Joan Carroll

Joan Carroll was an American child actress who worked in films until her retirement in 1950. Born in Paterson, she trained at Hollywood's Fanchon and Marco Dancing School, where she became a skilled singer and tap dancer, and she performed under the stage names Carol and then Carroll. In the late 1930s she took supporting parts in several pictures, and her breakthrough arrived with Primrose Path (1940), in which she played Ginger Rogers's younger sister and received a Critics Award. That year she also took the leading role in the Broadway musical Panama Hattie, which ran until January 1942. RKO Radio Pictures then used her as its resident juvenile performer in A and B movies, starring her alongside Ruth Warrick in Obliging Young Lady (1942) and Petticoat Larceny (1943). As a teenager she worked less often, though Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) and The Bells of St. Mary's (1945) remained among her best-remembered films.