Harry Carroll

Harry Carroll (November 28, 1892 – December 26, 1962) was an American composer, songwriter, pianist, and Broadway performer born in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He taught himself piano and was playing in movie houses before completing grade school. Following his high school graduation, Carroll relocated first to Pittsburgh and then to New York City, where he worked as an arranger in Tin Pan Alley while performing evenings at the Garden Café and accompanying vaudeville productions.

Carroll's early songwriting brought him to the attention of major industry figures. He contributed the song "Nix on the Glow Worm, Lena," with lyrics by Ballard MacDonald, to the Ziegfeld Follies of 1910. In 1912, the Shubert brothers engaged him as a contract writer for their Winter Garden productions. Collaborating with Arthur Fields, he produced his first hit, "On the Mississippi," and in 1913 he again partnered with MacDonald to write "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine." Among his most enduring compositions are "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows," drawn from a section of Frédéric Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu, "By the Beautiful Sea," and "There's a Girl in the Heart of Maryland." During this period Carroll also toured extensively with vaudeville performer Anna Wheaton. He served as a director of ASCAP from 1914 to 1917.

Carroll's Broadway career encompassed work as a performer, composer, and book writer. His credits include the 1915 musical Dancing Around, The Little Blue Light, the play Made in America, the musical Oh, Look!, and the Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic of 1919.

Carroll's first marriage, to Radio City Rockette Estelle Cooper in 1921, ended in divorce in 1934; the couple had two children together. His second marriage was to singer and dancer Pauline Baker, with whom he also had two children. Carroll and Pauline performed together in Las Vegas and toured during the 1940s. Together they wrote the song "Say When," which Pauline introduced at Grace Hayes Lodge in the San Fernando Valley; the song was subsequently featured in Blackouts of 1942.

Later in his life Carroll moved to Los Angeles and became involved in early motion pictures. He died on December 26, 1962, in Santa Barbara, California. Eight years after his death, in 1970, Carroll was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He holds the distinction of being the only composer with two songs represented on the Hall of Fame's list of the Top 100 popular songs.