Carole Landis

Landis was born on January 1, 1919, in Fairchild, Wisconsin, the youngest of five children of Clara (née Sentek), a Polish farmer's daughter, and Norwegian-American Alfred Ridste, a drifting railroad mechanic who abandoned the family after Landis's birth.^{[5][6]: 205 [7]} According to Landis's 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's mother in April 1921 and remarried a few months later.^[8]

In 1923, Landis's family moved to San Bernardino, California, where her mother worked menial jobs to support the family.^[9] At the age of 15, Landis dropped out of San Bernardino High School and set forth on a career path to show business.^[10] 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 her anyplace in show business". He apparently employed her only because he felt sorry for her;^[11] she later sang with a dance band.

After saving $100, she moved to Hollywood in 1937.^[3][5] She bleached her hair blonde and adopted the screen name of "Carole Landis" in honor of her favorite actress, Carole Lombard, and baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis. She would legally change her name to Carole Landis on April 23, 1942.^[12]

Landis was married four times and had no children (she was unable to conceive owing to endometriosis).^[5] 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 persuaded 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.^[32] In 1938, Wheeler reappeared and filed a $250,000 alienation of affections lawsuit against director and choreographer Busby Berkeley. Even though Landis and Wheeler were estranged, 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 had heard from him only the previous year when he claimed to want a divorce.^[33] Wheeler's lawsuit was later dismissed, and Landis and Wheeler were divorced in 1939.^[34]: 399

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.^[35] Landis left Hunt after two months of marriage due to abuse by Hunt;^[5] they were divorced on November 20, 1940. ^[36][37]

While touring army camps in London in 1942, she met United States Army Air Forces Captain Thomas Wallace.^[38][39] They were married in January 1943, and the wedding received a two-page photo spread in Life magazine.^[40] Landis would also write an article about their honeymoon for the June 1943 edition of Photoplay.^[41] The couple separated in early 1945,^[42] and they would divorce in July 1945.^[38] Landis would write about the relationship, marriage, and later causes that led to the eventual collapse of their marriage in her article "Don't Marry A Stranger" for the January 1945 issue of Photoplay.^[43] She would state that "No woman ever loved a man more than I loved Tommy Wallace. And Tommy loved me, too. All my life, above all the rest, I want to remember that."^[43]

On December 8, 1945, Landis married Broadway producer W. Horace Schmidlapp.^[34]: 400 They separated in 1947, and Landis filed for divorce in May 1948, charging Schmidlapp with "extreme mental cruelty."^[44] During her separation from Schmidlapp, Landis began a relationship with actor Rex Harrison, who was then married to actress Lilli Palmer.^[39] The affair became widely known in Hollywood as an "open secret."^[45] After Landis's death, however, Harrison downplayed their relationship and publicly claimed that she was merely a close friend of himself and Palmer.^[46]

Landis was reportedly devastated when Harrison refused to divorce his wife to be with her. On July 5, 1948, unable to cope any longer, she committed suicide in her Pacific Palisades home at 1465 Capri Drive by taking an overdose of Seconal.^{[48][49][6]: 197–199} Before she took her life, she penned a note to her mother, expressing remorse for the pain her actions would cause. She assured her mother and family members of her love and asked her to find her will, which left everything to her mother. Landis signed off as “Your Baby” and requested her mother’s prayers.^{[48][6]: 191} Harrison was the last person to see her alive, having had dinner with her the night before she committed suicide.^[50][51]

The next afternoon, Harrison and Landis's maid discovered her on the bathroom floor.^[39] Harrison waited several hours before he called a doctor and the police.^[52] According to some sources, Landis left two suicide notes, one for her mother and the second for Harrison, who instructed his lawyers to destroy it.^[6]: 190 During a coroner's inquest, Harrison denied knowing any motive for her suicide and told the coroner he did not know of the existence of a second suicide note.^[53] Landis's official website, which her family owns, has questioned the events of Landis's death and the coroner's ruling of suicide.^[54]

On July 10, 1948 at 12:30 PM her service was held at Forest Lawn's Church of the Recessional by Bishop Fred L. Pyman.^[55] During her service Pyman sang her favorite hyme of In the Garden.^[47] Afterwards she was interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California, in plot 814 of the "Everlasting Love" section.^[47] Among the celebrities at her service and funeral were Cesar Romero, Eddie Sutherland, Van Johnson, and Pat O'Brien.^[56] W. Horace Schmidlapp, her estranged husband, also attended her service and funeral. Rex Harrison attended with his wife however they both left early and had refused to look at Carole in her coffin during viewing.^[5][47]

Landis has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1765 Vine Street which was dedicated to her on February 8, 1960.^[57][58]

On October 4, 2019 Landis was honored with a 28 inch bronze statute that resides inside the Fairchild Public Library in her hometown of Fairchild, Wisconsin. The Carole Landis Fan Club donated the statute, as well as memorabilia related to the actress, to the library.^[59][60]