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Carole Landis (Broken-Hearted Melody) A tribute to Carole Landis (1919-1948), the beautiful, brilliant and talented blonde actress known as 'The Ping Girl' (a nickname she disliked). A New Year's baby, born Frances Lillian Mary Ridste in Fairchild, Wisconsin, to a Norweigan father and a Polish mother. From a young age, she was a feminist who tried to start a girl's football team at her high school. When she arrived in Hollywood, she began in small parts at Warner Brothers and was eventually put under contract at 20th Century Fox, where she decided on the name Carole in honor of her favorite actress, Carole Lombard. She shone in comedies ('Having A Wonderful Crime', 1944), musicals ('Moon Over Miami' 1941), film noir ('I Wake Up Screaming' 1941), historical action dramas ('One Million BC', 1940) and war-time films ('Four Jills In A Jeep' 1944, which was based on her book about her experiences during her USO tours). A talented singer who used her own singing voice in musicals, she was also an amateur photographer, and was one of the top pin-ups of World War II. In fact, she visited troops more than any star, even contracting malaria and becoming deathly ill when touring overseas. Despite appearances that she had everything, Carole was emotionally fragile when it came to her personal life and she suffered from depression and other health problems, most notably endometroisis, which overruled any chance of having children, which had been a lifelong dream of hers. Four times married and divorced, she had attempted suicide a few times and by the mid-forties her career was already in decline. She was reduced to B movies and longer stretches between projects. Heavily in debt, in poor health, ostracized in Hollywood due to her tumultous private life, depressed by her affair with actor Rex Harrison (which had come to an end), Carole took an overdoes of barbitutes, and Harrison, with whom she had dined the night before, discovered her body. The tragedy was a serious blow to his career and it took some years before it picked up momentum again. Harrison has often been cast as the villain in this tragic story, but his son Noel insists, 'It was a terrible, terrible tragedy. I don't know how he went on with his life after that.' Terrible, indeed that this lovely woman with so much to give felt the need to take her own life, that she got to the point where she felt that living held nothing for her anymore. In a somewhat poignant tribute, author Jacqueline Susann, who became friendly with Carole during the early 40s when they both were appearing on stage, partially based the tragic Jennifer North in her novel 'Valley Of The Dolls' on Carole. I used Sarah Vaughn's 'Broken-Hearted Melody' in tribute to this gorgeous girl who left a short but memorable legacy in the history of film. Enjoy. DISCLAIMER: All photos and music are copyrighted to their respective owners. No infringement intended. *This is the second video tribute to Carole I have made. The first one, which was posted here a year ago, was recently blocked by the site apparently due to a music copyright issue. In fact, several of my videos have been blocked because of claims like that, and while youtube does allow you to use Audioswap for your videos, I have found most of their music provided to be mediocre. I've tried it with a few videos but I just didn't like the results. So, from now on I'm going to be deleting any of my videos that have been blocked and will probably redo them using different music and effects. I'm finding this copyright stuff to be a bit ridiculous and frustrating, especially when you find the same songs on the site and the videos are still live. Oh, well, press on! Source: youtube |
