Carroll, Jock, 1919-1995 : Jock Carroll (born John Alexander Carroll) was born in Toronto in 1919. His mother's maiden name was Agnes Watt Davidson. His father, Frank, a noted athlete and hockey coach (who lead the Blueshirts to Toronto's first Stanley Cup) died in 1938, leaving Jock responsible for supporting the family. Jock found work with McKinnon Industries (a subsidiary of General Motors) in St Catherine's, Ontario and later worked for the John Inglis company, the Bren Gun manufacturer based in Toronto. Carroll joined the RCAF in 1943, and trained as a pilot. He received wings and commission in spring 1945 and was placed in RCAF reserve.
From his earliest days out of Scarborough Collegiate Institute, Carroll worked to produce short stories for popular fiction magazines. From 1945 to 1947, he worked for a newspaper syndicate and public relations agency in Toronto, moving towards more freelance assignments for both Canadian and American publications.
Carroll joined the Standard, a national weekly magazine, in 1950. He married Joy Brown (née Joyce Nadine Holroyd) in 1952. At the time of the marriage, Joy had her own career as an editor and author and continues to write today. Joy and Jock had four children (Anne, Barbara, Scott and Angus). Joy and Jock Carroll were divorced in the mid-1970s and Jock never remarried.
Carroll was known as a "two-way" man, newspaper jargon for someone who could both write and take the photographs for an assignment. He was a self-taught photographer and according to his son Angus, Carroll considered photographs to be an adjunct to his articles and little more than "a technical skill." However it is his photographs for which Carroll is best remembered today. Early in his career with the Standard, Carroll was sent to Korea to document the experience of Canadians fighting there. In addition to his more serious assignments, Weekend Magazine often sent Carroll to interview both Canadian and American celebrities. Perhaps his best known assignment was to interview Marilyn Monroe in the Brock Hotel in Niagara Falls while the shooting of the 1953 film "Niagara" was in progress. In addition to the famous Marilyn photographs, Carroll interviewed and photographed captured countless others. Elvis Presley, Wayne and Shuster, Robert Goulet, Marilyn Bell, Judy LaMarsh, Glenn Gould and Maurice Richard are just a few of the well known personalities Carroll interviewed for Weekend Magazine.
Carroll's most successful fiction book, "The shy photographer" (also known as "Bottoms up") was a satire on the life of a photographer. Carroll produced both fiction and non-fiction works throughout his life. His two most notable non-fiction books may be "The death of the Toronto Telegram" (1971) and the biography of Canadian humourist Greg Clark "The life and times of Greg Clark, Canada's favourite storyteller" (1981).
Later in life, Carroll was approached by Stoddart Books to produce a book revisiting his time accompanying Glenn Gould to the Bahamas, a trip taken in 1956 for a Weekend Magazine assignment. Carroll had possession of the photographs taken in 1956 and the copyright as these had been transferred back to him from Weekend when he left the magazine. Despite this, the Glenn Gould estate filed a lawsuit against Carroll, claiming the estate owned the 'personality' and 'likeness' of Gould and therefore should share in the profits of the book. The case made its way to the Supreme Court of Canada and was rejected. The courts reiterated existing rights held by photographers; Carroll was found to be in the right and able to use the photographs as he wished. However the suit took a great physical toll on Carroll, who died August 5, 1995. The book, "Glenn Gould: some portraits of the artist as a young man" was published later that same year.
