Earl Carroll Girls

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From MGM to EC and Back to MGM

SHIRLEY SINGS IN MUSIC MAN

THIS WAS OLD HOLLYWOOD

VIDEOS By: Felix in Hollywood

Shirley Claire's Movie Moment

Mrs. Lowery meets Mr. Lowery

Shirley Claire and the Stewardesses

"Swinging" at Earl Carroll's

Shirley's Hollywood Diet

Shirley at the Earl Carroll Theater

Shirley Claire at MGM

TOUR OLD HOLLYWOOD

Shirley's EC Employment Contract ($50.00 per week then = $482.69 in today's dollars.= $25,000+ per year)

"I REMEMBER MR. CARROLL once sending me a note:

'Tell the girl with the piano - keyboard teeth to shut her mouth.'

He didn't like us to smile. We wore full white body make up that we had to purchase for 50 cents a bottle. It looked like Milk of Magnesia. Mr. Carroll did not allow suntan's." SHIRLEY

A SHORT BIOGRAPHY

Earl Carroll was a World War I pilot, American theatrical producer, director, songwriter, composer and theater owner - born in Pittsburgh, Pa.

CARROLL WROTE scores for Broadway shows and wrote popular songs.

EARL CARROLL lived and worked during the vaudeville - burlesque era; in the world of the 1910's, 20's, 30's, and 40's. He refined burlesque and made it into an art form.

Earl Carroll quote:

"ANY MALE LOOKING for a "leg show" could simply head to the nearest beach.

THIS BATHING SUITE WAS CONSIDERED RISQUE IN THE 1920'S.

Our young people in their unafraid companionship preach and practice a freedom formerly unknown."

Click EARL CARROLL IN JAIL !

EARL CARROLL LIVED through two world wars and saw the great change in society; it's tastes and customs. Earl Carol was able to keep up with the changes.

INTERESTING REVIEW by Ed Sullivan

HE DIED in an airplane crash which also took the life of his companion Beryl Wallace, on June 17, 1948, in Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania.

EARL CARROLL was one of the movers and shakers of Hollywood.

HE OWNED clubs in the twenties, thirties and forties. His theaters were in New York (long gone) and in Los Angeles.

ACCORDING TO Ken Murray who wrote "The Body Merchant"; Earl Carroll was "The most notorious connoisseur of female flesh in the history of show business ."

OVER THE ENTRANCE of both of the theaters was a neon sign: "Through these portals pass the most beautiful girls in the world."

THIS WAS A TIME for conspicuous clubbing. It was a time to dress in your tightest and brightest, to wear flashing smiles and face flash bulbs in cameras.

HAIR WAS SHORT, shingled and lacquered; and shone with brilliantine. It was no surprise that Carroll's revues were called 'Vanities'. But the name of the show wasn't important, because THE PEOPLE CAME TO SEE THE GIRLS.

THE SURREAL and statuesque costumes from the previous decade were considered clumsy and prehistoric.

WHO KNOWS how many pounds of feathers, layers of painted taffeta or yards of sequined silk were packed away into trunks?

NO MATTER - people wanted to see bodies..... And Carroll found them.

HE PRIDED HIMSELF on how perfectly he matched his girls.

BEFORE A GIRL was accepted, a willing girl had to be subjected to over twenty measurements. Notes were also taken on her voice, hair, eyes - the things that defeated the measuring tape.

AND CONSIDERED LAST of all was 'personality'.

EARLIER, the use of cosmetic endowments was seen as not only immoral but illegal. Just as the waist was being tortured, the use of bum-rolls, bustle frills and hip panniers made the admirer forget its torment and to focus on its exquisite tininess.

IN 1770 A BILL WAS PASSED into English law, forbidding any woman "To impose upon, seduce, or betray into Matrimony any of His Majesty's subjects by means of scent, paints, cosmetic washes, artificial teeth, iron stays, hoops, high-heeled shoes, or bolstered hips." Let the buyer beware.

A quote from Earl Carroll's auto-biography.

"GIRLS LIKE TO admire beautiful girls, and men unquestionably do, and they will all pay for this pleasure.

OF COURSE, this leads to my making money, thus satisfying my material as well as artistic desire."

CARROLL PRODUCED and directed numerous Broadway musicals, including eleven editions of: Earl Carroll Vanities and Earl Carroll Sketch Book.

HE ALSO produced Murder at the Vanities, which was made into a film starring Jack Yucky. Known as: "The Troubadour of the Nude"

CARROLL was famous for his productions featuring the most lightly clad showgirls on Broadway and in Hollywood. In 1922 he built the first Earl Carroll Theatre in New York, which was demolished and rebuilt on a grander scale in 1931. His marketing was superb. See: POST CARDS (Please allow time for the photos to load.)

IN GOOD COMPANY