Hamilton worked in a number of productions for stage, film, video, and television. She took the role of Reggie Higgins in the TV version of the musical Fame for the fifth and sixth seasons, and portrayed the role of Maureen Johnson in the first national tour of the stage musical Rent to considerable acclaim. She also studied music and acting at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. One of her films was Tokyo Pop, in which she played an American singer who journeys to Japan. There, she found a relationship with both a singer and a band who made it into the Tokyo pop charts top 10. She performed several songs in the film. In 1992, Hamilton took a minor role in the movie Cool World, which starred Gabriel Byrne, Kim Basinger, and Brad Pitt. Hamilton married musician Mark Templin in 1994 on the same soundstage where The Carol Burnett Show was filmed. The couple divorced in 1998. Hamilton occasionally appeared on television with her mother. In 1987, Burnett guest-starred in an episode of Fame entitled "Reggie and Rose". The pair co-starred in a 1988 TV movie titled Hostage. They appeared on five episodes of Family Feud in 1995, competing with Hamilton's husband Mark Templin and mother-in-law Dalia Ward against a team led by Betty White. in 1997, they starred on an episode of Touched by an Angel entitled "The Comeback". Hamilton played an aspiring Broadway star whose mother had also made a run for Broadway fame, but failed. In 1999, Hamilton starred in a popular sixth-season episode of The X-Files, entitled "Monday". She played the role of Pam, the girlfriend of a would-be bank robber, who is forced to relive the same day over and over. Hamilton was the inspiration for the 1983 hit single "Carrie's Gone", written by former boyfriend Fergie Frederiksen and recorded by his band, Le Roux, after they broke up. The 12-year age difference was cited as the main reason for the break-up. Hamilton worked with her mother to adapt Burnett's memoir, One More Time, for the stage playHollywood Arms, but did not live long enough to see it produced.
Death
Hamilton died from pneumonia as a complication of lung cancer that spread to her brain in Los Angeles on January 20, 2002, at age 38, and is interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery. She started smoking cigarettes in her early teens, and also had a three-year period of heavy drug and alcohol abuse that she successfully overcame by the time she was 15. Except for a brief relapse at 17, she remained drug- and alcohol-free for the remainder of her life.
Theatre
In July 2006, the former Balcony Theatre of the Pasadena Playhouse was rededicated as the Carrie Hamilton Theatre in Hamilton's memory. It hosts a series of readings called "Hothouse at the Playhouse", as well as the Directors Lab West and the Furious Theatre Company. On February 19, 2007, architect Frank Gehry was announced to be redesigning the Carrie Hamilton Theatre.
On March 23, 2010, Carol Burnett joined the establishment of the Anaheim UniversityCarrie Hamilton Entertainment Institute. She signed a citation establishing the institute with Anaheim University Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. David Nunan, prior to answering questions regarding Hamilton and the Carrie Hamilton Entertainment Institute during a question-and-answer session with moderator Darrell Nelson. She concluded the session by reading this quote from Hamilton:
ABOUT ART...The legacy is really the lives we touch, the inspiration we give, altering someone's plan – if even for a moment, and getting them to think, rage, cry, laugh, argue...walk around the block, dazed... More than anything, we are remembered for our smiles; the ones we share with our closest and dearest, and the ones we bestow on a total stranger, who needed it then, and God put you there to deliver.
