Sad tales from Old Hollywood

I had sex with Jeff Richards. NYC. 1970s. He was still so, so masculine and handsome, but very fucked up. I think there was a drug problem. Talked a lot about his baseball career. Had a sad apartment, I can't remember where, I think Hells Kitchen. Maybe the Camelot on 8th. I was very young and it was a long time ago.

Are you a guy R1?

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is such a sexy, masculine movie

R2 Yes, I'm a guy.

I had sex with r1.

Susan Peters's life story is one of the most tragic—possibly the most tragic—I can think of.

Well then, we know now that one of Jeff’s problems was he was a closeted gay

In a recent interview of Lucie Arnaz by Mo Rocca, Lucie mentions that Susan Peters was a dear friend of her mother.

In fact Lucy wanted to name her daughter Susan, in honor of her friend but Desi decided she should be named Lucie and so it was.

[quote]spent his later years living off disability in a trailer

His disability BTW was a back problem.

Carole Landis

Speaking of Lucy, her cousin, actress Suzan Ball, had to have a leg amputated and died at age 21

I didn't know Jeff Richards was family. Might be part of the reason why his career didn't work out

Suzan and her cat are both very pretty.

Susan Peters is one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen—a truly exquisite woman. She was a good actress, too. I loved her in “Keep Your Powder Dry” with Lana Turner and Laraine Day.

Susan Peters was great in Sign of the Ram

Jeff Richards' big Hollywood build up was in the MGM remake of The Women, called The Opposite Sex, in which he played the singing cowboy and Romeo of the Reno divorce ranches, Buck Winston. He was so handsome but he came to MGM just as the studio and its contract players were falling apart.

I wonder if Joan Collins, who played Crystal Allen in the film, ever spoke of him?

I get Susan Peters mixed up with Andrea Leeds (from Stage Door). Didn't she also have a tragic life?

IIRC Susan is featured prominently in the first row of that famous MGM anniversary photo with LB Mayer and all of MGM's stars.

Constance Smith: from starring at 20th Century Fox in the early 1950s, to Her Majesty's Prison in the 1960s, and ending up on and off the streets of London, an old "bag lady."

Andrea Leeds wiki.

Ah, interesting. I guess I was wrong about Andrea Leeds. I think in my old young mind I had confused her own life with the sad character she portrayed in Stage Door.

Thanks for linking the wiki, r18.

Great thread

Margaret Sullavan. Mental Breakdown, hearing loss, suicide.

Ross Alexander was a hot mess who committed suicide

Then there's Gene Tierney, who battled mental illness

William Holden's death makes me very sad.

He drunkenly slipped in the bathroom, hit his head on the sink, and bled to death, only to be discovered 4 days later.

What a sad end to a great guy.

Barbara Payton, died an alcoholic and former prostitute at age 40 in 1967.

Stunningly beautiful when young, her youth, fame, and beauty were quickly extinguished by irresponsible behavior and alcohol. A really sad tale. I read her autobiography, "I am not Ashamed." Fascinating yet depressing.

From Goodreads:

I Am Not Ashamed, Barbara Payton One of the great "lost" autobiographies of Hollywood Babylon history, I Am Not Ashamed is the memoir of Barbara Payton, the 1950s film noir star who acted alongside greats like Jimmy Cagney and Gregory Peck – only to be fired by the studios for her wild (and very public) love-life... and ultimately walk the streets of Hollywood as an alcoholic prostitute. But, as she says throughout, she is not ashamed of her life. She achieved rare success in the Hollywood system and went down in an archconservative era, when McCarthy threatened the country’s free speech and Hollywood producers ran terrified of even a whiff of scandal. When Payton's boyfriend, actor Tom Neal, pounded a concussion into his effete romantic rival Franchot Tone, the whole incident went public and made Payton the Hollywood bad girl - too bad, as it turned out, for Warner Brothers to handle. Describing her downfall, Payton also talks about her relationships with Cagney, Sinatra, Peck and other big names. Lost for decades after its original 1963 release, I Am Not Ashamed leapt back into the limelight when Jack Nicholson lent it to Jessica Lange to help her prepare for her part in The Postman Always Rings Twice. Now Holloway House Publications has finally released this classic Hollywood tell-all.

I love this thread. Nothing like diving down the Old Hollywood rabbit hole.

Interested to learn that one of Jeff Richards' short-lived marriages (now we know why they didn't last) was to Vicki Flaxman, a successful female surfer of her day who later married actor Van Williams. I don't remember him in The Opposite Sex, wasn't fond of that film, I much prefer the original version, The Women. June Allyson annoys me, as she did in The Opposite Sex. Too chirpy, I'd cheat on her too.

I'm happy to learn that Andrea Leeds does not have a sad tale to tell but the character she played in Stage Door sure did. She was fabulous in that role, bringing the melancholy and despair in spades.

We can't leave out Peg Entwistle, who leapt to her death from the Hollywood sign at 24.

A truly tragic tale. Out of luck and money in Hollywood, she died before learning a job offer was on its way. She was much prettier in life than she appears in that dramatic photo you usually see. She appeared in Thirteen Women (1931), her only Hollywood film, released after her death. It was a haunting tale starring Myrna Loy as an Indian woman who kills her classmates at a reunion.

Jan-Michael Vincent:

^^Actually, my apologies -- JMV was not "old" Hollywood.

interesting thread; more please (not that I'm a doom queen or anything)

I have to laugh at how Barbara Payton named her book I am not ashamed. Honey, when you get fat and become a toothless prostitute, you should be ashamed.

R24 William Holden lacerated his forehead by slipping on a rug and hit a bedside table. He was not in the bathroom.

Bobby Driscoll. From Disney star to back alley heroin addict, buried in Potter's Field at 31.

Walt Disney star Tommy Kirk.

"Tommy Kirk, whose career as a young leading man in Disney films like Old Yeller, The Shaggy Dog and Son of Flubber came to an end, he said, after the studio discovered he was gay, has died. He was 79."

Kirk lived alone in Las Vegas and was found dead Tuesday, actor Paul Petersen announced on Facebook. TMZ reported that he died at home, and no foul play is suspected.

R31, I posted this before, but oh well... after Barbara Stanwyck read "I Am Not Ashamed," the horrified star deadpanned, "She jolly well ought to be!"

Handsome and sexy Steve Cochran ended up a bloated and stinking corpse when he was discovered on a boat at sea off the coast of Guatemala.

Wow! Vicki Flaxman married Jeff Richards (briefly) and then stayed married to the even hotter hunk Van Williams for 57 years...

Bow down DL bitches!

There's also the sad tale of MGM costume designer Irene (no credited last name and not to be confused with the other costume designer/mega dyke Irene Sharaff) who left the studio to run her own fashion retail business and then committed suicide from jumping out of her office window in downtown LA after an unsuccessful affair with Gary Cooper.

Linda Darnell suffered serious burns in an apartment that caught on fire after she fell asleep and dropped her lit cigarette. She died from her injuries.

Wow, r39, that's what happened to me!

Lupe Velez. When I heard her story in Frasier's pilot episode I thought she and her story was made up. It looks like the story may be true, albeit unverified.

Lupe Velez had relationship troubles and wanted to end her life. That much is true. This is - unverified - how her demise unraveled: Vélez planned to stage an elaborate suicide scene atop her satin bed, but the Seconal did not mix well with the "Mexi-Spice Last Supper" she had eaten earlier that evening. As a result, she became violently ill, stumbled to the bathroom to vomit, slipped on the bathroom floor tile, and fell head first into the toilet, where she subsequently drowned.

Be it true or not. It's a sad life and legacy either way.

r39 = WRONG

James Anderson, who co-starred with Barbara Payton in The Great Jesse James Raid and with Jeff Richards in The Marauders, and is probably best known for portraying evil Bob Ewell in To Kill a Mockingbird was a hot mess, too. He was an alcoholic who used to end up in the drunk tank a lot and had to promise not to drink to get the role in Mockingbird. He died from barbiturate intoxication on the set of Little Big Man in Montana

It’s ok, r29. Some of these stories are so sad they defy any era.

[quote]He died from barbiturate intoxication on the set of Little Big Man in Montana

Well, at least he was not drinking.

R42 - ok it was a housefire, not an apartment.

Barbara Payton for the win. She was selling her body for money and wine and sometimes would pass out before even getting those. They would find her unconscious next to the dumpster. She was ripped from her navel down in a knife fight. She lived in squalor.

Barbara.

Barbara.

And yet, Helen Lawson still lives.

Dues paying member of Daughters Of Bilitis and

a Sister Of Sapho

Kate was hardly a sad tale.

There's also Barbara Payton's paramour, Tom Neal, who was a murderer!

Did any of them die in a grease fire?

R28, r29

It's ok

Jan-Michael was one of the most handsome men ever

He can be in any thread

James Anderson was the younger brother of Mary Anderson, who played DL fave Maybelle Merriwether in Gone With The Wind.

The best Barbara Payton book is Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye

[quote] I didn't know Jeff Richards was family. Might be part of the reason why his career didn't work out.

I don't get it. He was married twice and if he was gay, he sure didn't come across like it. How would that have hurt his career?

Gail Russell. Best known for “The Uninvited” and “Angel and the Badman” she was Guy Madison’s first wife. There are differing reports on who first suggested alcohol to help with Gail’s crippling stage fright but she was on her way to becoming a booze bag by age 20. This was followed by arrests for driving drunk, driving into someone’s car while drunk and driving into a restaurant (that was not a drive-in) while drunk. Perhaps she drank so much because she knew what Guy Madison was really doing on his “fishing trips” with Rory Calhoun, but her drinking ended that marriage. She died of acute and chronic alcoholism. She was only 36.

