Lois Carl, Tutor for Child Actors on Spielberg Films, Dies at 82

The schoolteacher worked with Haley Joel Osment, David Arquette and Josh Hutcherson.

Lois Carl, a studio schoolteacher who tutored on Steven Spielberg sets and worked with kid actors such as Haley Joel Osment, Josh Hutcherson and David Arquette, has died. She was 82.

Carl died Wednesday at Anaheim Regional Medical Center of complications from kidney disease, her son, actor Adam Carl, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Carl served as Osment's longtime tutor and welfare worker and accompanied him on the features Pay It Forward (2000), Edges of the Lord (2001) and A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001) as well as on the TV series Walker: Texas Ranger, The Jeff Foxworthy Show and Murphy Brown.

In addition to A.I., she was employed on Spielberg films that included Minority Report (2002), Catch Me If You Can (2002) and The Terminal (2004).

"She loved working for Steven Spielberg, with whom she would regularly commiserate about politics," her son said.

Carl tutored Jay R. Ferguson (Mad Men, The Connors) on the Francis Ford Coppola-produced The Outsiders and on the Linda Bloodworth-Thomason sitcom Evening Shade. She taught Arquette on The Outsiders as well.

She also worked with Hutcherson on Robert Zemeckis' The Polar Express (2004) and with her son Adam on the John Ritter sitcom Hearts Afire.

Born in the Bronx in 1936, Carl started her career as an elementary school teacher in New Jersey. She moved to Orange County in 1970, when her late husband, Jack, took a job as a probation officer.

She earned her California credentials and became a studio teacher after Adam began working as a child actor in the early 1980s. Accompanying him on sets, she befriended several of his studio teachers, and they encouraged her to pursue a new course.

In addition to Adam, survivors include children Matthew, Jonathan and Jennifer and grandchildren Greyson, Owen, Nate, Peyton, Audrey and Brynna. (Greyson Fletcher is a pro skateboarder who played the grandson of Bruce Greenwood and Rebecca De Mornay's characters on the HBO series John From Cincinnati.)

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the American Civil Liberties Union, Southern Poverty Law Center or Planned Parenthood. Votes in her memory can be cast for Sen. Kamala Harris in the 2020 primaries.