Nancy Carroll

Nancy Carroll
(1930)
Born	Ann Veronica Lahiff (1903-11-19)November 19, 1903 New York City, New York, U.S.
Died	August 6, 1965(1965-08-06) (aged 61) New York City, US
Cause of death	aneurysm
Resting place	Calvary Cemetery , Queens, New York City
Occupation	actress
Years active	1923–1965
Spouse(s)	Jack Kirkland (1925–1930) Francis Bolton Mallory (1931–1935) C.H. "Jappe" Groen (1953–1965)

Nancy Carroll (November 19, 1903 – August 6, 1965) was an American actress.^[1]

Life and career

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

Carroll and her sister 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 "talkies" 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 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, and starred in the early television series The Aldrich Family in 1950. In the following year, she guest-starred in the television version of The Egg and I, starring her daughter, Patricia Kirkland.

On August 6, 1965, Carroll was found dead after failing to arrive at the theater for a performance. The cause of her death was an aneurysm. She was 61 years old.

Awards and honors

For her contributions to the motion picture industry, Carroll has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1725 Vine Street Vine Street. It was dedicated February 8, 1960.^[4]

Filmography

See also

• Biography portal
• Film portal

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Nancy Carroll.

• Nancy Carroll at the Internet Broadway Database
  
• Nancy Carroll on IMDb
• Nancy Carroll at AllMovie
• Nancy Carroll at Find a Grave
• Photographs of Nancy Carroll
• Set of Carroll portraits and promotional shots