Poor Gail Russell, I really liked her in The Uninvited

Helen Wood: started at the stop at MGM (GIVE A GIRL A BREAK), and then sank lower and lower to the outermost fringes of showbiz, ending up "playing second banana" to Linda Lovelace (DEEP THROAT).

Gee, that sucks about Helen Wood. She was a really good dancer--obviously good enough to get that part in Give a Girl A Break, with all those other dancers (The Champions, Bob Fosse), directed by Stanley Donen. Couldn't act, really, but going on to do porn...

Didn't Aldo Ray wind up appearing in porn?

Diana Barrymore. Too much, too soon. The little nepo baby squandered all she was blessed with because of her predeliction for drugs and alcohol. Having blown through her inheritance, Diana didn't even have money for candles when her power was shut off. She died at 38 looking like she was 58.

I'd kill to see Aldo Ray in porn

R64 if that image appeared without any identifying information people would swear it was Drew.

That's who I saw r66

I saw Ethel.

MOAR

You mustn't start similar threads. There's limited room on the internet.

You wouldn't want to use it all up.

Dorothy Dandridge…

Preston Sturges. Very successful, then very unsuccessful--and alcoholic.

Diana newsclip.

If you were a child of John Barrymore I don't think you had much of a chance.

Jean Brooks.

Jean Brooks was really striking in The Leopard Man and The Seventh Victim. I didn't know about her alcoholism

The Seventh Victim...

I give you that hot mess, Frances Farmer.

You may not of heard of her, but you know, Marilyn Monroe.

Where's AJ Benza when ya need him?

r80, didn't she play Hotch's wife on Criminal Minds?

No, but she did play one of Charlie's Angels.

The link I posted at R80 sucks, Wiki has a lot more info and detail about Marilyn Monroe.

Poor Pa Kettle came to an abrupt end. And is rumored to be gay.

[quote]And is rumored to be gay.

With a name like Percy Kilbride...

On his Noir Alley intro a few weeks ago Eddie Muller talked about Percy Kilbride being hit by a car. Poor Pa Kettle!

[quote]Didn't Aldo Ray wind up appearing in porn?

Yes, but it was a non-sexual role.

R61 The Rialto Report did a 4-part profile of Helen Wood and it's absolutely heartbreaking.

The final installment has a voice message recording from her to her then-boyfriend, and it brought me to tears listening to it.

R63 Aldo Ray appeared in a porn movie in 1979, "Sweet Savage," starring Carol Connors (mother of Thora Birch), but he didn't have any sex scenes in it.

Gay actor David Bacon was murdered. The murder was never solved

R59 She was so beautiful when she was young. My mother was a big fan of hers when she was popular in the 1940s.

I saw the last film she did, "The Silent Call," on TCM a few months ago. Although she was only 36, she looked at least 50. She died shortly after making the movie.

Montgomery Clift

The Silent Call

She doesn't look 50 in that clip, come on.

She doesn't look well, but she looks about 40.

What about Hollywood's first Superman George Reeves?

Barbara Payton’s story is THE story. No one can top it. It’s completely insane and fascinating.

I can top it.

Thank you, R79. I wondered when Frances Farmer would be mentioned.

I'd add Rita Hayworth in her later career. Her erratic behavior was thought to be alcohol abuse, when in fact she was suffering from the onset of Alzheimer's.

Betty Hutton became a cook in a convent.

R100 It was a rectory. A priest counseled her and helped her get on her feet. (In Rhode Island.)

She brought it on herself, r97. There are much *sadder* stories.

I consider the black dahlia case old Hollywood adjacent. She had a sad life. I hope she at least had a lot of fun going out

Dorothy Stratten had a tragic ending at the hands of her estranged husband, Paul Snider

R95 I dunno. I think she looks pretty old there. Way older than her 30s.

On a side note, I once read that Lee Remick patterned her character in "Days of Wine and Roses" off of Gail Russell. Remick's character was a young and innocent girl who was introduced to alcohol, and as her life grew more complicated, used it to try and cope.

Russell was also a young and innocent girl who was terribly nervous in front of the camera and who was introduced to alcohol by a production person as a way to calm her nerves. As she became more famous, she developed a dependency on alcohol to try and cope with the world she was living in.

I've now become obsessed with learning more about Barbara Payton.

For those of you who have read her books, which one do you recommend I read first?

re Steve Cochran's death. Yikes, those poor people on that boat. 10 days on a boat with a stinking corpse before being rescued.

[quote] Cochran recruited two “young women” and a 14-year-old girl to accompany him on a sailing trip from Acapulco to Costa Rica, ostensibly to take part in an upcoming film. The yacht lost one of its two masts in a storm a few days into the trip. Cochran fell ill and died two days later, on June 15, 1965, at the age of 48, of what was later determined to be an acute lung infection. The women who were accompanying him did not know how to sail the boat and were trapped with the decomposing body for ten days before being rescued out at sea. The boat, still carrying his corpse, was later found drifting off the coast of Guatemala

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye:: The Barbara Payton Story

By: John O’Dowd

I bought the kindle version on Amazon. It’s fast read and so good

The sad fate of Danny Lockin, who played Barnaby Tucker in the movie version of "Hello, Dolly!" and also on Broadway.

Back in the 70s I met Jan Michael Vincent in a restaurant in Statesboro, Ga.. I was driving from Atlanta to Savannah and we stopped off in Statesboro for a bite to eat. After we were seated he was seated at the table right next to us. I recognized him immediately and we caught eyes and he smiled. I said "fancy seeing you here". He said "yeah, I'm in town doing some work". I said simply "well it's nice to see you - I've enjoyed your work" and he got a big smile on his face and replied "well thank you very much". I got the feeling he didn't get many compliments, and I felt a little sad that he was there eating alone. But he was so handsome and sexy it almost hurt to look at him. He was there shooting the movie "Buster & Billie".

[quote] Dorothy Stratten had a tragic ending at the hands of her estranged husband, Paul Snider

Snider was the sleazeyest sleazebag who ever sleazed.

Hello, bitches!

So, wait. The women on Steve Cochran's boat survived??

Yes.

R106 it depends I am not ashamed is a great short read but Kids Tomorrow Goodbye is a huge book. It has way more information though. The author was in contact with her son who has a sympathetic take on her life.

Maggie McNamara.

R111 Looks like had a fat one though.

R105 Okay we disagree, but I wouldn't have guessed her age as 50. She doesn't move like an older person. Her body doesn't look older, or pulled down by gravity. Mainly, her face looks puffy and like she's a heavy drinker.

R59 Poor Gail. I still love what she said to the police when they asked her how much she had to drink after she crashed her car into the restaurant:

"I had two drinks. No, four. Oh, I don't know how many."

Sounds like a typical DLer.

No Lorna?

Datalounge is dead.

I guess Lorna was around "Old Hollywood" if you count when she was a child.

Ramon Novarro was killed by a trick like Danny Lockin was

Wow R109, I can't believe the resemblance between Danny Lockin and Babs Streisand in your pick. Maybe it's the purple dress and hat.

R123 Click on the picture, dear.

Lockin was cast in the 1969 film version of Hello, Dolly! on the basis of his dancing. He underwent 13 screen tests before he got the part. He later said that doing the film was "the dream of my life". He felt a strong need to compete with the film's director, legendary dancer Gene Kelly. At one point during filming, he performed a series of four "butterflies" (a cartwheel in which a person does not put their hands on the ground) while Kelly looked on; Kelly suggested an improvement and, to demonstrate, leaped into six technically superior butterflies of his own. Lockin, chastened, reportedly sulked for three days

Kelly always wanted to be the main character.

As I see it, he was arrogantly challenging Kelly, who cast him, the director of the movie and one of the two most famous dancers in the world. Famously competitive. The kid got what he deserved.

Most (or all) of the supporting cast in Hello, Dolly! was forgettable.

[quote]Poor Gail. I still love what she said to the police when they asked her how much she had to drink after she crashed her car into the restaurant:

[quote]"I had two drinks. No, four. Oh, I don't know how many."

This made me laugh out loud. As if the intake calibration had any special use given the spectacular result. And as if she would have known!

Jeff Richards is terrible in IT'S A DOG'S LIFE, made even worse by the fact that he plays an unlikable character. And you can tell MGM meant it to help break him through. Why is he so much better in SEVEN BRIDES?

I hope he wrecked Richard Chamberlain's hole on the movie they did together, Secret of the Purple Reef, released by Fox. Richards is more wooden than ever in it, barking out his admittedly terrible dialogue, and his hair is dyed, he's lost some of his looks, but still doable. Peter Falk out-acts him.

Anybody have links to episodes of his tv series Jefferson Drum?

R22 He stalked Bette Davis!

Great thread

I don't think Jefferson Drum is available anywhere on streaming, or even DVD

The child actor from the show enjoyed working with Jeff, despite his "personal problems"

[quote]He stalked Bette Davis!

In the name of God, WHY?

Jean Harlow.

Apparently Bette gave Ross Alexander a blow job and then he wouldn't leave her alone. Claimed he was madly in love with her and made her life hell for a while.

His wife Aleta Friele, despondent over marriage and career problems, killed herself with a .22 rifle outside their Laurel Canyon home in December of 1935. Remarrying and moving to Encino, Ross committed suicide with a .22 target pistol shortly after the first anniversary of his wife's death. Both shot themselves in the temple.

According to a "Classic Images" article on Ross written by John R. Allen, Jr., Ross had an unhealthy obsession with Warner Bros. star Bette Davis that lasted for years. He wanted desperately to appear in a romantic picture with her to prove himself to her. This unreciprocated attention apparently annoyed Davis, who supposedly taunted Ross and complained to studio higher-ups.

