecessors as a result of the Iran Hostage Crisis.
In 1980, Ronald W. Reagan was elected, and William left his government career and moved into television. He finally retired in 1994, having worked for BBC, CNN, ABC and NBC, among others.
