Vincent Louis Carrella was born in 1909, and attended the University of Michigan until 1932, when he dropped out to enlist in the army. He spent his time in boot camp training as a military policeman, but later decided to pursue acting instead. He received his first break in 1926, when he appeared on Broadway in Clifford Odet's play "The Revolt of Mamie Stover". He soon joined the screenwriting team of Lew Brown and George E
Read more
Ingram, working on several films before going solo under the name Vincent Carrella. He moved to Hollywood in 1937 and worked as a screenwriter for Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox.
In 1939 he married Betty Grable, became a naturalized citizen of the United States, and eventually gave up screenwriting to focus on acting. He was cast as an Italian-American detective in "Hell's Angels" (1930) with James Cagney and as a gangster in "The Roaring Twenties" (1939) with Judy Garland. In 1940 he was cast as a baseball player in the film "People Will Talk" with Jean Arthur.
In 1942 he starred as a private detective in "Meet John Doe" alongside Barbara Stanwyck and Van Johnson.