Became a close friend to Henry Fonda in 1933 while both were performing together in summer stock. Fonda would serve as best man to Ross and Aleta when they married at Aleta's sister's home in East Orange, New Jersey, the following year.

Maybe Bette never did anything with him, I think I'm mixing the story up with another one.

Pretty sure he was gay/closeted or bi/closeted.

He was married a couple times but pings majorly on the screen

[quote]For those of you who have read her books, which one do you recommend I read first?

There are only two. Read both: her memoir, “I Am Not Ashamed,” and “Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye” by John O’Dowd.

Look up her Confidential magazine issues. She was selling stories about fucking Bob Hope and others. She jumped out the window when Frank Sumatra’s wife walked in.

[quote]She jumped out the window when Frank Sumatra’s wife walked in

I heard it was Frank Jakarta's wife.

Frank Jakarta sounds like a big dicked TOTAL top

Frank Sumatra was Larry King's favourite singer.

That middle child on Nanny and the Professor who died at the age of 21 in 1982.

Beverly Wills, daughter of Joan Davis.

^^James Dean's girlfriend.

Who wasn't James Dean's girlfriend?

I always heard Hudson detested Dean, and Dean didn't care for Hudson, until recently. What's the truth?

[bold]A Tale of Two Sisters[/bold]

Sisters Ann and Ada McKnight were vaudevillian dancers from Denver who moved to Hollywood, CA, in 1927, hoping to make it big in pictures. Ada quickly landed a part in the silent film, "Bitter Sweets" (1928), under the name Joy McKnight, her only credited role. She would marry Mr. Jack Hoskins and raise a family, living to the ripe age of 79.

Unlucky Ann, in contrast, could only land walk-on parts and dancing gigs, and took a job at the local drugstore to make ends meet. There she met bookkeeper William Burkhart, whom she would marry. Burkhart, however, loved his booze and morphine, and was prone to fits of violence. After a year of marriage, Ann fled to sister Ada's home and filed for divorce.

Burkhart attempted to lure Ann back by purchasing a Ford Model A coupe and renting a nice bungalow court apartment. On March 24, 1930, the same day he signed the lease, Burkhart had asked Ann to meet him at the bungalow that evening. When she arrived, a protacted argument ensued and before the night was over, lovely Ann, 22, would be dead in the side alleyway, riddled with five bullets, two piercing her heart. An autopsy revealed that Ann's corpse had been sexually violated.

At Burkhart's trial, Ada McKnight Hoskins testified that when Burkhart called her home looking for Ann, Ada informed him that Ann would never go back to him. Burkhart's response: "By God, I will have her. She is my wife and if I can't have her nobody else shall because I will kill her first!"

Burkhart was found guilty of Ann's murder and was hanged in Folsom State Prison in 1932.

Joanna Moore was a promising young ingenue but had a painful background, orphaned in Georgia after her parents were killed in a car wreck. She married Ryan O'Neal, gave birth to the troubled Tatum and Griffin, and sunk into alcoholism and drug abuse, living with teens and losing custody of her children. Kevin McEnroe penned a fictionalized account of her life, "Our Town."

R27. Even though Peg only has one Hollywood credit she remained tied to Hollywood through a bizarre coincidence.

Bette Davis saw her as Hedvig in the Wild Duck and declared her, “my twin.” From that night on she knew she wanted to be an actress.

Billy Laughlin, best known for his role as Froggy in THE LITTLE RASCALS.

R152 She was also the wife (for a while) of character actor Robert Keith, who was in a lot of movies (and the father of Brian Keith--with another woman).

My late dear friend Betty, a lifelong L.A. resident, went to Santa Monica Community College with James Dean and shared a few classes with him. They were school friends. She said he was a sweet boy with excellent manners.

Yes, R43, I only became aware of James Anderson because he kept popping up on my favorite old TV Westerns, where even in bit parts there was something interesting about his face, and had a great voice with a tad of an easy drawl. Then I saw him in earlier b&w TV dramas like [italic]Medic,[/italic] starring Richard Boone, and the only recognizable thing about him was his voice. There he was quite handsome, elegant even. I wondered what had happened to change his looks so dramatically; now I know.

Sad case; he was a really good and interesting actor.

^ I remember seeing him pop up in various westerns, too, and always liked him as an actor. He had a bit part in Sergeant York as a twink - he was very cute back then

He was "mentored" by Charles Laughton as a young actor, make of that what you will

r153, at least a couple more f those Our Gang kids also had sad, tragic lives: Alfalfa Switzer and Scotty Beckett.

*spoiler* Other than To Kill A Mockingbird, the movie I remember James Anderson from is Ruby Gentry, where he played Jennifer Jones's crazy brother who kills her lover (Charlton Heston).

I’m in the middle of watching that movie. Thanks for ruining it, asshole.

Not to be confused with Herbert Anderson.

Not as tragic as some of these but I was saddened when I learned of Auntie Em’s demise

[quote] Throughout the 1950s, Blandick's health steadily began to deteriorate. Her eyesight began to fail and she was suffering from severe, painful arthritis. On April 15, 1962, aged 85, she returned to her Hollywood home from Palm Sunday services at her church. She began rearranging her room, placing her favorite photos and memorabilia in prominent places. She laid out her resume and a collection of press clippings from her lengthy career. She dressed immaculately in an elegant royal blue dressing gown, and with her hair properly styled, she took an overdose of sleeping pills. She lay down on a couch, covered herself with a gold blanket over her shoulders, and tied a plastic bag over her head. She left the following note: "I am now about to make the great adventure. I cannot endure this agonizing pain any longer. It is all over my body. Neither can I face the impending blindness. I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen."

[quote]R62 Gee, that sucks about Helen Wood. She was a really good dancer--obviously good enough to get that part in Give a Girl A Break… Couldn't act, really, but going on to do porn...

Interestingly, she didn’t seem to be depressed about any of that. Re: the porn - she didn’t think many people would ever see those. It was on the cusp of the time period when they became popular with the general public.

There’s a multi part podcast about her that’s interesting:

Poor Auntie Em :-(

R163 Thanks for the link. I don't have time to listen to a 34 minute podcast, though.

Ha, R157, I wondered about that, too; when I looked him up I found no evidence of his having a wife, or even a girlfriend...

...not that that means anything....

[quote]R165 Thanks for the link. I don't have time to listen to a 34 minute podcast, though.

And it’s 5 parts long!

Maybe you can put it on while you’re driving. It’s interesting - they talk to DEEP THROAT’S casting director, etc. And Helen Wood’s long time boyfriend.

Ooooh, thanks, R159-- checking now to see if I can find that movie on streaming.

R168 It's on YouTube.

R168

Seriously, R169? Merci.

[quote]R167 …they talk to DEEP THROAT’S casting director,

Sorry - not casting director. Tallie Cochrane was an underground talent agent for adult performers.

R171 Never mind the link I posted, though. It has a lag. There are several copies on YouTube.

Helen Wood was a superb dancer...

I always imagine the tragic figures from Old Hollywood lived in places like this.

I used to live in a place like that, r175. It was cute and cozy.

R176, Cool! Did some desperate out-of-work actors live there, too?

Here's a link to the apartments where Humphrey Bogart lived in "In a Lonely Place." He played a screenwriter accused of murder.

Have we covered Gene Tierney's measles baby yet? :(

There were three units, r177. The manager lived in one of the units with his younger boyfriend (who wasn't in the bloom of youth himself). I think it was the younger one that worked for or had some connection to Barry Manilow. I have zero memory of anyone that lived in the third unit. It was 1985.

Olive Thomas - Artists' model, Ziegfeld Girl / Ziegfeld mistress, silent movie star and wife of Jack Pickford (brother of Mary). She appeared in such films as "Madcap Madge" and "Indiscreet Corrine".

Jack and Olive had a tumultuous marriage with lots of partying, drinking, fighting and making up. At one particular rocky point in the marriage they went on a second honeymoon to Paris. After a night of drinking and partying in the City of Lights they went back to their hotel suite to sleep it off. Olive got up from her bed and took a drink of a sleeping tonic or perhaps water - the label was in French - and then screamed "Oh, my god, I'm poisoned!" What she had actually swigged down was Jack's syphilis medication which contained mercury. Olive died 5 days later. She was 25. It may have been an accident or it may have been suicide after Olive found out that Jack gave her syphilis, but no one will ever really know.

MGM’s Helen Wood, who was in “Deep Throat” under the name Dolly Sharp (r163)

Ona Munson, best known for her role as Belle Watling in GONE WITH THE WIND. Suicide.

I love those old courtyard apartments. I wish we had them, of that vintage, in the Northeast.

R179, thanks for finding that link. Just imagine what happened in those rooms over the years. If walls could talk!

[quote]MGM’s Helen Wood, who was in “Deep Throat” under the name Dolly Sharp (R163)

She could have been mentioned in the recent thread about people whose names are a subject and verb.

Give a girl a break...

Lina Lamont.

Humiliated in public and career ruined by that cunt Kathy Selden.

Not old like from1930, but sad nonetheless

[quote]The young and beautiful Tammy Lynn Leppert was at the start of a promising modeling and acting career in the early 1980s.

[quote]Blonde and hazel-eyed, she had first begun modeling in beauty contests and pageants at age four and later started making appearances in movies. She is probably most recognizable for a small role in the iconic 1983 movie Scarface, in which she played a bikini-clad girl who distracted a lookout car. At only 18 years old, Leppert had dreams of making it big in Hollywood. Despite her promising start, she purportedly witnessed something disturbing at a party that caused her to develop intense paranoia.

[quote]Her mental health rapidly declined, she began behaving erratically, and she soon became convinced that someone was trying to kill her. Then, on July 6, 1983, Tammy Lynn Leppert vanished from Cocoa Beach, Florida, marking the start of a decades-long mystery that has baffled investigators ever since.

