Earl Carroll
- Theatrical producer
- director
- writer
- songwriter
- composer
Earl Carroll (September 16, 1893 – June 17, 1948) was an American theatrical producer, director, writer, songwriter and composer.
Early life
Carroll was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1893. He lived as an infant in the Nunnery Hill (Fineview) section of the North Side. Carroll later said he left the area "because there were too many tin cans and goats up there then."[1]
Career
Carroll produced and directed numerous Broadway musicals, including eleven editions of Earl Carroll's Vanities, Earl Carroll's Sketch Book and Murder at the Vanities, which was also made into a film starring Carl Brisson, Victor McLaglen and Jack Oakie. Known as "the troubadour of the nude", Carroll was famous for his productions featuring the most lightly clad showgirls on Broadway.
Damon Runyon, in his short story The Brain Goes Home has the narrator remark, "Well, Mr. Earl Carroll feels sorry for Cynthia, so he puts her in the 'Vanities' and lets her walk around raw, and The Brain sees her, and the next thing anybody knows she is riding in a big foreign automobile the size of a rum chaser, and is chucking a terrible swell." In 1922, he built the first Earl Carroll Theatre in New York, which was demolished and rebuilt on a grander scale in 1931. He built a second theatre on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California, in 1938.
In 1926, Carroll became involved in a scandal following a party he threw in honor of Harry Kendall Thaw, who 20 years earlier had murdered Stanford White. During the private party, a bathtub was brought out in which reposed a nude young woman, Joyce Hawley,[2] bathing in illegal liquor, described in a news story of Carroll's death as champagne. One of the guests was Philip A. Payne, editor of the New York Mirror. Although Carroll expected his guests would be circumspect about what happened at the party, Payne published a report. Federal authorities, apparently determined to learn the source of the illegal alcohol, subpoenaed Carroll to appear (with others) before a grand jury. Carroll denied the incident happened, but others at the party confirmed it. The federal government prosecuted Carroll for perjury, and he was convicted and sentenced one year and one day in prison. He served six months at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary.
Carroll wrote the scores for Broadway shows, including So Long Letty, Canary Cottage, and The Love Mill, for which he also wrote the libretto. As a writer of popular songs, his credits include Isle d'Amour, So Long Letty, Dreams of Long Ago, Give Me All of You, Just The Way You Are, and Dreaming, for which he supplied lyrics to the waltz by Archibald Joyce.
A pair of mid-1940s musical comedy films, Earl Carroll Vanities and Earl Carroll Sketchbook, both starring Constance Moore, were inspired by Carroll's stage revues.
Death
Carroll died in the crash of United Airlines Flight 624, which also took the life of his girlfriend, Beryl Wallace, on June 17, 1948, in Aristes, Pennsylvania.[3][4]
References
- ^ "Earl Carroll Home to "Put Show Over," Hopeful of Success". Pittsburgh Daily Post. 29 December 1923. Retrieved 8 December 2021.
- ^ Associated Press, “Earl Carroll Among 43 Airliner Crash Victims,” The San Bernardino Daily Sun, San Bernardino, California, Friday, June 18, 1948, Volume LIV, Number 251, page 2.
- ^ "Airliner Crash Takes Lives of 43 Persons". Lodi News-Sentinel. United Press International. June 18, 1948. p. 1.
- ^ Johnson, Daryl B. (2004). Centralia; Images of America. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing. p. 12. ISBN 978-0-7385-3629-3.
External links
- Earl Carroll at the Internet Broadway Database
- Earl Carroll at IMDb
- Earl Carroll at Find a Grave
- v
- t
- e
choreographed
- A Connecticut Yankee (1927)
- Present Arms (1928)
- Sweet and Low (1930)
- 42nd Street (musical numbers, 1933)
- She Had To Say Yes (1933)
- Footlight Parade (musical numbers, 1933)
- Dames (musical numbers, 1934)
- Fashions of 1934 (musical numbers, 1934)
- Gold Diggers of 1935 (1935)
- Bright Lights (1935)
- I Live for Love (1935)
- In Caliente (musical numbers, 1935)
- Stars Over Broadway (musical numbers, 1935)
- Stage Struck (1936)
- Varsity Show (finale, 1937)
- The Singing Marine (musical numbers, 1937)
- Gold Diggers of 1937 (musical numbers, 1937)
- The Go Getter (1937)
- Hollywood Hotel (1937)
- Men Are Such Fools (1938)
- Gold Diggers in Paris (musical numbers, 1938)
- Garden of the Moon (1938)
- Comet Over Broadway (1938)
- Broadway Serenade (finale, 1939)
- They Made Me a Criminal (1939)
- Fast and Furious (1939)
- Babes in Arms (1939)
- The Wizard of Oz (scenes cut, 1939)
- Forty Little Mothers (1940)
- Strike Up The Band (1940)
- Blonde Inspiration (1941)
- Lady Be Good (musical numbers, 1941)
- Ziegfeld Girl (musical numbers, 1941)
- Babes on Broadway (1941)
- For Me and My Gal (1942)
- Born to Sing (finale, 1942)
- Cabin in the Sky ("Shine" sequence, 1943)
- The Gang's All Here (1943)
- Girl Crazy ("I Got Rhythm" sequence, 1943)
- Cinderella Jones (1946)
- Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949)
- Annie Get Your Gun (scenes cut, 1950)
choreographed
only
- Whoopee! (1930)
- Kiki (1931)
- Palmy Days (1931)
- Flying High (1931)
- Sky Devils (1932)
- Girl Crazy (1932)
- Night World (1932)
- Bird of Paradise (1932)
- The Kid From Spain (1932)
- Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)
- Roman Scandals (1933)
- Wonder Bar (1934)
- Romance on the High Seas (1948)
- Call Me Mister (1951)
- Million Dollar Mermaid (1952)
- Small Town Girl (1953)
- Rose Marie (1954)
- Billy Rose's Jumbo (1962)