The Black Country blonde bombshell who went on to be box office dynamite But ‘world’s most beautiful woman’ and Hitchcock muse turned back on Hollywood
THE name Madeleine Carroll will mean little to today’s fans of the silver screen. But in her day – an era when cinema brightened the landscape for a British public faced with the storm clouds of war, Edith Madeleine Carroll was the planet’s highest paid actress.
In one year alone, she earned 250,000 dollars. – and that year was 78 years ago.
She was the stunning local lass who conquered Hollywood. In fact, Carroll was dubbed the world’s most beautiful woman.
Made a global star by Alfred Hitchcock, she sizzled in such classics as The 39 Steps, alongside Robert Donat, The Prisoner of Zenda and The General Died At Dawn with Gary Cooper.
Yet she slipped from the limelight at the peak of her fame, abandoning her glittering acting career following the death of sister Marguerite in The Blitz.
It is difficult to comprehend how bright Carroll’s star shone in an era littered with legends.
She straddled silent and talking pictures and, with her smouldering looks and ash-blonde hair, laid down the ice maiden template that became a trademark of Hitchcock’s leading ladies. But she paid a high price for the heady status Hitchcock – a man know for controlling, even bullying, his female stars – bestowed on her.
During filming, he referred to Carroll as “the Birmingham tart” and after finishing The 39 Steps gloated: “Nothing pleases me more than to knock the ladylikeness out of them.”
During the filming of the 1935 classic, Hitchcock left Carroll and co-star Robert Donat handcuffed together for hours. He claimed he’d forgotten the key.
In reality, it was a ruse intended to build chemistry between the two stars.
Married four times, Carroll died of pancreatic cancer in her adopted home of Marbella, Spain on October 2, 1987. She was 81 years old.
Her time at the very top may have been relatively brief, but she made enough of a mark to gain a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The blonde bombshell’s tireless work to help the war effort also earned her America’s Medal of Freedom and the Legion d’Honneur from France.
It’s very heady stuff for a girl-nextdoor, born at 32 Herbert Street, West Bromwich, on February 26, 1906.
Her father John, from Co. Limerick, was a professor of languages, and French-born mum Helene honed the aloofness that was to be Carroll’s trademark. Childhood was routine, almost uneventful, for the megastar in the making. In 1912, the family moved to 7 Jesson Street and, bolstered by her father’s home tuition, Carroll soon developed into something of a scholastic phenomenon.
By the summer of 1926, she had gained a BA with honours in French from Birmingham University and was ready to become a French teacher.
She later recalled: “Everything indicated that I would spend the rest of my days teaching. I was shy, nervous all through college. My father had set his heart on my getting an MA and all would have gone well if I had not joined a drama society in my senior year.”
Carroll’s looks earned her a lead part in Birmingham University’s annual production, Selma.
“Somehow I did it as if I had been acting all my life,” said the actress. “I understood then how people get ‘a call’.”
Legendary Birmingham Rep director Sir Barry Jackson spotted Carroll in the play and immediately realised he had a star on his hands. He offered a contract, but the budding actress’ father, who strongly disapproved of a showbiz career, put his foot down.
He packed his daughter off to Paris to continue her education, but she soon returned, even more determined to tread the boards. Carroll’s father was so furious that he kicked