Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Jul 1929)

21 Irish and Proud Of It A visit to Nancy Carroll in the bosom of her family, which includes twelve brothers and sisters, is responsible for one of the most intimate and revealing stories that Picture Play has ever published. B$ Ail een St. Jokn-Brenon IS pretty Nancy Carroll, nee La Hiff, with her flamingred hair, aquamarine eyes, and petite, graceful figure, the pride and joy of the La Hiff family ? Not by a long shot ! Mr. and Airs. Thomas La Hiff, from County Clare, Ireland, and County Roscommon, respectively, are the proud parents of twelve children, all of whom, they will tell you, are equally great in their own spheres. Some are in the garage business, some in a restaurant with their Uncle Bill, some are content to be just wives, and there's a son who goes down each morning to Wall Street. But Nancy — well, .Nancy went on the stage. In fact, a couple of the girls broke the family tradition of being just home folks by turning theatrical. But Mrs. La Hiff, one of those stanch Irish mothers who would rather see her daughter in her shroud than commit mortal sin, says she reckons a girl can be bad in a convent if she has a mind that way, and Nancy's cousin, who took the veil recently, may have just as great temptations in her secluded life, for all we know, as Nancy had to face on the stage. "Why, when my daughter went to work in a lace factory " But daughter didn't stay in a lace factory long. Father, a burly son of old Ireland, was a musician of parts. He was the only man for miles around in County Clare who could swing a concertina with that merry, fascinating lilt which captured the heart of the future Mrs. Tom. And none of the girls could throw back their heads, and sway and turn and bob and bow, with the charming grace of the pretty colleen who married Mr. La Hiff and came to America. Mrs. La Hiff is buxom now, her hands are gnarled and hard with the washing of many babies 4 and many dishes, but she has the merry twinkle of old Ireland in her eye, and on St. Patrick's Day, after she has been to mass in the morning, she gathers her brood around her. Father gets out the concertina, La Hiffs gather from all parts of New York, New Jersey, and the Bronx, mother puts her hands on her stout hips, and the dancing begins. Is it any wonder that Nancy had music in her blood, and that Mother La Hiff's daughters preferred dancing and singing to the humdrum life of factory girls ? Many beads were told, many "Aves" sung, and many candles burned, when Nancy and her little sister first divulged their determination to sing and dance on the stage. Nancy worked lace factory. once in a Photo by Bichee Nancy Carroll made her stage debut in an amateur show on New York's East Side. Mrs. La Hiff laughs at herself now. "I was just oldfashioned,'' she says a bit shamefacedly, as she gazes proudly at her pretty daughter, slim and vivacious, sitting curled up on the bright divan in the little parlor. For when Miss Carroll, fresh from Hollywood and success there, arrived in New York, she and her clever husband, Jack Kirkland, playwright and scenario writer, sallied forthwith to the family homestead up beyond Dyckman Street, where they occupied the spare room. "If would have broken mother's heart if we hadn't gone straight home," explained Miss Carroll, proudly. And indeed the La Hiff household something to be proud of i As neat as a pin, bright and sunny, scrubbed and dusted by Mrs. La Hiff's own capable hands, no doubt, and the stopping-off place for the long list of little La Hiffs who come to call on grandpa and grandma. There are pictures of the twelve La Hiffs in their various stages of development all over the house, for the sun rises and sets on the sturdy offsprings of this IrishAmerican family. Nancy attended family dinners, christenings, and birthday parties during her holiday Continued on page 100