In this Book
- Carole Landis: A Most Beautiful Girl
- Book
- 2008
- Published by: University Press of Mississippi
summary
Despite appearing in twenty-eight movies in little over a decade, Carole Landis (1919-1948) never quite became the major Hollywood star her onscreen presence should have afforded her. Although she acted in such enduring films as A Scandal in Paris and Moon over Miami, she was most often relegated to supporting roles. Even when she played the major role in a feature, as she did in The Powers Girl and the film noir I Wake Up Screaming!, she was billed second or third behind other actors. This biography traces Landis's life, chronicling her beginnings as a dance hall entertainer in San Francisco, her career in Hollywood and abroad, her USO performances, and ultimately her suicide. Using interviews with actors who worked with Landis, contemporary movie magazines and journals, and correspondence, biographer Eric Gans reveals a tragic figure whose life was all too brief. Landis's big break came in 1940 with Hal Roach's One Million B.C. She appeared in thirteen Twentieth Century-Fox pictures between 1941 and 1946. In 1942-43, Landis entertained troops in England and North Africa in the only all-female USO tour. The trip led to her memoir, Four Jills in a Jeep, and a Fox movie of the same title. After her last American film in 1947, she completed two projects in England while having an affair with married actor Rex Harrison. Tormented by a love that could not lead to matrimony and depressed about growing older, she took a fatal drug overdose on July 5, 1948. Eric Gans is professor of French at University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of numerous books including most recently The Scenic Imagination: Originary Thinking from Hobbes to the Present Day, and his articles have appeared in many periodicals.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Acknowledgments
- pp. ix-xi
- Introduction
- pp. 3-10
- Chapter 1. Beginnings (1919–1935)
- pp. 11-23
- Chapter 8. Regrouping (1945–1946)
- pp. 142-162
- Chapter 9. Anglophilia (1947–1948)
- pp. 163-183
- Chapter 10. The Good Die Young (1948)
- pp. 184-203
- Bibliography
- pp. 253-265
- Filmography
- pp. 266-270
Additional Information
ISBN
9781604733198
Related ISBN(s)
9781604730135
MARC Record
OCLC
317401629
Pages
288
Launched on MUSE
2012-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No