He’s been called “the troubadour of the nude,” “the impresario of feminine epidermis,” “the elongated purveyor of feminine pulchritude,” and “the most notorious connoisseur of female flesh in the history of show business.”
Earl Carroll was Florenz Ziegfeld’s only real competition in the late 1920s and early 1930s, but he left Broadway under a cloud of scandal and bankruptcy. Looking for a fresh start and determined to reinvent himself in Hollywood, he opened the colossal Earl Carroll Theatre at 6230 Sunset Boulevard on December 26, 1938.
The 1000-seat “entertainment palace” and supper club quickly became known for the glory and gaiety of its grandiose productions featuring casts of 60 girls performing atop a double revolving stage. Guests were dazzled by more than six thousand feet of blue and gold neon and massive, 30-foot illuminated columns. For $1000, VIP memberships to Carroll’s Inner Circle guaranteed a lifetime cover charge and a reserved seating.
While it was Carroll’s behind-the-scenes puppeteering that powered the operation, it was ravishing beauty Beryl Wallace whose face characterized the Earl Carroll Theatre to the world. Not only was she the star showgirl in Carroll’s lavish musical comedy revues known as “Vanities,” Beryl was his longtime devoted companion. “Thru these portals pass the most beautiful girls in the world,” the theatre’s celebrated slogan, encompassed a 24-foot neon silhouette portrait of the stunning chosen showgirl. Illuminating Sunset Boulevard, just east of Vine, the sign soon became one of Hollywood’s most famous landmarks.
Following World War II and nearly a decade in Hollywood, Earl Carroll unveiled his plans for $15 million facility what promised to be the “World’s Largest Motion Picture Theatre and Broadcasting Studios” to be erected a half a block east of the existing structure on Sunset. Larger than Radio City Music Hall, the plans for the 7,000 seat theatre touted a 130-foot proscenium, three revolving stages, and an ice rink adjacent to a water tank, purportedly so that both Sonja Henie and Esther Williams could perform simultaneously with more than 100 dancing girls.
Tragedy struck on June 17, 1948 when United Airlines Flight 624 crashed in Pennsylvania. Earl Carroll and Beryl Wallace were among the 39 passengers killed instantly. In true Carroll “show must go on” fashion, the grieving showgirls took the stage the following night presenting the Earl Carroll Vanities with Virginia Dew, Beryl’s stand-in, going on in her place. Carroll and Wallace were interred together in the Garden of Memory at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.
After operating in the red for more than a year, the Vanities came to a close on October 15, 1949 and the theatre went dark. The theatre reopened in 1953 as the Moulin Rouge nightclub and went through a number of incarnations (inlcuding the Hullabaloo, Kaleidoscope, Aquarius and Longhorn Theatres) before becoming the west coast production hub for Nickelodeon in 1997. Nickelodeon on Sunset is currently the production headquarters for the network’s "Victorious" television series.
The legendary “Thru these portals…” neon sign is no more, but in 1993 the Museum of Neon Art created a replica of Beryl Wallace’s neon portrait. The replica is now on display and seen high overhead each day by thousands at the Universal City Walk at Universal Studios Hollywood.