R163 Ya don't say. R89.

Oh lort … how embarrassing !

Well, I DID provide a link, at least[bold] : )

R163 I remember seeing Deep Throat when I was in college. I thought it was awful - not funny, not sexy, and I to this day I don't understand the fascination with it or how it's become a cult classic. But I do remember Dolly Sharp (Helen Wood) standing out. I kept thinking, "Where did this woman come from?" You could tell she was a "real" actress. She had presence. She could deliver her lines with a comic flair. She had that "something."

Learning about her from The Rialto Report series put it all into perspective for me. When she aged out of being able to earn a living as a dancer, she was desperate for money, needing to raise her son as a single mom, so she figured she could put on a wig, do these cheapie porn flicks for some quick cash, and no one would ever find out. Little did she know Deep Throat would take off like a rocket, and she was horrified when it did, so she got the hell out of Dodge and tried to hide.

Her son is likely still alive (I think the podcast said he was born in the early 1960s). I wonder if The Rialto Report was able to locate him and/or if he refused to speak with them. It would be interesting to hear his perspective on his mom, but I have to imagine it would be awkward discussing your mother the porn actress.

And yes, that voicemail recording she left for her boyfriend was heartbreaking to listen to.

R187 The actress who played Lina Lamont didn't have it too easy either.

I didn't know that Jean Hagen was an alcoholic (or that her last role was in Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn)

Dead Ringer

[quote]The actress who played Lina Lamont didn't have it too easy either.

Jean Hagen's final movie was a bit part in "Dead Ringer" with Bette Davis (1964).

[quote]Olive Thomas - Artists' model, Ziegfeld Girl / Ziegfeld mistress, silent movie star and wife of Jack Pickford (brother of Mary). She appeared in such films as "Madcap Madge" and "Indiscreet Corrine".

There was another famous Silent Film star named Olive. Olive Borden.

"She was nicknamed "the Joy Girl", after playing the lead in the 1927 film of that same title. Borden was known for her jet-black hair and stunning overall beauty."

"At the peak of her career in the mid-1920s, Borden was earning $1,500 a week. "

"She had starring roles in eleven films at Fox, including 3 Bad Men and Fig Leaves, both of which costarred her then-boyfriend George O'Brien. 3 Bad Men has also been featured at the Museum of Modern Art. During this time she worked with some directors who would go on to achieve major fame, including John Ford, Howard Hawks, and Leo McCarey."

"In 1927, she walked out on her contract with Fox after refusing to take a pay cut. By 1929, her career began to wane due to her rumored reputation for being temperamental and her difficulty transitioning to sound films."

"During her acting career, Borden was one of the highest paid stars. She spent her money freely and by the late 1930s, she was broke. Borden then found work as a postal clerk and mail carrier and also worked as a nurse's aide"

"Borden struggled with alcoholism and numerous health problems. She spent her final years in the skid row section of Los Angeles working and living at the Sunshine Mission, a home for women alongside her mother Sibbie"

Eric Fleming, Clint Eastwood's co-star on Rawhide, drowned while filming a TV program

Olive Borden starred with hunky George OBrien in the 1926 film "Fig Leaves" that is said to have been the inspiration for the Flintstones:

Watch George's alarm clock at 1:25.

Love the snooze alarm, r198.

Clara Bow's childhood was marked by poverty, neglect, and significant trauma. She endured a difficult home life with an absent and abusive father and a mother who struggled with mental illness.

Bow grew up in poverty in Brooklyn, New York, and described a childhood where she often lacked basic necessities like food and clothing.

Bow's mother suffered from schizophrenia and epilepsy, which led to violent outbursts and periods of instability. One incident involved her mother holding a knife to Clara's throat.

Bow's mother died in 1923 after a psychotic episode related to her epilepsy. Bow reportedly tried to jump into her mother's grave at the funeral.

Bow also experienced a severe head injury from falling out of a second-story window at the age of 16.

In addition to the mental and physical trauma, she was also reportedly sexually abused by her abusive and often absentee father later in her childhood.

Bow's experiences shaped her personality and contributed to her later struggles with mental health. Her escape from this difficult environment was partly through her pursuit of a career in acting.

Her father tried to sleep with her many times.

Sue Randall, best known as Miss Landers on Leave It To Beaver, died very young and painfully

[quote]Was a heavy smoker for years and eventually was diagnosed with lung and larynx cancer in 1982. Following treatments for the malignancies, including the removal of her larynx, she died in Philadelphia on October 26, 1984 just 2 weeks after her 49th birthday. In accordance with her wishes, her body was donated for medical science to the Humanity Gifts Registry in Philadelphia.

Dolores Costello was once known as the Goddess of the Silent Screen.

She married her first husband, John Barrymore, twenty-one years her senior, in 1928. Their marriage was tumultuous and ravaged by Barrymore's alcoholism. She stopped acting to be a homemaker. After she gave birth to their second child in 1934, a son, (Drew Barrymore's father John Drew Barrymore), Dolores divorced her philandering, violent, abusive husband and tried to support her two children through resuming her acting career.

n 1939, she married second husband Dr. John Vruwink, an obstetrician who was her physician during her pregnancies. They divorced in 1950.

Costello spent the remaining years of her life in semi-seclusion, managing an avocado farm. Any chance at resuming her film career at this point was nullified by the destructive effects of early film makeup, which destroyed her complexion to the point where no amount of makeup could hide the scars. Costello's final film was This Is the Army (1943).

In the 1970s, a flash flood blasted through her modest home, causing severe damage to her property and to the memorabilia from her movie career and life with John Barrymore.

Dolores Costello died in 1979 of emphysema, when her granddaughter Drew was four years old..

She does have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

R194 No, her last role was in Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn (1977), as the poster directly above you wrote.

When was she married to Lou, r202?

I’ll just leave this here…

Didn't Orson Welles give Dolores Costello a HUGE comeback role as the matriarch in The Magnificent Ambersons?

Alma Rubens was a popular silent screen actress who supported star Douglas Fairbanks in four Triangle Film Corporation productions, "Reggie Mixes In," "The Mystery of the Leaping Fish," "The Half-Breed," and "The Americano" (all 1916). After signing with William Randolph Hearst's Cosmopolitan Productions, she became a bona fide leading lady, headlining such audience favorites as "Humoresque," "The World and His Wife," and "Thoughtless Women" (all 1920). However, Alma's growing addiction to heroin precipitated her career decline.

Miss Rubens would spend the decade in and out of sanatoriums as she battled her demons. Her drug use and difficult on-set behavior, forced Hearst to place her on suspension, later releasing her from contract in 1923. She would make a few films for Fox Film Corporation before going freelance. Her drug use became widely known in 1929, after she attempted to stab a physician who was taking her to a sanatorium for treatment. That same year, she appeared in her final two pictures, "She Goes to War" and "Show Boat," playing riverboat singer Julie Dozier.

In 1930, Alma announced she was drug free and ready for a comeback; however, no film offers came. On January 5, 1931, she was arrested by the Feds for cocaine possession and conspiracy to smuggle morphine from Mexico. Shortly after posting bail, Alma contracted pneumonia, lapsed into a coma and died on January 21, 1931, at the age of 33.

R206 Her big comeback was in David O. Selznick's production of Little Lord Fauntleroy, also starring Freddie Bartholomew, in 1936. (Her last film before that was in 1931) She was billed as Dolores Costello Barrymore. She then appeared in maybe 10 other movies until 1939, then Ambersons was in 1941.

John Gilbert.

Renee Adoree.

Thelma Todd. Maybe a suicide, maybe murder. Her ex had ties to the mob.

Warning: link shows death photos.

[quote]Jean Hagen's final movie was a bit part in "Dead Ringer" with Bette Davis (1964).

The role wasn't large, r195, but I've seen that movie only once years ago, and yet I remember her skillful and pitch perfect performance very vividly.

Talent doesn't need a lot to do a lot.

[quote]R202 the destructive effects of early film makeup… destroyed her complexion to the point where no amount of makeup could hide the scars.

I wonder what ingredients in those old products damaged the skin. Did other performers also suffer, long term?

Lead

r211 see r194

R212 Orthochromatic film required a certain makeup that was later changed when panchromatic film came in (hence Max Factor's Panchromatic Make-Up).

[quote]I remember seeing Deep Throat when I was in college. I thought it was awful - not funny, not sexy, and I to this day I don't understand the fascination with it or how it's become a cult classic. But I do remember Dolly Sharp (Helen Wood) standing out. I kept thinking, "Where did this woman come from?" You could tell she was a "real" actress. She had presence. She could deliver her lines with a comic flair. She had that "something."

Helen's career seemed to be on the up again right before she did porn. In 1968, she was cast in NYC's most expensive film at the time, William Friedkin's musical "The Night They Raided Minsky's". Unfortunately, most of Helen's scenes were cut.

Filming "Deep Throat" was her lowest point. You can see in the swimming pool scene where she was playing Linda Lovelace's confidant that she had been crying shortly before she filmed the scene, or had been doing drugs, or maybe both.

If Helen had made some better choices or been luckier, she might have ended up with a career like Ellen Burstyn's, who she resembled quite a bit. Interestingly, the plot of the movie "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" parallels Helen's post-showbiz story quite closely.

What could have ever been the beneficial need of lead in face makeup? Was it to acquire a whiteness that was not achievable with any other ingredient?

It boggles the mind.

Didn’t hunky Aldo Ray star in a porno film later in his career because he needed the money? He had a non sexual role too.

You seem to know the answer, r218.

It used to contain arsenic, r217.

r218 See r63 and r88. Read the thread, or at least do a CTRL+F search before you ask a question.

R221 What's it to you? If you don't like the question, ignore it.

