Carole Landis
Carole Landis was an American actress. She worked as a contract player for Twentieth Century-Fox in the 1940s. Her breakout role was as the female lead in the 1940 film One Million B.C. from United Artists. She was known as "The Ping Girl" and "The Chest" because of her curvy figure.
Early life
Landis was born on January 1, 1919, in Fairchild, Wisconsin, the youngest of five children of Clara, a Polish farmer's daughter, and Norwegian-American Alfred Ridste, a drifting railroad mechanic who abandoned the family after Landis's birth. According to Landis's biographer E. J. Fleming, circumstantial evidence supports that Landis was likely the biological child of her mother's second husband, Charles Fenner. Fenner left Landis's mother in April 1921 and remarried a few months later.In 1923, Landis's family moved to San Bernardino, California, where her mother worked menial jobs to support the family. At the age of 15, Landis dropped out of San Bernardino High School and set forth on a career path to show business. She started out as a hula dancer in a San Francisco nightclub, where she was described by her boss as a "nervous $35-a-week blonde doing a pathetic hula at her opening night at the old Royal Hawaiian on Bush ...that'll never get her anyplace in show business". He apparently employed her only because he felt sorry for her; she later sang with a dance band. She bleached her hair blonde and adopted the name "Carole Landis" in honor of her favorite actress, Carole Lombard, and baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis. After saving $100, she moved to Hollywood.
Career
Film career
She was signed by Warner Bros. in late 1936 and went on to appear in two dozen features, mostly for Bryan Foy's low-budget "B" unit. By 1938 she was working in the studio's major motion pictures like The [Adventures of Robin Hood (film)|The Adventures of Robin Hood] and Boy Meets Girl, but only in uncredited bits.Dissatisfied with her lack of progress, she moved on to Republic Pictures, a small but efficient studio specializing in action pictures. The smaller studio paid more attention to her, giving her ingenue leads in two Three Mesquiteers westerns and a serial, Daredevils of the Red Circle.
Pioneer producer Hal Roach was preparing One Million B.C., a dramatic film about prehistoric people menaced by the elements. He hired another movie pioneer, D. W. Griffith, to cast the picture. It was to be a rugged shoot, with many scenes staged outdoors. Roach recalled:
Hal Roach saw star potential in Carole Landis and signed her to a contract in June 1940. He continued casting her in three more starring roles, the best known being Turnabout, a role-reversal farce written by Thorne Smith and co-starring John Hubbard.
She returned to Republic for one more film, the Judy Canova comedy Sis Hopkins. She then landed a contract with Twentieth Century-Fox and began a sexual relationship with studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck. She had roles playing opposite fellow pin-up girl Betty Grable in the musical Moon Over Miami and the crime drama I Wake Up Screaming, both in 1941. When Landis ended her relationship with Zanuck, he stopped furthering her career. She remained under contract but was now assigned to lesser pictures, and Fox loaned her out to other studios three times. Her final two films, Noose and Brass Monkey, were both made in Great Britain.
USO tours
Carole Landis became a popular pin-up with servicemen during World War II. In 1942, she traveled with comedian Martha Raye, dancer Mitzi Mayfair, and actress Kay Francis, serving for the USO in England and North Africa. Two years later, she entertained soldiers in the South Pacific alongside Jack Benny. During the war, Landis traveled over 100,000 miles and was the actress who spent the most time engaged in this activity. During her travels, she became seriously ill due to amoebic dysentery and malaria.Broadway
In 1945 she starred on Broadway in the musical A Lady Says Yes, with future novelist Jacqueline Susann in a small role. Susann is said to have based the character of Jennifer North, from her best-selling novel Valley of the Dolls, in part on Landis.Writing
Landis wrote several newspaper and magazine articles about her experiences during the war, including the 1944 book Four Jills in a Jeep, which was later made into a movie costarring Kay Francis, Martha Raye, and Mitzi Mayfair. She also wrote the foreword to Vic Herman's cartoon book Winnie the WAC.Personal life
Landis was married four times and had no children. In January 1934, 15-year-old Landis married her first husband, 19-year-old Irving Wheeler. Her mother had the marriage annulled in February 1934. Landis persuaded her father, Alfred Ridste, to allow her to remarry Wheeler. He finally relented, and the two were remarried on August 25, 1934. After three weeks of marriage, Landis and Wheeler got into an argument, and Landis walked out. Neither filed for divorce, and Landis began pursuing an acting career. In 1938, Wheeler reappeared and filed a $250,000 alienation of affections lawsuit against director and choreographer Busby Berkeley. Even though Landis and Wheeler were estranged, he claimed that Berkeley had enticed and otherwise persuaded Landis to transfer her affections. Landis maintained that she had not seen Wheeler in years and had heard from him only the previous year when he claimed to want a divorce. Wheeler's lawsuit was later dismissed, and Landis and Wheeler were divorced in 1939.In June 1939 Berkeley proposed to Landis but later broke it off. On July 4, 1940, she married yacht broker Willis Hunt Jr. in Las Vegas. Landis left Hunt after two months of marriage due to abuse by Hunt; they were divorced on November 20, 1940.
While touring army camps in London in 1942, she met United States Army Air Forces Captain Thomas Wallace. They were married in January 1943, and the wedding received a two-page photo spread in Life magazine. Landis would also write an article about their honeymoon for the June 1943 edition of Photoplay. The couple separated in early 1945, and they would divorce in July 1945. Landis would write about the relationship, marriage, and later causes that led to the eventual collapse of their marriage in her article "Don't Marry A Stranger" for the January 1945 issue of Photoplay. She would state that "No woman ever loved a man more than I loved Tommy Wallace. And Tommy loved me, too. All my life, above all the rest, I want to remember that."
On December 8, 1945, Landis married Broadway producer W. Horace Schmidlapp. They separated in 1947, and Landis filed for divorce in May 1948, charging Schmidlapp with "extreme mental cruelty." During her separation from Schmidlapp, Landis began a relationship with actor Rex Harrison, who was then married to actress Lilli Palmer. The affair became widely known in Hollywood as an "open secret." After Landis's death, however, Harrison downplayed their relationship and publicly claimed that she was merely a close friend of himself and Palmer.
Death
Landis was reportedly crushed when Harrison refused to divorce his wife to be with her. On July 5, 1948, unable to cope any longer, she committed suicide in her Pacific Palisades home at 1465 Capri Drive by taking an overdose of Seconal. Before she took her life, she penned a note to her mother, expressing remorse for the pain her actions would cause. She assured her mother and family members of her love and asked her to find her will, which left everything to her mother. Landis signed off as “Your Baby” and requested her mother’s prayers. Harrison was the last person to see her alive, having had dinner with her the night before she committed suicide.The next afternoon, Harrison and Landis's maid discovered her on the bathroom floor. Harrison waited several hours before he called a doctor and the police. According to some sources, Landis left two suicide notes, one for her mother and the second for Harrison, who instructed his lawyers to destroy it. During a coroner's inquest, Harrison denied knowing any motive for her suicide and told the coroner he did not know of the existence of a second suicide note. Landis's official website, which her family owns, has questioned the events of Landis's death and the coroner's ruling of suicide. She is interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California, in plot 814 of the "Everlasting Love" section. Among the celebrities at her funeral were Cesar Romero, Van Johnson, and Pat O'Brien. Harrison attended with his wife.
Landis has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1765 Vine Street.