Nancy Carroll - photos and quotes

“I just stayed in New York and pouted. Then we got together and I decided to serve out my sentence. And I’d better get better stories than the last few were.” – Nancy Carroll, commenting on her unhappy relationship with Paramount Studios in June of 1932.

“I’m what’s known as a poor rehearser. I save everything I have to give until the camera starts –“ — Nancy Carroll

Source: Dixie Tighe (1929)

“Of course I’m making money now but you know how long the life of the average screen star is. I feel it would be a mistake to accustom myself to living up to every cent I make and then when I was through with the screen try to adjust myself to a less luxurious existence.” — Nancy Carroll

Source: Dixie Tighe (1929)

“If a stage play flops, it’s the play, and you either fix it or lay it away in moth balls. In pictures, judgment is rendered upon the star, and when the truth of that finally sinks in, it is often too late to rail at the injustice of it. A picture depends on so many elements – dialogue, setting, direction – and all must function expertly to achieve success.” – Nancy Carroll

Photographer: William A. Fraker

“Nobody can stand on the sidelines and hear himself when he speaks. My experience on the stage shows me it is necessary [to have a voice coach]. — Nancy Carroll

Source: Mollie Merrick (1929)

“When you put your microphone far away, to get a beautiful camera shot, you are forced to shout a scene that would be done in a tense half-whisper to get full dramatic effect.” — Nancy Carroll

Source: Mollie Merrick (1929)

Photo: The Dance of Life (1929)

“I’m not a good fighter and yet I know many people think I’m trying to be temperamental now and again and that I have a quarrelsome disposition. The truth is when something big upsets me and I feel it ought to be corrected I don’t know how to go about having it done. Then I suddenly (probably in the middle of a scene) discover a button is sewed on my dress none too perfectly and I hit the ceiling. ‘Ah,’ says everyone, ‘temperament –‘ and it isn’t. Now one knows what’s really back of the blow-up.” — Nancy Carroll

Source: Dixie Tighe (1929)

“Nancy Carroll has a quick, bright smile and a little habit of pushing a great lock of hair out of her eyes. She has very decided likes and dislikes. She is ambitious and hardworking. When posing for still pictures she always uses a mirror.” — Morning Chronicle (November 2, 1930)

Source: Nancy Carroll: An Intimate Sketch

Photo: Eugene Richee (1930)

“She dislikes to pose for pictures in a bathing suit.” – Morning Chronicle (November 2, 1930)

Source: Nancy Carroll: An Intimate Sketch

Photographer: Otto Dyar (1930)

“I hear you’re a tough guy – plenty of fight. I’m a tough guy, too, and some day you and I fight together. We make a picture all will remember.” — Ernst Lubitsch to Nancy Carroll.

Source: Mollie Merrick (1929)

Photo: Broken Lullaby (1932). With Ernst Lubitsch.