Listen to Carole Landis online free at Last.fm.
Stage Name: Carole Landis
Birth Name: Frances Lillian Mary Ridste
Occupation: Movie, Stage, Radio Actress / WWII U.S. Troop Entertainer / 1940s Pinup Model / Writer / Singer / Radio Personality
Years Active: 1937–1948
Notable Works: Carole Landis Some of her more remembered roles are as the heroine in the serial Daredevils of the Red Circle (Republic, 1939); as the murdered blonde in the Betty Grable / Victor Mature I Wake Up Screaming (20th Century Fox, 1941); as a gossipy band wife in the film about the life of Glenn Miller, Orchestra Wives (20th Century Fox, 1942) and it was the 1940 Hal Roach production of One Million B.C. that first propeled her movie career to staredom but she will be best appreciated by many for the tour she took with Jack Benny of the U.S. bases in the Pacific and the global U.S. Troop Camp Tour she made during WWII with the other three Jills and the movie they made based on that tour called Four Jills in a Jeep where Carole Landis costars with Kay Francis, Martha Raye , and Mitzi Mayfair
Date/Place Birth: January 1, 1919(1919-01-01); Fairchild, Wisconsin, U.S.A.
Date/Death/Cause: Carole Landis died July 5, 1948 at the young age of 29 at her Pacific Palisades, California, home. In 1948 Carole Landis began a romance with actor Rex Harrison, who was married to actress Lilli Palmer at the time. Landis was reportedly crushed when Harrison refused to divorce his wife for her; it has been said that unable to cope any longer, she committed suicide at her Pacific Palisades home by taking an overdose of Seconal. The notes she wrote and they found was undated and many things have been speculated but it will never really be known for sure what happened the night that Carole Landis died, it may or may not have been an intentional suicide, it may have been a cry for help that went unanswered, some even say it may have been murder. Many questions may be unanswered but one thing is for sure the world suffered a great tragic loss when she died. She is interred at Forest Lawn Glendale, Glendale, California, USA, in the Everlasting Love area, Lot #814, Section #8.
Spouse(s) & Children:At 15 she merried her 19 old neighbor Irving Wheeler in 1934 then the marriage was annulled; then in 1934 they remarried then in 1939 divorced. In 1940 she married yacht broker Willis Hunt Jr. and divorced two months later. Next in she met an Army Air Corps captain named Thomas Wallace in London, they had a church wedding in 1943 then divorced two years later. In 1945, Landis married Broadway producer W. Horace Schmidlapp whom she was seperated from at the time of her 1948 death. Summary: Irving Wheeler (m.1934 annulled; remarried 1934–1939 divorced) Willis Hunt Jr. (m.1940 -1940 divorced) Thomas C. Wallace (m.1943–1945 divorced) W. Horace Schmidlapp (m.1945–1948 her death)
Short Biography: She was the fifth child of Fairchild, Wisconsin residents Alfred Ridste a Norwegian railroad mechanic and his Polish wife Clara two of the children had died as toddlers Jerome was burned by scalding water and Lewis was accidentally shot. Called Frances Lillian Mary Ridste she was born on New Year's Day 1919 in Fairchild, Wisconsin. Her father deserted the family when Frances was quite young and her mother moved her and her siblings to California. Born with a natural beauty, young Frances won many beauty contests, worked as a San Francisco nightclub entertainer and band singer and also had bit parts in numerous good feature films before getting her “big break” in the Hollywood movie business when in 1940 she was cast as Loana in the Hal Roach production of One Million B.C., where her beauty (and skimpy cave girl outfit) finally got her recognition, and her movie career finally began moving up. Carole Landis put in more effort, touring mileage and spent more time entertaining and visiting troops during World War II than any other Hollywood star and on one of her camp show tours she nearly died from amoebic dysentery and malaria that she contracted while in the South Pacific. Carole Landis was married four times; at times she was happy, especially with third husband Captain Thomas Cherry Wallace but she was never able to find her “soul mate” or form a lasting harmonious relationship and Carole desperately wanted to become a mother but she suffered from endometriosis and could not have children. It is widely accepted that she took an overdose of seconal and committed suicide July 5, 1948 at the young age of 29 over frustration from love affair she was having with then married actor Rex Harrison. for a more detailed and pictured Carole Landis biography read her story at her Fansite