From my collection: Lucia Carroll

I am adding a new series of posts with photos of performers that I know very little about and/or am just too lazy to research in depth. But now these photos will turn up on a simple google search of the name and I suppose there is some value in that.

The opener, Lucia Carroll, gave her birth year as 1916 and enjoyed a starlet turned bit player/extra career that lasted ca. 1940-1955. 1940-'41 she was under contract to Warners and became one of a coterie of starlets voted a 1941 "Baby Star," the studio attempting to resurrect a 1922-1934 tradition of selecting "promising newcomers," the erstwhile WAMPAS BABY STARS. Since these particular newcomers all just happened to be Warner contract players, the whole thing was considered nothing but an in-house publicity gimmick. Of the girls, Joan Leslie was deemed the most promising, an easy enough prediction since Warners was grooming her to star opposite Jimmy Cagney in YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (1942). Miss Carroll, in contrast, was shoehorned into NAVY BLUES (1941) with Ann Sheridan, the "Oomph Girl." Lucia joined 5 other starlets, including future serial queen Kay Adridge, to become the "Navy Blue Sextette," performing more publicity around the country than actually appearing in the film itself.