Nancy Carroll

American actress (1903–1965)

Jack Kirkland

(m. 1924; div. 1931)

Francis Bolton Mallory

(m. 1931; div. 1935)

C.H. "Jappe" Groen

(m. 1953)

Nancy Carroll (born Ann Veronica Lahiff; November 19, 1903 – August 6, 1965) was an American actress.^[1] She started her career in Broadway musicals and then became an actress in sound films and was in many films from 1927 to 1938. She was then in television roles from 1950 to 1963. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on February 8, 1960.

Life and career

Of Irish parentage, the daughter of Thomas and Ann Lahiff, Carroll was born in New York City. Her education came at Holy Trinity School in New York, but she left there at age 16 to work as a stenographer in an office of a lace manufacturer.^[2]

Carroll and her sister Elsie once performed a dancing act in a local contest of amateur talent. This led her to a stage career and then on to screen stardom. She began her acting career in Broadway musicals. She became a successful actress in sound films because her musical background enabled her to play in movie musicals of the 1930s. Her film debut was in Ladies Must Dress in 1927.

In 1928 she made eight films. One of them, Easy Come, Easy Go, co-starring Richard Dix, made her a movie star. In 1929 she starred in The Dance of Life with Hal Skelly, and The Wolf of Wall Street along with George Bancroft and Olga Baclanova. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1930 for The Devil's Holiday.^[3] Among her other films are Laughter (1930), Paramount on Parade (1930), Hot Saturday (1932) with Cary Grant and Randolph Scott, The Kiss Before the Mirror (1933) directed by James Whale, and Broken Lullaby aka The Man I Killed (1932) directed by Ernst Lubitsch.

Under contract to Paramount Pictures, Carroll often balked at the roles the studio offered her, and she earned a reputation as a recalcitrant and uncooperative actress. In spite of her ability to successfully tackle light comedies, tearful melodramas, and even musicals, and as well as garnering considerable praise by the critics and public – she received the most fan mail of any star in the early 1930s – she was released from her contract by the studio. In the mid-1930s under a four-film contract with Columbia Pictures, she made four rather insignificant films and was no longer an A-list actress.

Carroll retired from films in 1938, returned to the stage,^{[citation needed]} and starred as the mother in the early television series The Aldrich Family^[4] in 1950. In the following year, she guest-starred in the television version of The Egg and I, starring her daughter, Patricia Kirkland.

Death

On August 6, 1965, Carroll was found dead after failing to arrive at the theater for a performance.^[5] The cause of her death was an aneurysm.^{[citation needed]} She was 61 years old.

Hollywood Walk of Fame

For her contributions to the film industry, Carroll has a motion picture star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1725 Vine Street. The star was dedicated February 8, 1960.^[6]

Filmography

Film
Year	Film	Role	Notes
1927	Ladies Must Dress	Mazie
1928	Abie's Irish Rose	Rosemary Murphy	Incomplete
	Easy Come, Easy Go	Barbara Quayle	Lost film
	Chicken a La King	Maisie Devoe	Lost film
	The Water Hole	Judith Endicott	Lost film
	Manhattan Cocktail	Babs Clark	Lost film except for one-minute montage sequence by Slavko Vorkapich
	The Shopworn Angel	Daisy Heath	Incomplete, held at the Library of Congress)
1929	The Wolf of Wall Street	Gert	Lost film
	Sin Sister	Pearl	Lost film
	Close Harmony	Marjorie Merwin
	The Dance of Life	Bonny Lee King
	Illusion	Claire Jernigan
	Sweetie	Barbara Pell
1930	Dangerous Paradise	Alma	Alternate title: Two Against Death
	Honey	Olivia Dangerfield
	The Devil's Holiday	Hallie Hobart	Nominated for Best Actress Academy Award
	Laughter	Peggy Gibson
	Paramount on Parade	Herself	cameo appearance
	Follow Thru	Lora Moore
1931	Stolen Heaven	Mary
	The Night Angel	Yula Martini
	Personal Maid	Nora Ryan
1932	Broken Lullaby	Fraulein Elsa	Alternate title: The Man I Killed
	Wayward	Daisy Frost
	Hot Saturday	Ruth Brock
	Scarlet Dawn	Tanyusha Krasnoff
	Under-Cover Man	Lora Madigan
1933	Child of Manhattan	Madeleine McGonegle
	The Woman Accused	Glenda O'Brien
	The Kiss Before the Mirror	Maria Held
	I Love That Man	Grace Clark
1934	Springtime for Henry	Julia Jelliwell
	Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round	Sally Marsh	Alternate title: Keep 'Em Laughing
	Jealousy	Josephine "Jo" Douglas O'Roarke
1935	I'll Love You Always	Nora Clegg
	After the Dance	Anne Taylor
	Atlantic Adventure	Helen Murdock
1938	That Certain Age	Grace Bristow
1938	There Goes My Heart	Dorothy Moore
Television
Year	Title	Role	Notes
1950–1951	The Aldrich Family	Alice Aldrich #2	Unknown episodes
1951	Faith Baldwin Romance Theatre		1 episode
1951	The Egg and I	Betty's mother	Unknown episodes
1959	The Further Adventures of Ellery Queen	Fanny Wilson	1 episode
1961	Naked City	Bernice Hacker	1 episode
1962	The United States Steel Hour		2 episodes
1963	Rockabye the Infantry	Hortense Tyler	Television movie
1963	Going My Way	Nora Callahan	"Cornelius Come Home" (her final screen role on ABC-TV)

References

^ Obituary Variety, August 11, 1965.
^ Aaker, Everett (2013). George Raft: The Films. McFarland. pp. 34–35. ISBN 9780786493135. Retrieved 8 November 2016.
^ "("Nancy Carroll" search results)". Academy Awards. Retrieved 9 November 2016.^{[permanent dead link]}
^ Willis, John (1966). Screen World, 1966. Biblo & Tannen Publishers. p. 234. ISBN 978-0-8196-0307-4. Retrieved January 29, 2020.
^ "Nancy Carroll, Actress, Is Dead". The New York Times. 7 August 1965. Retrieved 7 January 2021.
^ "Hollywood Walk of Fame -Nancy Carroll". walkoffame.com. Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. Archived from the original on November 7, 2017. Retrieved February 11, 2018.