The Washington herald., 1921-07-31
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Intreducisg Earl Carroll:

htOuuen8 Earf Carr0N.
Z NEW YORK. July 3o--A slim
young fellow with a poyish ex-.
preston. A nofdic bione. Eyes Of
blue and eyes Of the dreamer. And
he is the most impractical sort of
dreamer. Dresses rather Broad
wayesque and most Of the time
goes around hatless. I
Readers meet Earl Carroll, Per-
haps you know he used to write
songs. And then you heard he
wrote plays. $50 Long Lefty" and
Canary Cottage" were his. Last
year he wrote and produced The
Love Vamp" and Daddy Dump,
ltngs" and he also went broke.
Last December he couldn't buy q
snappy breakfast at Child's. 1t Is
true he had his Starlit Bungalow,
q beautiful home atop q sky
scraper on Seventh avenue and
Forty-ninth street. But he was as
free OF money as Tommy Gray, the
Broadway wit, so inelegently puts
1t as q flea is of crutches.
Poor dreaming youth! Broadway
pitied him and in its usual style
discarded him with the rest Of the
failures. A good fellow when he
had It! And all Of the old hokum.
They patted him on the back when
he held a theater after a theatri-
cal czar and tried to oust him. A
game kid. But he went broke. So
Broadway turned to new idols to
prove them clay.
A year ago-that IL all, Earl Car
roll arises, smiling and still dream
Ing, from the ashes of failure with
one OF the finest theaters in New
YORK. 1t Is to be the Earl Carroll
Theater. located on Seventh avenue
and Forty-ninth street-just a block
from the Starlit Bungalow. in whose
gardens the dreamer dreamed.
In this theater Carroll will pro-
duce his own plays. He isn't buck
ing the theatrical trust or syndi-
cate or whatever they call them.
He doesn't care. II one Of the syn
dicate would approach him now and
say, Young fellow, you're going to
lose your shirt. You amt got a
chance" Carroll would say.
You're right. I'm a damr foolr'
And 60 on his dreamy way. Fool
Ism. Just like the little old fox. He
is just 30.
know Carroll and value him as
one or my very good friends. I have
known for years of his ambitions
and his hopes. Back in the days
.When ne was a program boy in a
Prttsburg theater he had an idea
that he was going to own a play
house on Broadway in which he
would produce his own plays.
He hugged the idea tight-trav-
eled to all parts of the world. In
China, Japan. Australia and in the
South Sea Islands he was having a
good time. but thinking. too, at night
of the big idea. He didn't know any
more about finance than an East
Side boy knows about trigonometry.
He didn't know anything about real
estate values. but he picked out the
corner he wanted for a theater
This corner, incidentally, is the most
valuable in the theatrical belt. and
innumerable theatrical syndicates
have been after II.
Carroll raised $4,000 from a
Wall Street banker who had never
laid eyes on him before and he got
the corner that real estate men said
couldn't be bought. Entailed estate,
trustees quarrelling, etc. But this
dreaming lad now has tho theater
started. He owns and controls more
than 81 per cent OF the stock. The
theater will be finished in Decem-
Der. A green room for the actor.
A chorus girls dressing room like
the workshop i'm a sunshine biscuit
factory. All idealistic and different.
No curtain. Lights will be thrown
on a concrete eye cyclorama-giving
the effect of clouds, moon and stars.
don't profess to understand how
Carroll did ii. l know him intimate
ly and I know he is a dreamer. I
know also. he is square and loyal.
Once an elevator stuck between
floors in a building where 1 was
visiting. 1t stayed there for two
hours. Women were fainting and
men came out white faced and
pasty. Carroll was in it too. He
came out smiling and clipper. I
don't think he knew the elevator
was stuck He was dreaming. 1t
Is foolish to dream. Look at poor
Earl Carroll!