Earl Carroll

Actor Jack Oakie s ex-wife, Vevita Varden, also died on the plane with Carroll and Wallace. Co-incidentally, Oakie was probably the actor most closely associated with Earl Carroll in films ( Murder at the Vanities ).

Died in the company of actress Beryl Wallace on United Airlines Flight 624, a DC-6 [NC37506] named the "Mainliner Utah," a coast-to-coast flight to New York City that originated in San Diego, California with stops in Los Angeles and Chicago with 39 passengers and 4 crew. Equipped with 4-Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engines, the aircraft had a recent history of engine fires. Although this particular plane had received special modifications mandated by the FAA, the repair itself had problems with CO2 fumes leaking into the pilots cabin. In the final hours of the 12-hour flight just past Phillipsburg, Pennsylvania, the radio operator made a frantic call about the plane making an emergency decent. Witnesses reported sighting smoke pouring from one of its left engines with the landing gear still retracted. It clipped a power transformer and clipped a high tension wire, turning the plane into a fireball. It disintegrated on impact at 12:41 PM EST on June 17, 1948 [crash site: 5 km ENE of Mount Carmel, PA]. Strangely, in the months preceding his death, Carroll modified his will in the event that he and his "beloved friend" Wallace died simultaneously. One provision stipulated that they be buried together (their simple single gravestone only indicates their names and the year of their death).

Co-wrote, with the legendary tenor Enrico Caruso, the song "Dreams of Long Ago." Carusos recording of the song, one of the few English language songs he ever recorded, was a best-seller in 1912 on the Victor (later RCA Victor) Red Seal label.

Member of 50s rock group The Cadillacs. Later joined The Coasters.