Voluptuous Beryl Wallace was born in Brooklyn, New York, the eldest of
nine children of working class Austrian-Jewish émigrés. With her
knockout looks and obvious shapeliness, the "Big Apple" beauty
naturally gravitated toward an entertainment career and first turned to
dancing. She was only a teenager when, acting on a casting call ad,
earned a role in the "Earl Carroll Vanities" of 1928. Carroll changed
her marquee name to "Beryl Wallace" and off she went to appear in other
provocative shows that featured flesh and fantasy themes, some even
requiring frontal nudity. Outside of Carroll's Vanities of 1930, 1931,
1932, 1935 and 1940, Beryl also appeared on Broadway in the musical
comedy "Treasure Girl" (1928), Carroll's "Murder at the Vanities"
(1932) and "The Women" (1936), in which she had a small part as a
model.
The pencil-browed brunet and producer/mogul
Earl Carroll, who was at least 16
years her senior, began to engage in a personal relationship as well as
professional. In Hollywood he had her headlining his shows at the Earl
Carroll Theatre and Restaurant on Sunset Boulevard. From there she made
her movie debut in a film adaptation of Carroll's Broadway play
Murder at the Vanities (1934),
and then went on to appear in a number of small roles until co-starring
with western star Tom Keene in the
Monogram programmer
Romance of the Rockies (1937).
She went on to perform in nearly two dozen "B" films, mostly action
adventures or westerns, opposite a number of good-looking leading men
including Kermit Maynard in
Rough Riding Rhythm (1937),
Larry J. Blake and
Dick Purcell, who fought over her in
Air Devils (1938),
Roy Rogers in
Sunset on the Desert (1942),
and Richard Dix in
Der Sheriff von Kansas (1943). Her last films,
in which she was again reduced to secondary femmes, were in
Eine Frau für den Marshal (1943)
and Enemy of Women (1944). Most of
her other films, to her detriment, had the gorgeous gal serving as mere
set decoration and in unbilled parts.
Throughout her minor film reign, she remained a star attraction at Earl
Carroll's spectacular musical reviews. During World War II, sexy Beryl
did her part by singing and hosting on radio shows. She also
entertained soldiers at the Masquers Club and danced at the Hollywood
Canteen. The fact that her film career did not amount to too much did
not have her overly concerned. She WAS a star -- in
Earl Carroll's extravaganzas.
In 1948, Carroll was in the final planning stages of opening a larger
theater just one block from his current location. The new one would
rival New York's Radio City Music Hall and cost upwards of $15,000,000.
On June 17, 1948, while en route from Los Angeles to New York City,
both Beryl and Earl perished in the crash of United Airlines Flight 624
at Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania. Forced to make an emergency landing, the
plane crashed into a 66,000 volt transformer on its quick descent and
exploded. According to Carroll's wishes in his will, their ashes were
interred together in the Garden of Memory at Forest Lawn Memorial Park
Cemetery in Glendale, California. On top of their crypt lies a huge
facsimile of Carroll's own hands holding a life-sized figure
symbolizing the impossibly beautiful Beryl.