The Wizard of Oz was cursed. So many tragedies on set occurred.

I'd imagine a lot of those early silent screen stars went bonkers because they were suddenly thrust into a new and unique kind of world-wide fame and influx of money and temptations with often very little to back it up other than an expressive face.

Was there ever that kind of instant celebrity before silent movies? I don't think even athletes or politicians experienced that phenomena.

[quote]The Wizard of Oz was cursed. So many tragedies on set occurred.

The video doesn't work, but if the tragedies include the hanging Munchkin who can be seen on camera, then it's bogus.

Rebecca Schaeffer

Id love a movie of Barbra Paytons story.

r226 Rebecca Schaeffer is "old Hollywood"?

R227, I think John O'Dowd, who wrote Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye: The Barbara Payton Story, is working on a screenplay

Jeff Richards was a big ol’ hunk of spunk.

R229 What actress could play her?

R227 Id love a movie of Barbra Paytons story.

It would be extremely depressing. And Payton isn’t really a sympathetic subject as she created most of her own problems (partly by pouring a sea of alcohol on everything.)

^^ should be:

[quote]R227 Id love a movie of Barbra Paytons story.

[quote]It would be extremely depressing.

Yeah, *that's* what we need right now.

Barbara in her young Hollywood days.

R231 - What about Scarlett Johansson?

R236 That's an excellent choice. But would she be willing to get fat to play Barbara in later years?

Melissa Peterman

Chic and beautiful Rita Johnson's life was ruined in 1948 after a massive head injury, never definitely explained. Barely able to work thereafter, she descended into alcoholism and died aged 52.

Her best role was Charles Laughton's mistress in THE BIG CLOCK (48). In which she is killed with a blow to head by a heavy decorative object.

She was good in They Won't Believe Me too.

Wasn't Rita Johnson often cast as The Other Woman when Gail Patrick wasn't available?

Rita Johnson was very good in The Major and the Minor.

Yes, as The Other Woman.

Speaking of actors with unexplained head injuries

Susan Cabot

There was also that young actress who played Princess Summerfall Winterspring on Howdy Doody.

Judy Tyler, R246. She was also in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "Pipe Dream" and an Elvis movie.

Yes, r247! Could not remember her name. Thank you.

I was a huge fan as a gayling and was severely disappointed when my parents brought me to NYC to appear in the Peanut Gallery of the Howdy Doody Show, only to discover that Princes SFWS was not appearing that week. Looking back on it now, I realize she had just lost her life in that horrible auto accident.

Lillian Gish’s autobiography is very interesting.

Her BIRTH OF A NATION costar, Robert Harron, accidentally shot himself when he was unpacking a gun from a trunk. Or was it suicide, having failed to be cast in DW Griffith’s follow up, WAY DOWN EAST?

Anyway, he was only 27.

He looks like a fag.

Well, supposedly he was a very Catholic virgin. So, make of that what you will.

Broadway's loss...

Wallace Reid, the biggest male star of the time, dying of morphine addiction

Cecilia Sisson

Wallace Reid was one of the silent screen's biggest stars. With his dashing good looks and athletic physique, he was paired with the top leading ladies of the day, like Bebe Daniels, Gloria Swanson, and Lila Lee, making female audiences swoon and earning him the sobriquet "the screen's most perfect lover." He also loved racing cars and performing his own stunts, earning him respect and admiration from male audiences as well.

The studios worked Wally like a dog though, and between 1919 to 1922, at the height of his popularity, he would make nearly 30 pictures.

In 1919, en route to Oregon to film "The Valley of the Giants, Reid's train derailed, resulting in a 3" gash on his scalp and a piece of broken glass cutting his arm to the bone. Several others in the company were also injured, and because of their remote location 12 hours passed before help could arrive. Not wanting to lose time to this calamity, the studio summoned a doctor to give Wally doses of morphine so he could work through the severe pain. And thus began Wally's decline into addiction.

Reid continued to work nonstop while he recovered from his injuries, but morphine seemed to be the only relief from the throbbing headaches. Over time, Wally's health declined and the once strapping 190 lbs Reid dropped to a gaunt 130 lbs. His once affable, happy-go-lucky disposition disintegrated to morose, paranoic, and restless, and he began drinking heavily to calm his nerves. Movie audiences took notice of Reid's transformation and wondered what was wrong with their beloved idol.

Reid's wife, actress Dorothy Davenport, begged Paramount Pictures to give her husband an extended leave, and once granted, she took him to a sanitarium for treatment. However, with his health already weakened, Wally contracted influenza and succumbed to his illness, dying on January 18, 1923, at the age of 31.

Wallace Reid was one of the first Hollywood casualty and his fans came out in droves to pay their respects. He also supposedly died broke, having spent his fortune on morphine and paying off blackmailers who threatened to expose his dark secret.

Rachel Roberts…deeply disturbed and sad woman. Rex Harrison was a complete sleazeball.

R128, I planned it that way!

R256, whatever Rex Harrison may or may not have been, I fail to see what that has to do with Rachel Roberts death as they had been divorced for over a decade at the time of her death.

Someone …. what’s her name?

Whatever happened during their marriage, it affected her deeply. She was alr a fragile person.

[quote] [R63] Aldo Ray appeared in a porn movie in 1979, "Sweet Savage," starring Carol Connors (mother of Thora Birch),

The star of "All in the Family" had a sex change and did porn???

Barbara La Marr was one of the biggest stars of the silent screen for a brief while, and was publicized as "The Girl Who Is Too Beautiful."

[quote] During her career, La Marr became known as the pre-eminent vamp of the 1920s; she partied and drank heavily, once remarking to the press that she only slept two hours a night. In 1924, La Marr's health began to falter after a series of crash diets for comeback roles further affected her, leading to her death from pulmonary tuberculosis and nephritis at age 29.

Her weird legacy was that she became akind of minor cult figure, with many former fans idolizing her because of her beauty and early death. One of these was Mrs. Louis B. Mayer, who convinced her husband to re-name the also famously gorgeous Austrian star Edwige Keissler (akak "Hedy Lamarr" when MGM signed her to a contract and began to rpomote her (simnilarly) as "The Most beautiful Gurl in the World."

Was she the actress who popularized the bee sting lipped look?

Frances Farmer hardly led a charmed life but it was Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm compared to what Frances and Shadowland claimed happened and has now been thoroughly debunked.

Barbara La Marr left behind a son, previously unknown to the public, who was adopted by her close friend, ZaSu Pitts and her husband, Tom Gallery.

I had no idea Zasu Pitts ever married! I'm so happy for her.

[quote]r266 = I had no idea Zasu Pitts ever married! I'm so happy for her.

That's Zazu Pitts Gallery Woodall to you, bub.

R242 Too, too beguiling.

^^ And if anyone is curious, baby La Marr seemed to end up living a pretty good life. Zasu Pitts also appears to be a pretty standup person. A nice bio below.

R256 From Rachel Roberts’ Wiki:

“[Rachel] Roberts was known in the entertainment industry for the eccentric behaviour that stemmed from her alcoholism.[9] She had a habit of imitating a Welsh Corgi when intoxicated and once, at a party thrown by Richard Harris, attacked actor Robert Mitchum on all fours, chewing his trousers and chomping on his bare skin, while he patted her on the head, saying "there, there".[10] In diary entries from June 1967, Richard Burton describes a visit from the Harrisons where "Rachel became stupendously drunk and was or became totally uncontrollable...She insulted Rex sexually, morally, physically and in every way. She lay on the floor in the bar and barked like a dog. At one time she started to masturbate her basset hound - a lovely sloppy old dog called Omar."[11] At the time of her death, Roberts was intermittently with Darren Ramirez, a Mexican almost 20 years younger. It was a largely platonic relationship. In her final years she became obsessed with rekindling her relationship with Harrison.[12]“

She was one tough old mama

She was a great actress.

SHE WAS CRAZY. I see what you’re saying. She mistreated Rex. But given his track record of mistreating his women, it seems like karma. Someone should have made his life hell.

Rachel Roberts did a half hour interview with Dick Cavett in the late 70’s. I watched recently expecting to see a total lunatic—or at least a partial one. Instead she was completely lucid and charming. The same with a TV interview Montgomery Clift gave to Irv Kupcinet In the early 60’s, when he was supposedly in such bad shape. He made it through the hour just fine and spoke intelligently throughout. Perhaps it was simply that they were sober, for once.

Roscoe Arbuckle

"Roscoe"...now that's a boy's name that should have a revival.

My brother has a cat named Roscoe.

I bet it's a cool cat.

What am I chopped liver?

Very cool r278. He loves olives.

Oh god. Heche really is a sad story.

Luckily, I don’t think she lived an unhappy adult life. So that’s something.

Hunky John Smith, who was a Henry Willson client and rumored to be a closet case.

Drank himself to death

(And co-starred with Jeff Richards in the crappy-looking Island of Lost Women)

Alias Smith and Jones

[quote]Oh god. Heche really is a sad story. Luckily, I don’t think she lived an unhappy adult life. So that’s something.

Well, maybe a tad unhappy at the very end.

[quote]"Roscoe"...now that's a boy's name that should have a revival.

I just orgasmed.

I saw Rachel Roberts in a play, a comedy, in the 70s, she was very funny and she was great in movies like This Sporting Life. She was also married to actor Alan Dobie (before Rex Harrison), who's still alive.

She was a superb actress:

Some actresses were extraordinary *because* of their madness...Vivien and Kim Stanley for instance.

Even some of the young'uns here will remember Rachel Roberts from Murder on the Orient Express and Foul Play, two enormously successful mainstream movies from the late 1970s.

My photograph albums help me to pass the time, r289.

