Spanish postcard by Grafoto, Barcelona, no. 220. Photo: RKO Radio.
Beautiful American theatre and film actress
Carole Landis (1919-1948) worked as a contract player for Twentieth Century Fox in the 1940s. Her breakout role was as cave girl Loana in
One Million B.C. (1940). She was known as 'The Chest' because of her curvy figure.
Carole Landis was born Frances Lillian Mary Ridste in Fairchild, Wisconsin, in 1919. She was the youngest of five children of Clara (née Sentek), a Polish farmer's daughter, and Norwegian-American Alfred Ridste, a drifting railroad mechanic who abandoned the family after Landis's birth. In 1923, Landis's family moved to San Bernardino, California, where her mother worked menial jobs to support the family. Carole was already on stage at the age of twelve as a Lolita-like competitor in beauty contests. At the age of 15, she married her 19-year-old neighbour Irving Wheeler, but her mother let the marriage be annulled just a month later. They remarried in 1934 with help from her father but separated soon again. In 1939, even though Landis and Wheeler were estranged, he filed for divorce on the grounds of Landis' affair with director and choreographer Busby Berkeley. Wheeler's lawsuit against Berkeley was later dismissed. Berkeley proposed to Landis but later broke it off. At 15, Landis had dropped out of school, hoping to break through into show business. After a few small jobs, she went to San Francisco in 1934, where she performed in a nightclub as a singer and hula dancer. She bleached her hair blonde and changed her name to 'Carole Landis' after her favourite actress, Carole Lombard. When she had saved enough money, Landis moved to Hollywood. She made her film debut with an uncredited bit part in the musical A Star Is Born (William A. Wellman, 1937) starring Janet Gaynor and Fredric March. The film earned seven Oscar nominations and one Oscar for Best Story. In 1937 she landed a contract with Warner Bros. However, Warners gave her mostly bit parts in B pictures and in the chorus of Busby Berkeley musicals for the 15 films she made for them. She posed for hundreds of cheesecake photographs. Her big break came in 1940, with the lead role as cave girl Loana in a skimpy outfit in One Million B.C. (Hal Roach, 1940) with Victor Mature. The film was a sensation and turned Landis into a star. That year, she married and after two months of marriage divorced yacht broker Willis Hunt Jr.
After three fine comedies, Hal Roach sold Carole Landis' contract to 20th Century Fox. There, she was taken under the wing of studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck, with whom she had an affair. This move proved to be a successful one. Landis appeared in a string of successful films in the early 1940s, usually as the second female lead and Landis became a popular pin-up with servicemen during World War II. She was regularly paired in films with Betty Grable, like in the musical Moon Over Miami (Walter Lang, 1941) and the crime drama Hot Spot / I Wake Up Screaming (H.B. Humberstone, 1941). Critics dwelled on her fresh-faced beauty, seldom mentioning her acting and comedy potential. During World War II, Landis was active in the Feminine Theatrical Task Force and toured Europe and North Africa to entertain the army. On the way, she almost died of malaria. She published her experiences under the title 'Four Jills in a Jeep', which was made into the film, Four Girls in a Jeep (William A. Seiter, 1944) costarring Kay Francis and Martha Raye. As depicted in the film, Landis met U.S. Army Air Forces pilot Capt. Thomas C. Wallace in England in November 1942 and married him on 5 January 1943. The couple divorced in July 1945. When her affair with Zanuck stopped, Landis' success in films ended immediately. In 1945 she starred on Broadway in the musical 'A Lady Says Yes'. She also married her Broadway producer W. Horace Schmidlapp. In 1948, this fifth marriage also ended on the rocks. Meanwhile, her career was not going smoothly either. Her final two films, the crime drama Noose (Edmond T. Gréville, 1948) and the comedy thriller Brass Monkey (Thornton Freeland, 1948) were both made in Great Britain. She had an affair with British actor Rex Harrison, but he was unwilling to leave his wife Lilli Palmer for her. One source also points out that her contract with 20th Century Fox had expired around this time. Landis ended up in depression and committed suicide at the age of 29 by swallowing an overdose of pills. 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. She was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale. Denny Jackson at IMDb: "She was only 29 and had made 49 pictures, most of which were, unfortunately, forgettable. If Hollywood moguls had given Carole a chance, she could have been one of the brightest stars in its history." In 1960, she was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 1765 Vine Street.
Sources: Denny Jackson (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English), and IMDb
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