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Inventory of the J. Walter Thompson Company. Carroll Carroll Papers, 1934-1979 and undated

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Historical Note

Carroll Carroll grew up in Harlem, Buffalo, and Chicago. After graduating from Chicago's Hyde Park High School, he started work as chief copy writer at the advertising agency of Sigmund Tann, and stayed five years. Beginning in 1926, he worked as a freelance writer for several publications: the New Yorker, Life, Judge, College Humor, the Saturday Evening Post, and the New York World. He also ran a column in the magazine Canada Goblin, wrote review sketches for Garrick Gaieties, and was under contract to T. B. Harms as a lyric writer. For several years, he also contributed a rhymed motion picture review called Cinemetric Review to the Monday evening edition of New York Evening Sun.

In 1932, Carroll joined JWT, and subsequently went on the road with a JWT radio program featuring George Burns, Gracie Allen and Guy Lombardo. He eventually became Editorial Supervisor of all JWT radio shows, and helped produce many JWT comedy and variety shows, including Chase & Sanborn with Eddie Cantor. During his tenure at the JWT New York office, he also created and wrote a full hour variety program with Al Jolson known as Shell Chateau, and collaborated on the Rudy Vallee Hour. In 1934, he created and wrote the Kraft Music Hall, when it featured Paul Whiteman and Deems Taylor, and moved to Los Angeles to continue it when Bing Crosby took over. In Hollywood, he wrote radio shows for Kraft, Ford, Shell, Old Gold, Elgin, Swift, Lux and Standard Brands.

In 1946, Carroll left JWT to become Vice President in charge of the Hollywood office of the Ward Wheelock Advertising Agency; there, he wrote and produced radio shows for Bob Crosby and Walter O'Keefe. He returned to JWT at the New York office in 1957. At that point, he produced three Chase & Sanborn hour-long NBC specials for radio, worked with print and broadcast advertising for accounts of Kodak, Shell, Listerine, Ford, Lever Brothers, Liggett & Myers, American Petroleum Institute, Irving Trust Company, and Warner-Lambert.

Carroll also ghost-wrote two books for Bob Hope: I Never Left Home; and So This Is Peace; and wrote the Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of I Never Left Home. He created many television specials, including the Judy Garland Special and the 20th Century Fox Hour. He retired from JWT in 1968.

Biographical Sketch from Original Finding Aid

In a letter to Variety editor Abel Green on Dec. 20, 1946, Carroll Carroll (1902-) defended the role of advertising men in radio. Responding to the frequent suggestion that responsibility for radio ought to return to the “showmen,” Carroll wrote: “National advertisers and their agents do, today, exercise about 90% of the showmanship in radio...they would not be doing this if they were not better showmen and business men than those from whom they took over.” A showman himself, Carroll's opinions are based on fourteen years of experience as a writer for some of the most popular radio programs of the day. He was involved with the young medium of radio when advertising personnel were largely responsible for the development, writing, and production of programs.

Becoming a member of the Broadcasting Department of the J. Walter Thompson Company in 1932, Carroll immediately went on the road with the “Burns and Allen--Guy Lombardo” program, an association which lasted for several years. During radio's golden age, Carroll Carroll was involved with all of J. Walter Thompson Company's comedy and variety shows, including: the “Chase and Sanborn Hour”; the “Rudy Vallee Hour”; and “Shell Chateau.” He worked with such stars as Eddie Cantor, Joe Penner, Al Jolson, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy.

In 1934 Carroll Carroll created and wrote the “Kraft Music Hall” featuring Paul Whiteman. When the program moved to Hollywood and Bing Crosby assumed the starring role in 1936, Carroll also moved west and took charge. For the next ten years he wrote for the “Kraft Music Hall,” establishing a continuity of programming that made Crosby's style familiar and likeable--the essential factors, Carroll maintained, to the program's success.

During World War II “Kraft Music Hall” became a vehicle through which the government programs and policies were regularly announced. Participation in the war effort included the promotion of War Bonds, the Junior Red Cross, and WAAC enlistment. Credit for “Kraft Music Hall's” role in providing the American people with information about the War and encouraging enthusiasm for government campaigns, was given to Bing Crosby and Carroll Carroll. In addition to writing the scripts for “Kraft Music Hall,” Carroll became a consultant to the Office of War Information on Oct. 28, 1942; was on the Writers' War Board; and in 1946 became a member of its successor organization, the Writers' Board.

Carroll Carroll did not limit himself to radio. He also wrote magazine articles, reviews, and ghosted for celebrities. Among his anonymous books are Bob Hope's I Never Left Home and So This is Peace. Upon retirement from J. Walter Thompson in 1968 he wrote a column for Variety on television advertisement and continued to write about the early days of radio.

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