- Reed Hadley, Zorro’s Fighting Legions, 1939. Change of the masked hero in Republic’s 1937 finale, Zorro Rides Again – debut of the studio’s finest serialists: William Whitney and John English. Carroll was a great buddy of Errol Flynn – all three actors were TDH. Tall, dark, handsome. For the 1944 finale, Zorro’s Black Whip, he was a she – Linda Sterling.
- Van Heflin, The Feminine Touch, 1940. Hollywood Reporter spies said Heflin took over Don Ameche’s book publisher originally intended for Carroll… One wonders why. He was there just to be ignored by Rosalind Russell. Meaningless title, but then so were the other suggestions : All Woman, Female of the Species, and Heartburn. One of six movies directed by Woody Van Dyke – when officially credited as Major WS Van Dyke II.
- James Craig, Northwest Rangers, 1941. A ’40s B-movie take on Manhattan Melodrama – the film that gangster John Dillinger was watching just before being gunned down by the FBI in Chicago’s West side in 1934. That sentence was more thrilling than anything in this MGM programmer. Carroll passed Frank ‘Blackie’ Marshall to Craig, who ended up being caught, tried and executed… whether for murder or rotten acting was never established. MGM only took him, on because he resembled Clark Gable – far away in WWII.
Birth year: 1906Death year: 1979Other name: Casting Calls: 3