Beryl Wallace
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Beryl Wallace (c.1909 - June 17, 1948) was an American singer, dancer, and actress.
Born Beryl Heischuber in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn, New York, she was the eldest of nine children of working class Jewish immigrants from Austria. Pursuing a dancing career, she was in her teens when she saw a casting call advertisement in the newspaper and landed a role in the 1928 Earl Carroll Broadway theatre production of "Vanities" that was billed as having the "most beautiful girls in the world." Beryl Heischuber adopted the last name "Wallace" as part of her stage name and went on to appear in another six similar such risqué productions that featured scanty costumes for the female performers and full nudity for the first time on Broadway.
Beryl Wallace and producer Earl Carroll began a personal relationship that would take them to Hollywood where she would perform in film and at his Earl Carroll Theatre. The theatre-supper club's facade was adorned by what at the time was one of Hollywood's most famous landmarks: a 20-foot-high neon facial portrait of Bery Wallace that a recreation of can be seen today at Universal CityWalk, at Universal City, as part of the collection of historic neon signs from the Museum of Neon Art.
While Beryl was working at the Earl Carroll Theatre, a sweet and vibrant little German woman by the name of Herta Schaufler was Beryl's massage therapist. Herta's massages were superb as they were based on medical treatments she learned during her nurse training in Hamburg, Germany.
Beryl Wallace made her film debut in 1934 in an uncredited role in the Paramount Pictures film production of Carroll's Broadway play Murder at the Vanities and went on to appear in a number of small roles until 1937 when she co-starred in the Monogram Pictures "B" Western film production of "Romance of the Rockies" with Tom Keene. This led to another co-starring role in the 1938 film, "Air Devils." In the early 1940s she continued appearing in bit parts but also had good secondary roles in Republic Pictures "B" Westerns starring the likes of Roy Rogers and Richard Dix. While acting in twenty-two films over a ten year period, Wallace's primary job was as a star entertainer at Earl Carroll's theatre.
During World War II, Beryl Wallace sang weekly on two 15-minute radio shows and on Monday evenings hosted a half-hour entertainment show on NBC radio called "Furlough Fun." In addition to helping entertain soldiers at the Masquers Club, on Sunday afternoons she was a volunteer dancer at the Hollywood Canteen.
On June 17, 1948, while enroute from Los Angeles to New York City, Beryl Wallace and Earl Carroll died in the crash of United Airlines Flight 624 at Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania. They were interred together in the Garden of Memory at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
Broadway performances:
- Earl Carroll's Vanities (1940)
- The Women (1936)
- Earl Carroll's Sketch Book (1935)
- Murder at the Vanities (1934)
- Earl Carroll's Vanities (1932)
- Earl Carroll's Vanities (1931)
- Earl Carroll's Vanities (1930)
- Earl Carroll's Vanities (1928)
