Madeleine Carroll film poster set to fetch £7,000

A poster for the 1935 Hitchcock classic film thriller The Thirty Nine Steps starring Black Country-born film star Madeleine Carroll was set to fetch up to £7,000 at an auction today.

The poster, featuring Miss Carroll, above and below the title was being auctioned at Christie's in South Kensington, London, and was expected to sell for between £5,000 and £7,000.

Marie-Madeleine Bernardette O'Carroll was born in Herbert Street, West Bromwich on February 26 1906. From West Bromwich Miss Carroll went on to become one of the most famous — and highest paid — British film stars of the 1930s.

Black Country historian Terry Price said: "I'm not surprised at the increased interest in memorabilia connected with her. The prices can only rise and the genuine posters are very few and far between."

One national newspaper said that Miss Carroll was "precisely the type of cool,prim blonde whom Alfred Hitchcock enjoyed humiliating on screen".

In 1999, in a British Film Institute poll, the classic 1935 version of The Thirty Nine Steps was voted the fourth greatest British film of all time.

In 1931, four years before the release of The Thirty Nine Steps, Madeleine Carroll wed guards officer, Philip Astley, and announced her retirement at the age of 25.

However, she was lured back to films by Gaumont with a reported £650 a week contract. She died in Marbella, Spain in October 1987.

Last month West Bromwich arts centre The Public officially opened a new conference room called The Madeleine Carroll Suite in her honour.