Edith Madeleine Carroll was a British actress, popular in the 1930s and 1940s.

She was born as at 32 Herbert Street in West Bromwich, England. She graduated from the University of Birmingham, England with a B.A. degree. She once taught in a girl’s public school.

She made her stage debut with a touring company in The Lash. Widely recognized as one of the most beautiful women in films, Carroll’s aristocratic blonde allure and sophisticated style were first glimpsed by British movie audiences in The Guns of Loos in 1928. Rapidly rising to stardom in England, she graced such popular films of the early ’30s as Young Woodley, Atlantic, The School for Scandal and I Was A Spy. She played the title role in the play Little Catherine. Abruptly, she announced plans to retire from films to devote herself to a private life with her husband, the first of four.

She attracted the attention of Alfred Hitchcock and, in 1935, starred as one of the director’s earliest prototypical cool, glib, intelligent blondes in The 39 Steps based on the espionage novel by John Buchan. The film became a sensation and with it, so did Carroll. Cited by the New York Times for a performance that was “charming and skillful”, Carroll became very much in demand thanks, in part, to director Hitchcock, who later admitted that he worked very hard with her to bring out the vivacious and sexy qualities she possessed offscreen, but which sometimes vanished when cameras rolled. Of Hitchcock’s heroines, as exemplified by Carroll, film critic Roger Ebert once wrote that they “reflected the same qualities over and over again: They were blonde. They were icy and remote. They were imprisoned in costumes that subtly combined fashion with fetishism. They mesmerized the men, who often had physical or psychological handicaps.”

In memory of Hollywood actress and Walk of Famer Luise Rainer, flowers were placed on her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Tuesday, December 30, 2014 at 2 p.m. PST. The star in category of Motion Pictures is located at 6302 Hollywood Boulevard. “Rest in Peace among the stars.” The card was signed on behalf of the Hollywood Historic Trust and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

Luise Rainer is a German film actress. Known as The "Viennese Teardrop", she is the first woman to win two Academy Awards, and the first person to win them back to back. She was discovered by MGM talent scouts while acting on stage in Austria and Germany and after appearing in Austrian films.

Her training began in Germany from the age of 16 by leading stage director Max Reinhardt. After a few years, she became recognized as a "distinguished Berlin stage actress", acting with Reinhardt's Vienna theater ensemble. Critics "raved" at her stage and film acting quality, leading MGM to sign her to a three-year contract and bring her to Hollywood in 1935. A number of filmmakers anticipated she might become another Greta Garbo, MGM's leading female star.

Her first American role was in the film Escapade, which was soon followed with a relatively small part in the musical biopic The Great Ziegfeld. Despite her limited appearances in the film, she "so impressed audiences" that she won the Oscar for Best Actress. For her dramatic telephone scene in the film, she was later dubbed "the Viennese teardrop". In her next role, producer Irving Thalberg was convinced, despite the studio's disagreement, that she could play the part of a poor uncomely Chinese peasant in The Good Earth, based on Pearl Buck's novel about hardship in China. The subdued character she played was such a dramatic contrast to her previous, vivacious character, that she won another Academy Award, even with Greta Garbo as one of the nominees.

However, she would later remark that by winning two consecutive Oscars, "nothing worse could have happened to me," as audience expectations from then on would be too high to fulfill. She was then given parts in a string of unimportant movies, leading MGM and Rainer to become disappointed, and she ended her brief 3-year career in films, soon returning to Europe. Adding to her rapid decline, some feel, was the "poor career advice" given her by then husband, playwright Clifford Odets, along with the unexpected death, at age 37, of her producer, Irving Thalberg, whom she greatly admired. Some film historians consider her the "most extreme case of an Oscar victim in Hollywood mythology".

Lupe Vélez was a Mexican film actress. Vélez began her career in Mexico as a dancer, before moving to the U.S. where she worked in vaudeville. She was seen by Fanny Brice who promoted her, and Vélez soon entered films, making her first appearance in 1924. By the end of the decade she had progressed to leading roles. With the advent of talking pictures Vélez acted in comedies, but she became disappointed with her film career, and moved to New York where she worked in Broadway productions.

Returning to Hollywood in 1939, she made a series of comedies. She also made some films in Mexico. Vélez’s personal life was often difficult; a five year marriage to Johnny Weissmuller and a series of romances, were highly publicized. Vélez committed suicide in 1944. She is often associated with the nicknames “The Mexican Spitfire” and “The Hot Pepper”.

Vélez was born María Guadalupe Villalobos Vélez in the city of San Luis Potosí in Mexico, the daughter of an army officer and his wife, an opera singer, both from prominent families in the state of San Luis Potosí. Because at that time becoming an artist and coming from a well-to-do family was seen as embarrassing, her father refused to let her use his last name in theater, so she used her mother’s surname. Lupe was educated at a convent school in Texas. From an early age, she had a strong temper and an explosive personality. She took dancing lessons and in 1924, made her performing debut at the Teatro Principal in Mexico City. In 1923 she moved to Texas, where she began dancing in vaudeville shows and finding work as a sales assistant. She moved to California, where she met the comedienne Fanny Brice, who promoted her career as a dancer. In 1924 she was first cast in movies by Hal Roach.

Vélez’s first feature-length film was The Gaucho starring Douglas Fairbanks. The next year, she was named one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars, the young starlets deemed to be most promising for movie stardom. Most of her early films cast her in exotic or ethnic roles .

Mabel “Nell” Taliaferro was an American stage, and a silent screen actress, known as the Sweetheart of American Movies. Taliaferro was descended on her father’s side from one of the early families who settled in Virginia in the 17th century, the Taliaferros, whose roots are in northern Italy.