Beryl Wallace

Who was Beryl Wallace?

Beryl Wallace was an American singer, dancer and actress.

Born Beryl Heischuber in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn, New York, she was the eldest of nine children of working class Jewish immigrants from Austria. Pursuing a dancing career, she was in her teens when she saw a casting call advertisement in the newspaper and landed a role in the 1928 Earl Carroll Broadway theatre production of Vanities that was billed as having the "most beautiful girls in the world". Beryl Heischuber adopted the last name "Wallace" as part of her stage name and went on to appear in another six similar such risqué productions that featured scanty costumes for the female performers and full nudity for the first time on Broadway.

Beryl Wallace and producer Earl Carroll began a personal relationship that would take them to Hollywood where she would perform in film and at his Earl Carroll Theatre. The theatre-supper club's facade was adorned by what at the time was one of Hollywood's most famous landmarks: a 20-foot-high neon facial portrait of Beryl Wallace of which a recreation can be seen today at Universal CityWalk, at Universal City, as part of the collection of historic neon signs from the Museum of Neon Art.