Carol Harris-Mannes

Social Worker
New York, New York

After more than 40 years of success in the entertainment industry, Carol Harris-Mannes left the stage and behind-the-scenes production work to finish her undergraduate degree and earn a master's in social work. Now she works full time as a social worker with The Actors' Fund of America in New York City.

Why I chose this work & why I keep doing it:

I really just wanted to give back and do service and help people. That was my initial impetus for going on to graduate school. And then when I found out that The Actors' Fund had a social work department, that was when I felt this would be a good fit.

What continues to make me feel good about the work is the opportunity to continue helping women move through midlife and beyond, to help women work on their journey in a positive way the way I did....I'm very interested in all of this, in what happens to women as they age. In any other business, they would be just hitting their prime when they hit their 40s. But in this business it's increasingly hard for them to get work and this can lead to financial, medical, and emotional issues.

My best day:

I had a five-year reunion of the women's peer support group for the first time. About 30 of the women got together and we had a party. And several of them entertained and talked about how the women's group had had such a positive impact on their lives. It helped one of them to make her first CD. It helped one of them go on and have a successful writing career. And that really made me feel good. That was a great day for me.

How I planned for my next chapter:

So the universe taketh away, and the universe giveth back. In a way, I had to truly reinvent myself.

I had no idea what I was going to do. There was like this void in my heart because I had been performing since I was a kid. And I thought, "Well, if that's not who I am, then who am I?"

I had never finished my undergrad. So I thought I'd just go back and see what came along. I really had no plan at all. And because now that there are so many adult undergrad programs that you can go to, I was comfortable going back to school.

My toughest challenges along the road:

While I was starting my second semester of my undergrad, my husband was diagnosed with lung cancer, and he passed away three months later. I had already been accepted at Columbia and I had actually dropped out of the second semester of undergrad to care for him. So after he died, I didn't know if I was going to be able to do it. And my daughters said to me, "Mom, you can do this." And they gave me great support.

So I actually went back and finished up in the summer and entered Columbia in the fall. And I don't know how I did it looking back. I was just numb. But somehow I just kept putting one foot in front of another, and it was actually very healing for me to do that....In the middle of all that, I sold the house that we were living in and I moved into Manhattan and bought an apartment. All in the same year. So the universe taketh away, and the universe giveth back. In a way, I had to truly reinvent myself.