JOAN CARROLL

17 Nov

(18 January 1932 - 16 November 2016)

Child actress Joan Carroll had a short film career from an uncredited turn in 1936 in The First Baby until 1945 with Leo McCarey’s The Bells of St Mary’s. She was with Claire Trevor in Walking Down Broadway (1938) and appeared with many other celebrated stars: Don Ameche in Gateway, Peter Lorre in Mr Moto’s Last Warning, Rathbone and Karloff in Tower of London, Alice Faye in Barricade, Ginger Rogers in Primrose Path and Fredric March in Tomorrow the World! Apart from The Bells of St Mary’s Carroll may be best remembered for the part of Agnes Smith, one of Judy Garland’s sisters, in Meet Me in St Louis, She also appeared (uncredited) with Garland in Under the Clock, after which she retired. Carroll was the first Hollywood child to appear on Broadway in the Cole Porter musical Panama Hattie, in which she sang ‘Let’s Be Buddies’ with Ethel Merman.

MICHAEL DARVELL

Michael Darvell

Michael Darvell trained as a librarian at Watford and in Surrey before joining Ealing Libraries where he became Music Librarian for the borough. He edited Masthead, the magazine of the University of North London School of Librarianship, The Surrealist, the staff magazine of Surrey County Library, and contributed to the Assistant Librarian and London Librarian professional journals. A freelance film reviewer since 1970, he has written for Film, Films Illustrated, Film Review, Movie Maker and Radio Times, as well as editing Montage, the London film societies magazine, for ten years. A change of career saw him joining What’s On in London as Features Editor and he eventually stepped into the shoes of the late F. Maurice Speed (founding father of Film Review annual) as the magazine’s Editor. From 2007 to 2015, he was co-editor of the Film Review annual with Mansel Stimpson. As well as writing about films, Michael has reviewed theatre for The Stage newspaper, and has written about music theatre and cabaret for the Classical Source and Musical Theatre Review websites. He is also a former restaurant critic for the ViewLondon website. Michael has been a member of the London Film Critics’ Circle since 2005.

JOAN CARROLL

ANDREW SACHS

ROBERT VAUGHN