Carole Landis made her film debut
as an extra in the 1937 film A Star Is Born and otherwise got by posing for hundreds of cheesecake photographs and
taking almost any bit part she was offered. Then, in 1940, Hal Roach cast her
as a cave girl in One Million B.C., a sexy film romp considering the times and landed
her a contract with Twentieth Century-Fox. It also led to a sex-only relationship
with Darryl F. Zanuck. When Landis ended her relationship with Zanuck, her
career tanked, and she was doomed to small roles in B-flicks. But thanks to
a 1942 USO tour she became a popular
pin-up with servicemen during World War II and slightly better parts followed.
Landis was married four times,
her first was in 1934 when she was 15-years-old. She married 19-year-old
Irving Wheeler. Her mother had the marriage annulled but Landis convinced her
father to allow her to remarry Wheeler and the two were married again in 1934. The
marriage lasted three weeks but neither one filed for a divorce. Wheeler, the
husband, sued director and choreographer Busby Berkeley for $250,000 alienation
of affections suit. (Which was dismissed)
Irving Wheeler
In 1940, she married yacht broker
Willis Hunt, Jr.(Below) in Las Vegas but that ended in less than two months. (He
married his fifth wife, former actress Deannie Best, in 1965. During an
argument in December of 1969, Willis was stabbed to death by Deannie. She
claimed self-defense and was found innocent of all charges.)
In 1942 Landis married United
States Army Air Forces Captain Thomas Wallace and divorced him in 1945.(Below)
At the end of that year, she
married Broadway producer W. Horace Schmidlapp. (Below) That ended in 1948. During her separation from Schmidlapp, Landis became
involved with married actor Rex Harrison.
When Harrison refused to divorce
his wife for Landis, she was crushed and decided to kill herself. She had tried
suicide before but had been rescued by friends. This time she took forty
Seconal tablets (one fifth the amount would have killed her) at her Pacific
Palisades home.
The next afternoon, Harrison and
Landis' maid discovered her
Harrison had been calling her all
morning, but her maid had told him she wasn't awake, and she refused to disturb
her. Harrison drove to her house at 1465
Capri Drive and found her on the bathroom floor but for some reason, Harrison
waited several hours before he called a doctor or the police.
The maid later reported that Harrison
rifled through her address book, hoping to call her private doctor and thus
keep the disaster under wraps in the meantime, Landis was still alive but would
die within the hour. Harrison probably destroyed one of two suicide notes the
actress left (One to Harrison one to her mother) then drove home and called studio
head Darryl Zanuck to ask for damage control. Harrison denied knowing any
motive for her suicide.
It was the maid who finally
called the police.
