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Voluptuous Beryl Wallace was born in Brooklyn, New York, the eldest of nine children of working class Austrian-Jewish émigrés. With her knockout looks and obvious shapeliness, the "Big Apple" beauty naturally gravitated toward an entertainment career and first turned to dancing. She was only a teenager when, acting on a casting call ad, earned a role in the "Earl Carroll Vanities" of 1928. Carroll changed her marquee name to "Beryl Wallace" and off she went to appear in other provocative shows that featured flesh and fantasy themes, some even requiring frontal nudity.
Throughout her minor film reign, she remained a star attraction at Earl Carroll`s spectacular musical reviews. During World War II, sexy Beryl did her part by singing and hosting on radio shows. She also entertained soldiers at the Masquers Club and danced at the Hollywood Canteen. The fact that her film career did not amount to too much did not have her overly concerned. She WAS a star -- in Earl Carroll`s extravaganzas.
In 1948, Carroll was in the final planning stages of opening a larger theater just one block from his current location. The new one would rival New York`s Radio City Music Hall and cost upwards of $15,000,000. On June 17, 1948, while en route from Los Angeles to New York City, both Beryl and Earl perished in the crash of United Airlines Flight 624 at Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania. Forced to make an emergency landing, the plane crashed into a 66,000 volt transformer on its quick descent and exploded. According to Carroll`s wishes in his will, their ashes were interred together in the Garden of Memory at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. On top of their crypt lies a huge facsimile of Carroll`s own hands holding a life-sized figure symbolizing the impossibly beautiful Beryl.
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