Roberts is fantastic in Picnic at Hanging Rock, the last sequence of scenes with her is absolutely brilliant. For this film alone, she should be remembered.

An old, gay friend of mine first told me (back in the '90s) about her barking on all fours. I was amazed/shocked.

She was great w/Richard Harris in that rugby movie, This Sporting life. GREAT. I mean with her face, she would not have gotten where she did if she didn't have amazing talent. Because she was no oil painting. Still it was a great face, and she had a great voice, too.

I completely forgot she was in Murder on the Orient Express, though.

Maybe TCM should give her a Summer Under the Stars day.

Peggy Shannon, dead of booze and heartbreak at 34. She was the lead in a lot of Pre-Code films at various studios, including the early disaster movie THE DELUGE (33).

Another great Rachel Roberts performance is in a movie that seems to have disappeared—Alpha Beta from 1975, filmed for TV in the UK but playing in theaters in the US. It is a two-character study of the end of a marriage, but the two characters are Roberts and Albert Finney. They play with an intensity that is just astonishing, even beyond the Roberts/Harris scenes in This Sporting Life if that seems possible. Criterion should look into it.

Rachel Roberts in the great but short-lived "Tony Randall Show."

Anne Lambert talked about Rachel Roberts being drunk at night on location for Picnic at Hanging Rock. Rachel appeared naked and said here was a free meal, boys. Anne said she was not surprised there were no takers.

Rachel Roberts was great in Foul Play. Still remember her in a supporting role 50 years later.

She was awful in Doctors' Wives but so was everyone else.

Speaking of Rex Harrison's wives, why no mention of the gorgeous brilliant Kay Kendall who died so tragically young? I wonder, had she lived, would they have continued to have a happy marriage?

I don't think any of Rex Harrison's wives had a happy marriage, R301.

Wasn't there a famous starlet who committed suicide because Rex wouldn't leave one of his wives for her?

Miss Carole (Jennifer North) Landis, r303.

Miss Landis...

[quote]R301 Speaking of Rex Harrison… had Kay Kendall lived, would they have continued to have a happy marriage?

No, because he was a serial cheater. And the only reason he married Kendall was because she was diagnosed with leukemia and her doctor insisted she needed someone with her at all times.

It was a very odd arrangement. The doctor and Harrison didn’t tell Kendall about her looming, inevitable death. (She lived two more years.) And when Harrison proposed divorce to his current wife Lilli Palmer, he made her promise they’d remarry after Kendall died.

Palmer lied and said, “Sure!” (cough cough)

Her autobiography “Change Lobsters and Dance” is really well written. She also wrote a novel.

I should reread it r307.

Why is it called Change Lobsters and Dance?

Lobsters do not mate for life; instead, they engage in a system of serial monogamy, mating with different partners during each breeding season.

She liked to boil and dance one after the other.

Sexy Rexy seemed to have no problem getting beautiful women. Kay would have made a wonderful Mame Dennis.

That’s a good theory. I think it’s also some kind of allusion to the mad “Lobster Quadrille” described in Lewis Carrol’s ALICE IN WONDERLAND:

——————————

“You may not have lived much under the sea—” ("I haven’t,” said Alice)—"and perhaps you were never even introduced to a lobster—" (Alice began to say, “I once tasted—” but checked herself hastily, and said, “No, never”) “—so you can have no idea what a delightful thing a Lobster-Quadrille is!”

“No, indeed,” said Alice. “What sort of a dance is it?

“Why,” said the Gryphon, “you first form into a line along the sea-shore—”

“Two lines!” cried the Mock Turtle. “Seals, turtles, salmon, and so on: then, when you’ve cleared all the jelly-fish out of the way—”

“That generally takes some time,” interrupted the Gryphon.

“—you advance twice—”

“Each with a lobster as a partner!” cried the Gryphon.

“Of course,” the Mock Turtle said: “advance twice, set to partners—”

“—change lobsters, and retire in same order,” continued the Gryphon.

“Then, you know,” the Mock Turtle went on, “you throw the—”

“The lobsters!” shouted the Gryphon, with a bound into the air.

“—as far out to sea as you can—”

“Swim after them!” screamed the Gryphon.

“Turn a somersault in the sea!” cried the Mock Turtle, capering wildly about.

“Change lobsters again!” yelled the Gryphon at the top of its voice.

“Back to land again, and—that’s all the first figure,” said the Mock Turtle, suddenly dropping his voice; and the two creatures, who had been jumping about like mad things all this time, sat down again very sadly and quietly and looked at Alice.

“It must be a very pretty dance,” said Alice timidly.

Yvette Vickers

[quote]Vickers was last seen alive in 2010. She had withdrawn from her extended family and friends. Her mummified body was discovered by actress and neighbor Susan Savage on April 27, 2011, in her home at 10021 Westwanda Drive, Beverly Hills. The month of her death is unknown, but forensic scientists concluded that she may have been dead for as long as a year before her body was discovered. There were no signs of foul play. Her autopsy was completed by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner, who ruled her cause of death to be heart failure resulting from coronary artery disease.

R333 it’s not an allusion. It’s the direct source of her book’s tittle. Duh.

Yvette’s costarred with Allison Hayes in ATTACK OF THE 50-FOOT WOMAN.

Her life was also tragic.

Yvette Vickers' house looks like it was demolished.

Of course it was. The lot was up for sale with plans for a replacement.

After you read the sad FBI file on Van Johnson, you can add his closeted ass to this list. As a NYC chorus boy, before he was famous, he listed homosexual as a reason to avoid service. It came back to bite him in the ass and he had to admit he wasn't lying or would face charges... He was trapped and his own description of his closetedness is very sad.

Poor Van was also pressured into a beard marriage, he eventually left his wife for a man

Makes me wonder if the auto accident Van was in was planned for him to evade service. Just speculation, that’s all.

R321 Unlikely.

The subject still claimed of daily headaches and vertigo and is confused and foggy mentally on first arising, 'but this passes off during the day. He claimed of extreme fatigue by the end of the day's activities. A general physical examination was negative except for blood pressure reflecting systolic 180 and diastolioc110. neurologi- cal examination showed scars of fractures and markedly exaggerated reflexes.

R321 They were going to replace him, in the film he was doing (his big breakthrough role) but Spencer Tracy and Irene Dunne said they wanted to wait for him to recover. This was a very bad injury, it nearly took the top of his head off.

Joan Crawford took her own life according to friends.

Robert Young attempted suicide in the early 1990s but lived 8 or 9 more years and died in his 90s.

I thought Joan had pancreatic cancer, yet no mention of it is made in this Enquirer article. And there's no better journalism than the Enquirer.

Joan did have pancreatic cancer, from decades of alcoholism.

[quote]Joan Crawford took her own life according to friends.

Well, I'm sure no one else wanted it.

Gig Young murdered his wife. Shot her in the head.

r330 These things happen

Like Gig Young, character actor Albert Salmi killed his wife, then killed himself

His first wife was Peggy Ann Garner from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, I guess she literally dodged a bullet by divorcing him

And Gig Young's third wife was Elizabeth Montgomery.

Gig Young married Elizabeth Montgomery shortly after his brief engagement to Elaine Stritch. Both Young and Stritch were combative drunks so their relationship was fraught with fighting and abuse.

His relationship with Montgomery was no better. She was 20 years his junior and put up with his alcoholism and abuse for as long as she could. Her father Robert couldn't understand why she married someone "almost as old and not one quarter as successful as I am."

Gig's poor final wife, Kim, 31, married him just three weeks prior to him putting a gun to her head. Little did she know that "'til death do us part" would come so soon.

Gig was so handsome in his younger days. Just like Bill Holden. Both of them ruined their looks from the heavy drinking.

Young Gig Young? Yes, I definitely would.

Gig Young seemed much younger than Robert Montgomery, to me, but looking them up I see RM was born in 1904 and GY in 1913.

Gig actually got his stage name from a film he was in with Barbara Stanwyck called THE GAY SISTERS.

Viola Dana had TWO bad romances. Her first husband died in the influenza pandemic of 1918. Her second boyfriend died when his aircraft crashed on August 2, 1920, during a nighttime film shoot. Her second and third marriages were happier.

I watched them take out his body from the Osborne on 57th street.

Has anyone mentioned Danny Lockin(Hello, Dolly)? He was gang-banged and then brutally murdered by some rough trade.

He would have been 82 years old today.

OMG that Van Johnson file! R319 thank you for that. It deserves a thread of its own. Does the non-redacted version exist somewhere? That would really be the smoking gun of VJ's pole smoking. A lot can still be pieced together, but his recounting of his life and sexual experience up to that time is deeply sad in every way: the words he uses, the picture it all paints of how being gay was perceived, how he enumerates the sex acts and who did what to whom. It would be wild to know the partners in the affairs from his NYC theatre years and early time at MGM. There are clues, but not quite enough to know conclusively.

There was no "young Gig Young." When he was young, he was Byron Barr.

There was another actor named Byron Barr (he played Phyllis's step-daughter's insolent boyfriend, Nino Zachetti, in Double Indemnity). So the other Byron Barr (Gig) had to change his name.

Similar to an English actor named James Stewart changing his name to Stewart Granger, because there was already an actor named James Stewart.

Stewart Granger pinged like hell

R344, Helen could've just added his middle initial.

^^ *HE*

I don't know why it spelled out "Helen."

R345 In what universe?

R326: Robert You g and his wife were in and out of hospitals numerous times for alcohol and depression. An indiscreet employee of one place said he and his wife would arrive at at the hospital arguing like children.

[quote]Has anyone mentioned Danny Lockin(Hello, Dolly)?

Several people, initially at R109.

Jane Wyatt said in all the years they played husband and wife Robert Young (who was also her boss, since he was co-owner of the production company) never socialized with her. But she did say he never pulled rank.

