June Carroll (1917 – May 16, 2004) was an American

lyricist A lyricist is a songwriter who writes lyrics (the spoken words), as opposed to a composer, who writes the song's music which may include but not limited to the melody, harmony, arrangement and accompaniment. Royalties A lyricist's income ...

, singer and actress. Born June Sillman in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

, Carroll appeared in the Broadway musical ''

New Faces of 1952 ''New Faces of 1952'' is a musical revue with songs and comedy skits. It ran on Broadway for nearly a year in 1952 and was then made into a motion picture in 1954. It helped launch the careers of several young performers including Paul Lynde, Alic ...

'', introducing the now-standard ''

Guess Who I Saw Today "Guess Who I Saw Today" is a popular jazz song written by Murray Grand with lyrics by Elisse Boyd. The song was originally composed for Leonard Sillman's Broadway musical revue, ''New Faces of 1952'', in which it was sung by June Carroll.Origi ...

'', by Elise Boyd and

Murray Grand Murray Grand (August 27, 1919 – March 7, 2007) was an American singer, songwriter, lyricist, and pianist best known for the song "Guess Who I Saw Today". Born in Philadelphia, Grand played piano as a teenager. During World War II, he served a ...

, as well as two songs that she wrote with Arthur Siegel, "Penny Candy" and "Love is a Simple Thing".(Album notes), ''Leonard Sillman's New Faces of 1952'', RCA Victor LOC 1008 Song credits from

The

Sauter-Finegan Orchestra The Sauter-Finegan Orchestra was an American swing jazz band popular in the 1950s. The orchestra was led by Eddie Sauter and Bill Finegan, who were both experienced big band arrangers. Sauter played mellophone, trumpet, and drums, and had attende ...

recorded "Love is a Simple Thing." She and Siegel also wrote "

Monotonous Monotone refers to a sound, for example music or speech, that has a single unvaried tone. See: monophony. Monotone or monotonicity may also refer to: In economics *Monotone preferences, a property of a consumer's preference ordering. *Monotonici ...

," introduced by

Eartha Kitt Eartha Kitt (born Eartha Mae Keith; January 17, 1927 – December 25, 2008) was an American singer and actress known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 recordings of "C'est si bon" and the Christmas novelty song "Santa Ba ...

in the show. It became one of her signature songs. She was the sister of the Broadway producer Leonard Sillman, who produced ''New Faces of 1952'', and the wife of

Sidney Carroll Sidney Carroll (May 25, 1913 – November 3, 1988) was an American film and television screenwriter. Although Carroll wrote most frequently for television, he is perhaps best remembered today for writing the screenplays for ''The Hustler'' (1961 ...

, the screenwriter. She had four children, including composer

Steve Reich Stephen Michael Reich ( ; born October 3, 1936) is an American composer known for his contribution to the development of minimal music in the mid to late 1960s. Reich's work is marked by its use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm, a ...

from her first marriage, in 1935, to Leonard Reich, and

Jonathan Carroll Jonathan Samuel Carroll (born January 26, 1949) is an American fiction writer primarily known for novels that may be labelled magic realism, slipstream or contemporary fantasy. He has lived in Austria since 1974. Life and work Carroll was b ...

and David Carroll, American authors, from her second marriage, in 1940. Carroll died from complications of Parkinson's disease in Los Angeles at the age of 86.

References

''Variety'' "June Carroll: Performer, Singer and Broadway Lyricist"
(archive from 12 November 2012, accessed 23 March 2018).

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Carroll, June 1917 births 2004 deaths American musical theatre lyricists American stage actresses Jewish American actresses Actresses from Detroit 20th-century American singers Burials at Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery 20th-century American women singers 20th-century American Jews 21st-century American Jews 21st-century American women