Carole Landis

About Carole Landis

Who is it?: Actress, Soundtrack, Writer
Birth Day: January 01, 1919
Birth Place:  Fairchild, Wisconsin, United States
Died On: July 5, 1948(1948-07-05) (aged 29)\nPacific Palisades, California, U.S.
Birth Sign: Aquarius
Cause of death: Suicide
Resting place: Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale
Education: San Bernardino High School
Occupation: Actress, Singer
Years active: 1937–1948
Spouse(s): Irving Wheeler (m. 1934; annulled 1934) Irving Wheeler (m. 1934; div. 1939) Willis Hunt Jr. (m. 1940; div. 1940) Thomas C. Wallace (m. 1943; div. 1945) W. Horace Schmidlapp (m. 1945–1948)

Carole Landis Net Worth

Carole Landis was born on January 01, 1919 in  Fairchild, Wisconsin, United States, is Actress, Soundtrack, Writer. Carole Landis was born on New Year's Day in 1919 in Fairchild, Wisconsin, as Frances Lillian Mary Ridste. Her father, a railroad mechanic, was of Norwegian descent and her mother was Polish. Her father walked out, leaving Carole, her mother and an older brother and sister to fend for themselves.After graduating from high school, she married Irving Wheeler, but the union lasted a month (the marriage was annulled because Carole was only 15 at the time). The couple remarried in August 1934, and the two headed to California to start a new life. For a while she worked as a dancer and singer, but before long the glitter of show business drew her to Los Angeles.She won a studio contract with Warner Brothers but was a bit player for the most part in such films as A Star Is Born (1937), A Day at the Races (1937), and The Emperor's Candlesticks (1937). The following year started out much the same way, with more bit roles. By 1939, she was getting a few speaking roles, although mostly one-liners, and that year ended much as had the previous two years, with more bit roles; also, she and Wheeler were divorced.In 1940 she was cast as Loana in the Hal Roach production of One Million B.C. (1940); she finally got noticed (the skimpy outfit helped), and her career began moving. She began getting parts in B pictures but didn't star in big productions -- although she had talent, the really good roles were given to the established stars of the day.Her busiest year was 1942, with roles in Manila Calling (1942), The Powers Girl (1943), A Gentleman at Heart (1942), and three other movies. Unfortunately, critics took little notice of her films, and and when they did, reviewers tended to focus on her breathtaking beauty. By the middle 1940s, Carole's career was beginning to short-circuit. Her contract with 20th Century-Fox had been canceled, her marriages to Willis Hunt Jr. and Thomas Wallace had failed, and her current marriage to Horace Schmidlapp was on the skids; all of that plus health problems spelled disaster for her professionally and personally.Her final two films, Brass Monkey (1948) and Noose (1948) were released in 1948. On July 5, 1948, Carole committed suicide by taking an overdose of Seconal in her Brentwood Heights, California, home. She was only 29 and had made 49 pictures, most of which were, unfortunately, forgettable. If Hollywood moguls had given Carole a chance, she could have been one of the brightest stars in its history.
Carole Landis is a member of Actress

💰Carole Landis Net worth: $3 Million

Some Carole Landis images

Biography/Timeline

1765

Landis has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 1765 Vine Street.

1919

Carole Landis was born Frances Lillian Mary Ridste on January 1, 1919 in Fairchild, Wisconsin. She was the youngest of five children (two of whom died in childhood) born to Clara Ridste (née Stentek), a Polish farmer's daughter, and Norwegian-American Alfred Ridste, a "drifting railroad mechanic" who abandoned the family after Landis' birth. According to Landis' biographer E.J. Fleming, circumstantial evidence supports that Landis was likely the biological child of her mother's second husband, Charles Fenner. Fenner left Landis' mother in April 1921 and remarried a few months later.

1923

In 1923, Landis' family moved to San Bernardino, California. Landis's mother worked menial jobs to support the family. At the age of 15, Landis dropped out of San Bernardino High School and set forth on a career path to show Business. She started out as a hula Dancer in a San Francisco nightclub, where she was described by her boss as a "nervous $35-a-week blonde doing a pathetic hula at her opening night at the old Royal Hawaiian on Bush [Street]...that'll never get anyplace in show business" and apparently who employed her only because he felt sorry for her; she later sang with a dance band. She bleached her hair blonde and changed her name to "Carole Landis" after her favorite Actress, Carole Lombard. After saving $100 she moved to Hollywood.

1934

Landis was married four times and had no children (she was unable to conceive due to endometriosis). In January 1934, 15-year-old Landis married her first husband, 19-year-old Irving Wheeler. Her mother had the marriage annulled in February 1934. Landis convinced her father Alfred Ridste (who had left the family shortly after Landis was born and who, by coincidence, lived near the family in San Bernardino) to allow her to remarry Wheeler. He finally relented, and the two were remarried on August 25, 1934. After three weeks of marriage, Landis and Wheeler got into an argument and Landis walked out. Neither filed for divorce and Landis began pursuing an acting career. In 1938, Wheeler reappeared and filed a $250,000 alienation of affections lawsuit against Director and Choreographer Busby Berkeley. Despite the fact that Landis and Wheeler were married only in the legal sense, he claimed that Berkeley had enticed and otherwise persuaded Landis to transfer her affections. Landis maintained that she had not seen Wheeler in years and heard from him only the previous year when he claimed to want a divorce. Wheeler's lawsuit was later dismissed, and Landis and Wheeler were divorced in 1939. In June 1939, Berkeley proposed to Landis, but later broke it off. On July 4, 1940, she married yacht broker Willis Hunt, Jr. in Las Vegas. Landis left Hunt after two months of marriage. They were divorced in November 1940.

1937

Landis made her film debut as an extra in the 1937 film A Star Is Born; she also appeared in various horse operas. She posed for hundreds of cheesecake photographs. She continued appearing in bit parts until 1940 when Hal Roach cast her as a cave girl in One Million B.C.. The movie was a sensation and turned Landis into a star. A press agent nicknamed her "The Ping Girl" (because "she makes you purr").

1940

Landis appeared in a string of successful films in the early 1940s, usually as the second female lead. In a time when the singing of many actresses was dubbed in, Landis's own voice was considered good enough and was used in her few musical roles. Landis landed a contract with Twentieth Century-Fox and began a sexual relationship with Darryl F. Zanuck. She had roles playing opposite fellow pin-up girl Betty Grable in Moon Over Miami and I Wake Up Screaming, both in 1941. When Landis ended her relationship with Zanuck, her career suffered and she was assigned roles in B-movies.

1942

While touring Army camps in London in 1942, she met United States Army Air Forces Captain Thomas Wallace. They were married in January 1943 but separated in May 1945. They divorced in July 1945.

1944

Landis wrote several newspaper and magazine articles about her experiences during the war, including the 1944 book Four Jills in a Jeep, which was later made into a movie, costarring Kay Francis, Martha Raye, and Mitzi Mayfair. She also wrote the foreword to Victor Herman's cartoon book Winnie the WAC.

1945

On December 8, 1945, Landis married Broadway Producer W. Horace Schmidlapp. They separated in 1947 and Landis filed for divorce in May 1948 charging Schmidlapp with "extreme mental cruelty". During her separation from Schmidlapp, Landis entered into a romance with actor Rex Harrison, who was then married to Actress Lilli Palmer. The affair became an open secret in Hollywood. After Landis' death however, Harrison downplayed their relationship and publicly claimed that she was merely a close friend of him and Palmer.

1948

Landis committed suicide on July 5, 1948, at the age of 29.