"Being a family show, we all had to stick around," she once said. "Even though each show was centered on one of the five members of the family, I always had to be there to deliver such lines as `Eat your dinner, dear,' or `How did you do in school today?' We got along fine, but after the first few years, it's really difficult to have to face the same people day after day."

Bebe Daniels had a stalker!

[quote] [R345] In what universe?

The real one that doesn't conform to your stereotypes . And there have been rumors

R353 In what way did he ping, then?

Rumors are another thing.

The Van Johnson files are interesting. Apparently he started messing around with other boys when he was only 12 or 13

I wonder if Charles Walters was one of the guys he hooked up with. Before he became a director, he was a Broadway actor in shows like New Faces 🤔

Apparently he started messing around with other boys when he was only 12 or 13.

Big deal: many among us started messing around with other boys when younger than 12 or 13.

Who here didn't mess around with other boys when they were 12 or 13??

I didn't until I was 28.

And Greta Garbo's looks give me a thrill

DL senior gays may still remember America's Sweetheart, Mary Pickford, and some might even know her errant brother, Jack. But what about their less talented sister, Lottie?

Lottie (Charlotte) was the middle child, only a year younger than Mary (née Gladys) and three years older than Jack. Mary, at first, did her best to keep Lottie away from signing with her studio, Biograph Company, even telling others that Lottie wasn't pretty enough for films. But soon, both Lottie and Jack were working at Biograph, all three siblings even appearing together in "Fanchon, the Cricket" (1915).

Lottie would appear in over 80 shorts and nearly a dozen feature films, even starring in her own adventure serial, "The Diamond from the Sky." But while Mary was a hardworking and driven careerist, Lottie was a hedonist, like her scandal-prone brother Jack, and partied the Roaring '20s away with abandon. Lottie's all-night parties became legendary for the copious amounts of booze, drugs, and barenaked romps.

Lottie would abandon her film career for a succession of marriages, before landing husband #4, Pittsburgh society man, John William Lock, in 1933.

But the years of hard partying would take their toll. On December 9, 1936, Lottie dropped dead of a heart attack, age 43, after several years of failing health. Mary, in her memoirs, wrote about how Lottie and Jack were extremely close and very much alike, and when Jack died in 1933 at 36, a part of Lottie died along with him.

I think someone meant to post about Mercedes McCambridge in this thread instead of another one. Her son was hard core! From Wikipedia:

Mercedes McCambridge's son John Markle, a UCLA graduate with a PhD in Economics, joined the Little Rock, Arkansas, investment firm Stephens Inc. in 1979, after working for Salomon Brothers in New York City. Markle was a successful futures trader, and quickly rose through the company's ranks. McCambridge gave Markle $604,000 ($2.05 million in 2023) to manage for her, but in the fall of 1987, the company discovered that Markle had opened a secret account in McCambridge's name. Soon the company found that Markle had been charging trading losses to the Stephens house account, while crediting profitable trades to McCambridge's account. Markle was later shown to have forged his mother's signature in opening the account.

Markle was placed on medical leave, then fired from his position at Stephens. McCambridge refused to cooperate with Markle and the company in instituting a repayment scheme that would have kept the matter from becoming public, saying that she had done nothing wrong and that Stephens Inc. owed her money. Shortly thereafter, in November 1987, Markle killed his family—his wife Christine, 45, and daughters Amy, 13, and Suzanne, 9—and then himself. He left a note taking responsibility for his crimes and a long, bitter letter to his mother. The letter contained the following: "Initially you said, 'well, we can work it out' but NO, you refused… You called me a liar, a cheat, a criminal, a bum. You said I have ruined your life… You were never around much when I needed you, so now I and my whole family are dead—so you can have the money… 'Night, Mother."

In 1986, McCambridge had played the mother of a child who plans to take their own life in an Arkansas Repertory Theatre production of 'night, Mother.

It does sound like Mercedes could have handled that indiscretion better. She basically threw her son to the wolves… and he snapped.

Movie stars don’t seem to make very good parents, in general.

Didn't Barbara Stanwyck have a "troubled" son, too?

Yes. I think she lost him in the crowd along the way.

These things happen.

Poor little a Booth, a delicate blonde, did not fare well when shipped off to Africa to shoot TRADER HORN in 1929. There she suffered from sunstroke, malaria, and Katayama fever… plus her brief costume got her bitten by ticks.

The crew begged producer Irving Thalberg to send over doctors and medicines but he didn’t want the picture to go over budget. It took Booth six years to recover when she returned to L.A. and there was eventually an out of court settlement with MGM. This got her blacklisted by the major studios, however, and her career basically died.

Booth was in pain for the rest of her life, sometimes only achieving some relief by shutting herself in dark rooms.

^^

Poor little A Booth…

How strange - it’s not letting me type E d w I n a …. ??

a.

At least you weren't talking about Shirley Booth. It was the audience who was unlucky when she was so often miscast before she hit TV hard.

She played a really dirty-mouthed old bag in A Touch of Grace.

Booth was under contract to MGM, and this is basically the same way that studio photographed Jean Harlow.

I wonder if it’s the same rug.

R357 I didn't until I was in my 20s.

Shirley Booth only made 4 movies before series TV: Come Back, Little Sheba, About Mrs. Leslie, Hot Spell, and The Matchmaker. I didn't think she was miscast in any of those films.

(5 if you count a cameo in Main Street to Broadway, in which she played herself.)

Then you didn't see Hot Spell where the miscasting is glaring. The others as well but not as egregiously.

Yes, I saw Hot Spell. It's on YouTube. Bosley Crowther gave her a rave for her performance in the Times when the film came out.

a Booth.

a.

R368 - yes you are right. It is strange.

R375 If you think she was miscast in Come Back, Little Sheba, then you're trolling.

And I haven't sent condolences to any of them.

[quote]Shirley Booth only made 4 movies before series TV: Come Back, Little Sheba, About Mrs. Leslie, Hot Spell, and The Matchmaker. I didn't think she was miscast in any of those films. G

"The Matchmaker" is a very good adaptation of Thornton Wilder's play with a wonderful cast, and Shirley Booth is well cast as Dolly Levi, originated on stage by Ruth Gordon.

Sad life of no teen experimentation….

I had a lot of teen experimentation--with girls.

That’s even worse!

Burt Lancaster was the egregious miscasting in the film of Come Back, Little Sheba.

R385 At least I was getting some!

If it ain’t dick, it ain’t right.

That wasn't so easy when I was in school.

a, you say?

Bebe Daniels should have played Bree Daniels.

[quote]Bebe Daniels should have played Bree Daniels.

I preferred Melanie Daniels.

Alan Ladd: drunk pill popper

Actress Jennifer Jones Is Found Unconscious Associate Press (November 10, 1967)

LOS ANGELES - Actress Jennifer Jones was found sprawled on rocks at the base of a 400-foot cliff overlooking Malibu Beach last night, apparently lifeless and not breathing.

A deputy sheriff revived her by mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. She was reported in good condition today.

Deputy sheriffs found the 48-year-old Academy Award winner moments from death at the bottom of the cliff. She was on her back on the rocks, waves washing over her body.

Miss Jones was found less than an hour after she learned that Charles Bickford, lead actor in her greatest movie, "The Song of Bernadette," had died.

After learning of Bickford's death, she telephoned her physician and told him she had taken some pills and was going to take more. He notified police.

Deputies said Miss Jones parked her car, apparently walked down a narrow, winding path toward the sea and collapsed on the rocks at the edge of the Pacific Ocean.

The sheriff's department said it appeared the actress had not slipped or fallen from the path, which winds about 1,000 feet back and forth across the cliff.

(Article with photo:)

(She lived to be 90.)

Jennifer Jones was a Drama Queen!

She was nuts.

Jennifer ended up marrying Norton Simon and remodeling the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena (hiring Frank Gehry). Sometime after her daughter with David Selznick jumped off a building in LA, she became a lay therapist, conducting group therapy. She was probably well qualified, having been in analysis for decades. Eventually she developed Alzheimers and her son, Robert Walker Jr., and his wife, ended up caring for her in Malibu, where they had a store, Tops Gallery, in the Malibu Country Mart.

It was a basic gallery renovation.

Why did Charles Bickford's death traumatized Jennifer so much? Were they particularly close?

I've read he was closeted gay.

R400 Yes, they were apparently close.

R399 I don't know what a basic renovation is, but the museum calls it a major renovartion.

He was her priest/confessor.

"Norton Simon died on June 2, 1993. As a tribute to her husband, Jennifer Jones Simon oversaw the major renovation of the interior galleries from 1996-1999 by the noted architect Frank O. Gehry. The sculpture garden was remodeled by Nancy Goslee Power, and the renovation completed in 2000 when the Museum's Theater was remodeled by Arthur Gensler, Jr. & Associates."

"Four years before the death of her husband Simon in June 1993, he resigned as president of Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California, and Jones was appointed chairman of the board of trustees, president and executive officer. In 1996, she began working with architect Frank Gehry and landscape designer Nancy Goslee Power to renovate the museum and gardens. She remained active as the director of the museum until 2003, when she was awarded emerita status."

The board of trustees included Cary Grant, Billy Wilder, Henry Fonda and Gregory Peck.

In Yvonne DeCarlo's autobiography, she claimed Helen Walker introduced Gail Russell to booze.

Helen had her own sad tale.

Yvonne DeCarlo mostly had "one date" with all her beaus. She failed to mention that she was a slut. I love the store where Tony Curtis came back to NY and told Walter Mathau that he fucked Yvonne.

[quote]Jennifer Jones was a Drama Queen!

After her brush with death, Jennifer Jones had a triumphant comeback in "The Towering Inferno," in which her character suffers a fiery death.

