Carol Duvall — a Tv set host dubbed the “Queen of Crafts” by HGTV and considered a forerunner to Martha Stewart — died Monday at age 97 in Traverse Town.
For additional than 50 percent a century, Duvall was a beloved small-display persona who felt like a friend to viewers. Her sunny presence and mild humor were her logos as she shown how to do every little thing from scrapbooking to jewellery building.
Duvall’s vocation stretched from her early days in Grand Rapids and the Detroit television market to national fame, most notably as a result of HGTV’s “The Carol Duvall Show,” which ran on the cable community right until 2005.
Born in 1926 in Milwaukee, Duvall moved to Grand Rapids when she was 11, in accordance to the Traverse Town Document-Eagle.
Just after attending Michigan Condition College, she obtained her start off in broadcasting in 1951 at Wood-Television in Grand Rapids, wherever she auditioned for a career at the new station and wound up internet hosting a children’s application. Back then, according to a 2017 Report-Eagle profile of Duvall, “she ‘kept house’ for her husband, widowed father, invalid uncle, teenage brother and two younger young children.”
In the interview, Duvall said she relished using on a Television set function: “I was often intrigued in theater. To me, it was like becoming on stage. When you’re accomplishing one thing you love, it is entertaining.”
In 1962, Duvall began working for WWJ-Television in Detroit (now WDIV-Tv set, Community 4). She spent approximately 20 decades in Detroit at positions ranging from anchor to producer to web hosting her 1st craft show in what would grow to be a famous job.
She was invited by a previous intern she knew to be a part of a undertaking named “The Residence Show” (aka “Home”), where she turned the craft skilled for its six-year operate on ABC. it ran from 1988 to 1994 — the similar yr she started “The Carol Duvall Clearly show” on HGTV.
Following HGTV stopped airing Duvall’s demonstrate in 2005, it moved to the Do-it-yourself community and ran there until finally 2009.
Duvall’s legacy stays common on line as a result of movies on YouTube and Pinterest. “The Carol Duvall Show” is out there to stream on Discovery+, and segments of episodes are still posted on HGTV.
Duvall also wrote two textbooks, 1972’s “Wanna Make A thing Out of It?” and 2007’s “Paper Crafting with Carol Duvall.”
Duvall had been living for about 7 many years at Cordia, a senior dwelling center on the grounds of the Village at Grand Traverse Commons, at the time of her loss of life. In 2017, she spoke to the Ticker, a Traverse Town news website, about her lifetime there and her early days in Television set.
She instructed the Ticker that she missed getting on the air sometimes. “I’d been on Television for 56 a long time. Now when I meet up with or hear of anyone with a terrific craft notion, I (really don’t) have any area to share it!,” she reported.
Individuals who’d like to share memories of Duvall can do so at the Reynolds Jonkhoff Funeral House & Cremation Companies in Traverse City, exactly where she is named as Carol-Jean Duvall in her obituary.
“I experienced in no way had the pleasure of conference Carol Duvall in particular person, even so she was welcomed into my residence for a lot of several years by way of her self titled demonstrate,” posted a mourner there. “I cannot convey to you how a lot of instances I was late for get the job done seeing and it was so great I couldn’t pull myself absent to be on time. She was a wonderful television set identity and taught me so a lot. Thank you Carol-Jean Duvall for the craftiness you shared.”
Call Detroit Cost-free Push pop society critic Julie Hinds at [email protected].
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