Lucille Carroll

{{Short description|American actress (1906–2002)}} {{more footnotes needed|date=June 2014}} {{Use American English|date=June 2021}} {{Use mdy dates|date=June 2021}} {{Infobox person | name =  | image =  | alt =  | caption = | birth_name = Garnett Lucille Ryman | birth_date = {{Birth date|1906|06|10}} | birth_place = Macon County, Illinois, U.S. | death_date = {{Death date and age|2002|10|23|1906|06|10}} | death_place = Glendale, California, U.S. | other_names = | alma_mater = Millikin University | occupation = Actress | years_active = | known_for = | notable_works = | spouse = {{marriage|John Carroll|1947|1979|end=his death}} | relatives = Herbert Ryman (brother) }}

'''Garnett Lucille Ryman Carroll''', stage name '''Jane Starr''' (born '''Garnett Lucille Ryman'''; June 10, 1906 – October 23, 2002) was an American Broadway actress and the first female studio executive in Hollywood.<ref name=":0">{{cite news|title=Lucille Ryman Carroll, 96; MGM Talent Manager Mentored Actors|author=Rourke, Mary|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=November 2, 2002|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-nov-02-me-lucille2-story.html|access-date=September 15, 2014}}</ref>

==Early life== Garnett Lucille Ryman was born in Macon County, Illinois,<ref name=":0" /> to Dr. Herbert D. Ryman and Cora Ryman. while he was at Kansas State Medical College. He died in France while a field surgeon during World War I when Carroll was 12 years old.<ref name="hr" />

Carroll graduated from Decatur High School in Decatur, Illinois, and in 1926 she graduated from Millikin University, where she was a member of the Delta Delta Delta sorority and acted in plays. During the following five years, she taught at Assumption High School and Roosevelt Junior High, acting in plays staged by Decatur's Town and Gown Players, a community theater company.<ref name="hr">{{cite news |last1=Freeman |first1=Huey |title=Central Illinois womanfinds Hollywood ending |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/84933639/lucille-carroll/ |access-date=September 8, 2021 |work=Herald and Review |date=November 29, 2002 |location=Illinois, Decatur |page=Time Out! 12|via = Newspapers.com}}</ref>

Carroll quit her teaching job "to go adventuring into the land of the theater".<ref name=play>{{cite news |last1=Atlass |first1=B. |title=Play Failures Come Rapidly |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/84936805/lucille-carroll/ |access-date=September 8, 2021 |work=The Decatur Daily Review |date=November 11, 1933 |page=4|via = Newspapers.com}}</ref> Moving to California, she studied acting at the Pasadena Playhouse, doing well enough in its summer session that she received a $1,000 scholarship (free tuition) for the winter session.<ref name=play/>

Carroll's brother, Herbert Ryman was an artist for MGM and the Walt Disney Company. She also had a sister, Christine.<ref name="hr" />

==Career== {{one source|section|date=December 2017}} Using the stage name '''Jane Starr''',<ref name="play" /> she worked with movie producer Louis O. Macloon at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, demonstrating how motion pictures were made. Macloon, who had recently given an actor named Clark Gable some of his first parts, chose her to star in the Broadway play ''It Pays to Sin''.

When the play received scathing reviews and closed, Carroll sought consolation by visiting backstage with Katharine Hepburn, who had also received terrible reviews while acting in a nearby theater. Hepburn was characteristically blunt. "Then you're not an actress", Hepburn told Carroll. "I don't care what the critics say about me. I know what I am."{{Citation needed |date=September 2021}}

Carroll moved to San Francisco, where she and Macloon opened an experimental theater and produced several plays. She married Macloon in 1936. They divorced within a few years.{{Citation needed |date=September 2021}} During the 1930s, she traveled throughout the nation as talent scout for Universal Pictures,<ref name="ms">{{cite news |title=Star Gazer |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/84936185/lucille-carroll/ |access-date=September 8, 2021 |work=The Montana Standard |date=August 22, 1937 |page=66|via = Newspapers.com}}</ref> rising to become head of that studio's talent department in New York.

Carroll headed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's talent department from 1941 to 1954 and helped sign a young actress named Lana Turner, helped arrange a key screen test for Marilyn Monroe and played a role in bringing June Allyson and Janet Leigh to MGM. She was one of the first women to reach a position of executive power in the old Hollywood studio system.

At MGM, she met John Carroll, a successful actor who had appeared in movies such as ''Flying Tigers'' with John Wayne and ''Go West'' with the Marx Brothers. They were married in 1947. He died in 1979. Movies made at MGM while Lucille Carroll ran its training department included ''Singin' in the Rain'', ''Show Boat,'' ''Gaslight'' and ''Meet Me in St. Louis''.

While she was there, MGM garnered 16 Academy Award nominations for best picture, winning Oscars for ''An American in Paris'' and ''Mrs. Miniver''. In 1942, Hepburn signed a contract with MGM to appear in a picture, ''Woman of the Year'', the first of many in which she appeared with Spencer Tracy. One of Carroll's roles at MGM was as an advisor to established stars such as Hepburn, Tracy, Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney and Greer Garson. She smoothed over differences that arose between the stars and the studio's business executives.

In later years, Carroll resided in Burbank with her brother. After Herb's death, she produced a collection of his great works and many Disney conceptual works, that later became reality, as the hallmark of the Disney Theme Parks. She also co-founded the Ryman-Carroll Foundation as a tribute to her brother and to honor his lifelong dedication to mentoring young artists.

==Personal life and death==

As Jane Starr, Carroll married Lieutenant Commander Charles Bellamy Carpenter, Jr., on December 24, 1945,<ref>{{cite news |title=Actress Jane Starr Reveals Marriage |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/74449445/jane-starr/ |access-date=March 26, 2021 |work=Evening Vanguard |date=January 10, 1946 |location=California, Venice |page=1|via = Newspapers.com}}</ref> in Las Vegas, Nevada.<ref>{{cite news |title=Jane Starr Discloses That She's Bride |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/74449782/jane-starr/ |access-date=March 26, 2021 |work=The Los Angeles Times |date=January 9, 1946 |page=13|via = Newspapers.com}}</ref>

In 1947 she married John Carroll (actor) until his death in 1979.

She died in her Glendale home at the age of 96 on October 23, 2002.<ref name=founders>{{cite web|url=http://www.rymanarts.org/content/founders|author=Ryman Arts|title=Founders|accessdate=September 18, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=2002-11-03 |title=Lucille Carroll |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2002/11/03/lucille-carroll/a9d99576-bb48-4f43-b69f-57cfb34266db/ |access-date=2025-09-12 |work=The Washington Post |language=en-US |issn=0190-8286}}</ref>

==Partial filmography== *''Danger Ahead'' (1921) *''The Mad Marriage'' (1921) *''Bobbed Hair'' (1922) *''Her Night of Nights'' (1922) *''The Fighting American'' (1924) * ''The Whispered Name'' (1924) *''Manhattan Madness'' (1925)

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== *{{IMDb name|0753360}} *{{IBDB name|name=Jane Starr}}

==Sources== *{{cite news |last=Worldstream |first=AP |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-69267443.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110516151638/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-69267443.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=2011-05-16 |title= Lucille Carroll, woman who broke into old Hollywood to lead MGM talent department |publisher=AP Worldstream |date=2002-11-02 |accessdate=2007-03-09}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carroll, Lucille}} Category:1906 births Category:2002 deaths Category:20th-century American singers Category:20th-century American women singers Category:Actors from Decatur, Illinois Category:Actresses from Topeka, Kansas Category:American film studio executives Category:American musical theatre actresses Category:American women in film