Carole Landis (January 1, 1919 – July 5, 1948) was an American film and stage actress, who worked as a contract-player for Twentieth Century-Fox in the 1940s. Her breakthrough role was as the female lead in the 1940 film One Million B.C., with United Artists. Landis was known as "The Ping Girl" and "The Chest" because of her curvy figure.

Landis died of an intentional drug overdose at the age of 29 in July 1948.

Biography

Landis was married four times and had no children (she was unable to conceive due to endometriosis). In January 1934, 15-year-old Landis married her first husband, 19-year-old Irving Wheeler. Her mother had the marriage annulled in February 1934. Landis convinced her father Alfred Ridste (who had left the family shortly after Landis was born and who, by coincidence, lived near the family in San Bernardino) to allow her remarry Wheeler. He finally relented and the two were remarried on August 25, 1934. After three weeks of marriage, Landis and Wheeler got into an argument and Landis walked out. Neither filed for divorce and Landis began pursuing an acting career. In 1938, Wheeler reappeared and filed a $250,000 alienation of affections lawsuit against director and choreographer Busby Berkeley. Despite the fact that Landis and Wheeler were only married in the legal sense, he claimed that Berkeley had enticed and otherwise persuaded Landis to transfer her affections. Landis maintained that she had not seen Wheeler in years and only heard from him the previous year when he claimed to want a divorce. Wheeler's lawsuit was later dismissed, and Landis and Wheeler were divorced in 1939. In June 1939, Berkeley proposed to Landis, but later broke it off. On July 4, 1940 she married yacht broker Willis Hunt, Jr. in Las Vegas. Landis left Hunt after two months of marriage. They were divorced in November 1940.

While touring Army camps in London in 1942, she met United States Army Air Corps Captain Thomas Wallace. They were married in January 1943 but separated in May 1945. They divorced in July 1945.

On December 8, 1945, Landis married Broadway producer W. Horace Schmidlapp. They separated in 1947 and Landis filed for divorce in May 1948 charging Schmidlapp with "extreme mental cruelty".
During her separation from Schmidlapp, Landis entered into a romance with actor Rex Harrison, who was then married to actress Lilli Palmer. The affair became an open secret in Hollywood. After Landis' death however, Harrison downplayed their relationship and publicly claimed that she was merely a close friend of his and Palmer's.

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