From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Madeleine Carroll (
February 26,
1906 –
October 2,
1987) was a
British actress, immensely popular in the 1930s and 1940s, who was renowned for her great beauty.
[edit] Early life
She was born as
Edith Madeleine Carroll[1] at 32 Herbert Street (now number 44)
West Bromwich,
England. She graduated from the
University of Birmingham,
England.
[edit] Acting career
Widely recognized as one of the most beautiful women in films, Carroll's aristocratic blonde allure and sophisticated style were first glimpsed by British movie audiences in
The Guns of Loos in 1928. Rapidly rising to stardom in England, she graced such popular films of the early '30s as
Young Woodley,
Atlantic,
The School for Scandal and
I Was A Spy. Abruptly, she announced plans to retire from films to devote herself to a private life with her husband, the first of four.
She attracted the attention of
Alfred Hitchcock and, in 1935, starred as one of the director's earliest prototypical cool, glib, intelligent blondes in
The 39 Steps based on the seminal espionage novel by
John Buchan. The film became a sensation and with it, so did Carroll. Cited by the
New York Times for a performance that was "charming and skillful",[
citation needed] Carroll became very much in demand thanks, in part, to director Hitchcock, who later admitted that he worked very hard with her to bring out the vivacious and sexy qualities she possessed offscreen, but which sometimes vanished when cameras rolled.[
citation needed] Of Hitchcock's heroines, as exemplified by Carroll, film critic
Roger Ebert once wrote that they "reflected the same qualities over and over again: They were blonde. They were icy and remote. They were imprisoned in costumes that subtly combined fashion with fetishism. They mesmerized the men, who often had physical or psychological handicaps."[
citation needed]
The director wanted to re-team Carroll with her
39 Steps co-star
Robert Donat the following year in
Secret Agent, a spy thriller based on a work by
W. Somerset Maugham. However, Donat's recurring health problems prevented him from accepting the role and, instead, Hitchcock paired Carroll with
John Gielgud.
Poised for international stardom, Carroll was the first British beauty to be offered a major American film contract; she accepted a lucrative deal with
Paramount Pictures. She starred opposite
Gary Cooper in the adventure
The General Died at Dawn and with
Ronald Colman in the 1937 box-office hit
The Prisoner of Zenda. She tried a big musical
On The Avenue (1937) opposite
Dick Powell, but others of her films, including
One Night in Lisbon (1941), and
My Favorite Blonde (1942) with
Bob Hope, were less prestigious. She made her final film for director
Otto Preminger,
The Fan, adapted from Oscar Wilde's
Lady Windermere's Fan, in 1949.
For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Madeleine Carroll has a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6707 Hollywood Blvd. A commemorative monument and plaques were unveiled in her birthplace, West Bromwich, to mark the centenary of her birth.
[edit] Personal life
After her only sister Marguerite was killed in
the Blitz, she radically shifted her priorities from acting to instead working in field hospitals as a Red Cross nurse during
World War II. She served in the 61st Field Hospital,
Bari, Italy in 1944, where many wounded American airmen flying out of air bases around
Foggia were hospitalized. She was awarded the
Legion d'Honneur for bravery in France.
She became a
naturalized citizen of the United States in 1943.
Madeleine Carroll was married four times:
- Captain Philip Astley (1931–1940)
- Sterling Hayden (1942–1946)
- Andrew Heiskell (1950–1965)
- Henri Lavorel
Madeleine Carroll died on
October 2,
1987 from
pancreatic cancer in
Marbella,
Spain aged 81, exactly one week after
The Prisoner of Zenda co-star,
Mary Astor. She was initially interred in
Fuengirola,
Málaga, Spain but in 1998 was reburied in the cemetery of Sant Antoni de Calonge in
Catalonia, Spain.
[2]
[edit] Partial filmography
icture show annual 1936,filmgoer´s annual 1932 scanned by me
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