Nancy Carroll

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.{{cite book|last1=Aaker|first1=Everett|title=George Raft: The Films|date=2013|publisher=McFarland|isbn=9780786493135|pages=34–35|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Qi7JiuIsQbsC&lpg=PA31&vq=%22Wynne%20Gibson%22&pg=PA34#v=onepage&q=Carroll&f=false|access-date=8 November 2016|language=en}} (Another source says that she left the eighth grade at age 14 "to go on the stage".{{cite magazine |last=Talbott |first=Thomas |date=September 1930 |pages=55, 118-119 |title=News! Nancy Carroll |url=https://archive.org/details/screenland21unse/page/n582/mode/1up?view=theater |magazine=Screenland |access-date=February 16, 2025 }}) She was the seventh{{cite magazine |last=Bell |first=Caroline |date=April 1928 |pages=26, 107 |title=A Rose of Tenth Avenue |url=https://archive.org/details/pictureplaymagaz28unse/page/n153/mode/1up?view=theater |magazine=Picture Play |access-date=February 16, 2025 }} of 12 children.{{cite news |last1=Tighe |first1=Dixie |title=Meet Nancy Carroll---Wife, Mother and Screen Star |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/pittsburgh-post-gazette-nancy-carroll/165784825/ |access-date=February 16, 2025 |work=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |date=November 4, 1929 |page=19|via = Newspapers.com }} Although her parents had named her Ann, she said, "... finally I demanded that I be called Nancy, and they agreed it suited me."

Carroll and her sister "worked up a little specialty number" and auditioned for the Shuberts, which resulted in their performing in a show.

Carroll's career began in 1923 when she performed in the chorus of The Passing Show in New York.{{cite news |title=Actress Nancy Carroll Found Dead in New Yorkl |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/hartford-courant-nancy-carroll/165642027/ |access-date=February 15, 2025 |work=The Hartford Courant |agency=Associated Press |date=August 8, 1965 |page=34 A|via = Newspapers.com }} She began her acting career in Broadway musicals. Although she initially wanted to be a character actress, she said, "But the moment I took off my hat, and that's the first thing a manager asks you to do when you go to apply for a job — every manager without exception would say: 'You must go into musical comedy. You're just the type. No chance for you in a dramatic production.'" 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.{{Citation needed |date=February 2025}}

Carroll's early experience included work in "second-rate road companies" and portrayal of Roxie Hart in the Los Angeles production of Chicago.{{cite magazine |last=Oettinger |first=Malcolm H. |date=January 1931 |pages=34, 115 |title=One of the Calmer Redheads |url=https://archive.org/details/picturepla34stre/page/n39/mode/1up?view=theater |magazine=Picture Play |access-date=February 16, 2025 }}

File:The Devil's Holiday Lobby Card.jpg

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.{{cite web|title=("Nancy Carroll" search results)|url=http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_awards/DisplayMain.jsp?curTime=950627580087|website=Academy Awards|access-date=9 November 2016}}{{Dead link|date=November 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} 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.{{Citation needed |date=February 2025}}

Carroll retired from films in 1938, returned to the stage,{{Citation needed |date=January 2020}} and starred as the mother in the early television series The Aldrich Family{{cite book |last1=Willis |first1=John |title=Screen World, 1966 |date=1966 |publisher=Biblo & Tannen Publishers |isbn=978-0-8196-0307-4 |page=234 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VCQ9AErr-uMC&q=%22Ann+Veronica+Lahiff%22&pg=PA234 |access-date=January 29, 2020 |language=en}} in 1950. In the following year, she guest-starred in the television version of The Egg and I, starring her daughter, Patricia Kirkland.

Carroll's first husband was author Jack Kirkland. They were married seven years and divorced in 1931. Also in 1931 she married educator Francis Bolton Mallory. They were together for three years and separated for three years before they were divorced. She was married to C. H. J. Groen, a manufacturer of fiberglass.{{cite news |last1=Adams |first1=Val |title=Fonda to Appear on 2d TV Special: Star to Be Host-Narrator of 'The Good Years' on C.B.S |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1961/09/05/archives/fonda-to-appear-on-2d-tv-special-star-to-be-hostnarrator-of-the.html |access-date=February 14, 2025 |work=The New York Times |date=September 5, 1961|page=71 |url-access=subscription }} On August 6, 1965, she was found dead after failing to arrive at the theater for a performance.{{Cite news|date=7 August 1965|title=Nancy Carroll, Actress, Is Dead|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1965/08/07/archives/nancy-carroll-actress-is-dead-s-found-in-apartment-after-failing-to.html|access-date=7 January 2021}} The cause of her death was an aneurysm.{{Citation needed |date=November 2022}} She was 61 years old.

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.{{cite web|url=http://www.walkoffame.com/nancy-carroll |title=Hollywood Walk of Fame -Nancy Carroll |website=walkoffame.com |publisher=Hollywood Chamber of Commerce |access-date=February 11, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171107032922/http://www.walkoffame.com/nancy-carroll |archive-date=November 7, 2017 |url-status=dead}}

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• {{IBDB name}}
• {{IMDb name|id=0007216|name=Nancy Carroll}}
• {{Find a Grave|7893762}}
• [http://film.virtual-history.com/person.php?personid=707 Photographs of Nancy Carroll]
• [https://www.flickr.com/photos/alicejapan/sets/72157616272305709/with/5480373761 Set of Carroll portraits and promotional shots]

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Category:1903 births

Category:1965 deaths

Category:Actresses from New York City

Category:American film actresses

Category:American silent film actresses

Category:American musical theatre actresses

Category:American television actresses

Category:Deaths from aneurysm

Category:American people of Irish descent

Category:20th-century American actresses

Category:Paramount Pictures contract players

Category:20th-century American singers

Category:20th-century American women singers