In 2019, she was inducted into the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards' Monster Kid Hall of Fame.

[1] James Carreras, the head of Hammer Films, saw one of her photographs in a newspaper and offered her a role opposite Christopher Lee in Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968).

Carlson was one of the four main characters in the TV thriller series Spyder's Web (1972), along with Anthony Ainley, Roger Lloyd-Pack, and Patricia Cutts.

Giving up on acting was not her intention, but she found that there was an increasing amount of nudity in the industry, which was something she was not prepared to do due to her strict upbringing.

[1] In later life she lived in South Carolina, with her husband and three children, where she worked as a professional painter.