Madeleine Carroll

Madeleine Carroll (February 26, 1906 - October 2, 1987) was a British actress, who was renowned for her great beauty and immense popularity in the 1930s and 1940s.

She was born as Edith Madeleine Carroll at 32 Herbert Street (now number 44) West Bromwich, England, and she graduated from the University of Birmingham, England.

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, 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. Handcuffed to her handsome, debonair costar Robert Donat, with whom she traded wicked double entendres, Carroll's fire was brought out for the first time on screen. 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. Carroll and Donat's chemistry added much to the film that became a template for later Hitchcock spy thrillers including Saboteur, Foreign Correspondent and North by Northwest. Of Hitchcock's heroines such as the one played by Carroll and her successors, 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]

Hoping to re-team Carroll with Donat the following year in Secret Agent, a spy thriller based on a work by W. Somerset Maugham, the director was thwarted. 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 and 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 and classic adventure in The Prisoner of Zenda. Considered to be the finest screen version of the much-filmed swashbuckling novel by Anthony Hope, it won two Oscar nominations and in 1991 was placed by the National Film Preservation Board on the National Film Registry. She tried a big musical On The Avenue, but others of her films, including One Night in Lisbon, and My Favourite Blonde (with Bob Hope) became less prestigious.

She appeared on the enormously popular NBC Radio program, "Chase and Sanborn Hour" October 30, 1938, with Nelson Eddy and Dorothy Lamour (vocalists), Robert Armbruster and his orchestra, starring Edgar Bergen (Charlie McCarthy), Don Ameche (host) Judy Zeke and Anne Canova. She performed with Nelson Eddy, Ameche and Edgar Bergen. After her only sister Marguerite was killed in a London bombing raid, she radically shifted her priorities from acting to instead working in field hospitals as a Red Cross nurse. She was awarded the Legion d'Honneur for bravery in France.

She made her final film for director Otto Preminger, The Fan, from Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan, in 1949.

Awards and achievements beyond film
 

She became an American citizen in 1943. During World War II, Madeleine Carroll was an American Red Cross voluntary worker. Her only sister was killed during the Blitz.

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.

For her remarkable and selfless work during the war, she was awarded the Legion d'Honneur for bravery in France.

Madeleine Carroll was married four times:

1) Captain Philip Astley (1931-1940)
2) Sterling Hayden (1942-1946)
3) Andrew Heiskell (1950-1965)
4) Henri Lavorel
For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Madeleine Carroll has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6707 Hollywood Blvd.

Madeleine Carroll died from pancreatic cancer in Marbella, Spain aged 81. She is interred in the Cementeri de Sant Antoni de Calonge in Catalunya, Spain.

A commemorative monument and plaques were unveiled in her birthplace, West Bromwich to mark the centenary of her birth.