Edith Madeleine Carroll (26 February 1906 – 2 October 1987) was an English actress, popular in the 1930s and 1940s. Carroll was born at 32 Herbert Street (now number 44) in West Bromwich, Staffordshire. She graduated from the University of Birmingham, with a B.A. degree. She once taught in a girls' public school. Carroll made her stage debut with a touring company in The Lash. Widely recognised as one of the most beautiful women in films (she won a film beauty competition to start herself off in the business), Carroll's aristocratic blonde allure and sophisticated style were first glimpsed by film audiences in The Guns of Loos in 1928. Rapidly rising to stardom in Britain, she graced such popular films of the early 1930s as Young Woodley, Atlantic, The School for Scandal and I Was a Spy. She played the title role in the play Little Catherine. Abruptly, she announced plans to retire from films to devote herself to a private life with her husband, the first of four. Carroll attracted the attention of Alfred Hitchcock and, in 1935, starred as one of the director's earliest prototypical cool, glib, intelligent blondes in The 39 Steps based on the espionage novel by John Buchan.