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I was watching the 1975 version of “Farewell, My Lovely” for the first time in a long while and began wondering how they got the neon sign from the Earl Carroll Theatre for the opening titles. The top photo is a frame grab from the film and the bottom photo is a frame grab from a 1940s training film for firefighters. The actual sign was animated so that the letters in THEATRE in the upper right spelled out “Eat at” Earl Carroll Theatre. |
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At left, the frame grab from “Farewell, My Lovely.” At right, the actual sign. |
ladailymirror.com 
And the neon lady is, purportedly, Carroll’s longtime mistress, the lovely Beryl Wallace, who died with him in a plane crash.
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He at 56, she supposedly at 39. A great romance, per his will their ashes were buried together at Forest Lawn, Glendale. She performed onstage nude in the late 1920s. Way before Hair at the Aquarius, which the Earl Carroll became.
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When I first arrived in Hwd, the Earl Carroll was the Moulin Rouge. And the 1940’s style show, ‘Queen for a Day’ with Jaaaaack Bailey was taped there. After the queens left, it was transformed into the Aquarius Theater to host ‘Hair’. After that, I lost track of the many incarnations.
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I’m thinking it was an optical effect, added later.
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Isn’t this neon head now on display at Universal’s ‘City Walk’?
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@Marc — evidently it is a re-creation by MONA.
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