[quote]R405 In Yvonne DeCarlo's autobiography, she claimed Helen Walker introduced Gail Russell to booze.

IIRC, it was Our Helen.

Helen Walker was good in Nightmare Alley

[quote]Jennifer Jones had a triumphant comeback in "The Towering Inferno,"

Yeah, r407, she really "bounced" back in that one.

Helen Walker is about the most boring name in the world. It sounds like an elderly switchboard operator.

It's no Helen Wheels, r411.

Yvonne de Carlo wrote an autobiography??

[quote] I love the store where Tony Curtis came back to NY and told Walter Mathau that he fucked Yvonne.

That's almost as fun as the old Datalounge post where the old homeless guy told the two gays on a date, " I fucked Tony Curtis up the ass"

When I left the Navy, I used the GI Bill to get into the Dramatic Workshop, which was located at the President Theatre on Forty-eighth Street. Walter Matthau and Harry Belafonte were students there, too. We were all just trying to make it. Later on, I went out to California, and good things started happening for me. When I came back to New York to do a promotion for City Across the River, they gave me a suite at the Sherry-Netherland and a huge black limo. I took it around to show my buddies in the Bronx and then went by the Dramatic Workshop. It was a terrible, rainy afternoon, and who do I see out in front? Walter Matthau. He's got a long, heavy coat on with a Racing Form sticking out of the pocket, and he's looking down at the gutter. Here I am in this nice, warm limo. And there he is, this grumpy guy surrounded by a cold, miserable world. The look on his face says, "What's ever going to happen for me? Nothin'!" So I tell the driver to pull alongside him and stop. Now Walter's watching the limo. I roll the window down, look at him, and say, "I fucked Yvonne De Carlo!" Then I roll the window back up in a hurry and tell the driver to get the hell out of there.

No, no, no, he wasn't mad! For years, Walter loved to tell that story at parties. He'd make it last twenty minutes.

DL fave Bea Arthur was also in those classes with Tony, Walter and Harry B. She talks about it in her TV Academy interview.

Was Helen Lawson in those classes?

Helen Lawson is a fictional character, R417.

[quote]DL fave Bea Arthur was also in those classes with Tony, Walter and Harry B. She talks about it in her TV Academy interview.

But nobody bragged about having fucked Bea Arthur.

Maybe so was Rod Steiger. He said the school took anybody who applied cos they just wanted the government check.

Well, they all turned out swell.

Well, for a bunch of random nobodies, that was a lot of talent in one room.

There were fewer actors, back then. The actors from those times will say that, in interviews, sometimes. They didn't have as much competition. Which is one reason so many of them who tried for it did so well. Also I think a lot of them got good training, doing theater.

[quote] Maybe so was Rod Steiger

no one bragged about fucking him either.

In 1949 Tony Curtis had this unbilled part in Criss Cross (1949) dancing with Yvonne. This is probably around the time it happened.

he was great on The Flintstones

R419, I wouldn't have fucked Sandra Bernhardt with Bea Arthur's dick.

The famous New School’s Dramatic Workshop with Erwin Piscator. Among Piscator's students, besides Bea, Walter, Tony, Rod, and Harry, were Frank Aletter, Nehemiah Persoff, Gene Saks, Harry Guardino, Marlon Brando, Jack Garfein, Judith Malina, Elaine Stritch, Ben Gazzara, and Tennessee Williams, but perhaps in different years.

Frank Aletter reunited with Beatrice on Maude and The Golden Girls.

Gorgeous model, actress Capucine, from her Wiki page:

[quote] On 17 March 1990, at age 62, Capucine jumped to her death from her eighth-floor apartment in Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland, where she had lived for 28 years, having reportedly suffered from illness and depression for some time. The police said an investigation left no doubt that she died by suicide. Neighbours said she had led a reclusive life with her three cats, hardly ever leaving her apartment and spending most of her time reading

Capucine and her bestie, Audrey Hepburn, outside Hepburn's home in Tolochenaz, Vaud, Switzerland.

R428 Eli Wallach too

I never knew who Frank Aletter was until I read a biography of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz a few years ago. I recognized his face, somewhat.

You're a filthy liar and a fag, r418!

I'm old enough to remember Frank Aletter as the star of a short-lived but cute early 1960s sit-com called Bringing Up Buddy, about a handsome young man living with his two frisky maiden aunts, played by the adorable Doro Merande and Enid Markey. It was kind of like Arsenic & Old Lace without the murders.

R435 Was it a Desilu show?

I think there was a photo from it in that Lucy-Desi book. I recognized Enid Markey from the film, The Naked City (1948), and Doro Merande from Our Town, and The Seven Year Itch (waitress/nudist in the health food restaurant). Frank's face looked vaguely familiar from various things.

Pretty sure it was a Desilu show., r436.

I think Enid Markey was maybe the very first actress to play Jane in the early silent Tarzan films opposite Elmo Lincoln and that was publicized when the sit-com appeared. It would have been about 40 years earlier.

Thanks, 437 Btw I think a name change might have helped, for Frank. "Aletter" is just not a good stage name or a star name, at least in my opinion.

reply to R437^

Frank Aletter was married to Lee Meriwether.

According to wiki, "Bringing-Up Buddy" was put together by the creators of Leave it to Beaver and was a product of Revue (Universal). Aletter is listed as a guest star on The Lucy Show, which probably is how he wound up in a Lucy book.

Aletter appeared in two rather horrible sit coms unrelated to Desilu, "The Cara Williams Show" and "It's About Time". He seems to have worked steadily if not memorably and was an officer of SAG. Of course, he did a "Murder, She Wrote", as well as a "Love Boat" and a "Fantasy Island".

441 replies, all excellent, but no Jean Seberg? Sorry if I missed it.

When my sister learned her mother-in-law went to high school with Jean Seberg in Marshalltown, Iowa, she said, “Oh, god, don’t ever tell my brother. We’ll never hear the end of it!”

I didn't see that movie but when I saw Kristen Stewart was cast I thought 'nope'. I don't understand what she is doing on the screen with that blank stare. Does her face even move? I also figured in this environment any portrayal of Seberg would be trashed as a white savior story unless it focussed on the vicious attacks on her from the F.B.I. that eventually destroyed her.

R414 -- That homeless guy was a fixture on 7th ave and 23rd street for years. He might ask you for some money and if you gave him anything he'd always say the same thing: I fucked Tony Curtis up the ass.

He was there for years but then one day he disappeared. Maybe Tony Curtis came for him.

How do you pronounce Capucine? Like the coffee drink but without the "o" on the end?

One time when Judy Garland was suicidal she said "I may take Joey with me. Liza and Lorna are to be given to Dirk Bogarde or Capucine."

Once I heard it pronouned CAPOSHIN, on channel 3 WCAX Burlington vt.

I pronounce it Cap ew sin

Cap pew seen

Mary C. Brown

Elizabeth Boop

Poor Joey. Mama really did love him best.

Gwili Andre, a Danish-born model/actress who was groomed to become a rival to Dietrich and Garbo, but had no real attributes other than her striking beauty.

She was in a fire and then her body cremated. Seems overkill.

It's called finishing the job, r454.

[quote]I'd imagine a lot of those early silent screen stars went bonkers because they were suddenly thrust into a new and unique kind of world-wide fame and influx of money and temptations with often very little to back it up other than an expressive face.

[quote]Was there ever that kind of instant celebrity before silent movies? I don't think even athletes or politicians experienced that phenomena.

This was dawn

There were no rules, we were so young

Movies were born

So many songs yet to be sung

So many roads still unexplored

We gave the world new ways to dream

Somehow we found new ways to dream

I thought that was Bette Davis at R453.

[quote]R447 How do you pronounce Capucine? Like the coffee drink but without the "o" on the end?

[quote]How do you pronounce Capucine? Like the coffee drink but without the "o" on the end?

I used to think it was cah-poo-CHEE-nay (which would be Italian) but I guess it's pronounced the French way: cah-poo-SEEN.

I thought it was 'ka-pyoo-SHEEN' but that sounds like the monkey so I was never really sure.

The monkey is spelled capuchin. Which was also a Franciscan monk, I believe..

Wendell Corey - another one who drank himself to death

I always thought that Wendell Corey looked like a drunk.

Not much mention of him in the Rear Window thread. He was adequate in a role that could have been anyone.

Hitchcock must have liked him, he also appeared a few times on Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

I get the feeling Wendell as a Paramount contractee may have been foisted on him.

Has Wendell ever played a menacing character? I feel he has and I'm not remembering. He had a face for it.

R467 Yes, The Killer is Loose.

Weird that the wiki article doesn't mention a thing about marriages or kids. Were there any?

Thanks r467.

Oops i meant r468

Wendall Corey looks like Trevor Howard who was also alcoholic.

R469. Look at the column on the right side.

He does r472. I looked it up r468 and I believe it is the film I vaguely remember seeing as an afternoon movie on TV as a child. He was very good.

He doesn't look anything like Trevor Howard to me.

He was a good actor; why would Paramount need to force Hitchcock to use him? (Anyway, I doubt that.)

{quote]He doesn't look anything like Trevor Howard to me.

He looks more like Claire Trevor.

Speaking of Claire Trevor...I was going to add he also played a bad guy (though he sort of redeems himself) in My Man And I, with Claire Trevor, Ricardo Montalban, and Shelley Winters.

Strange movie written by John Fante (Ask the Dust).

Hitchcock dug up the basement for Rear Window's lower floors so that would have been costly.

I don't think they dug up the basement, r480. I think they just tore the floor out so that they could start the set at basement level.

Take it to the Rear Window thread

R467, he was menacing in Desert Fury.

His character also comes across as ambiguously gay in that one!

24 year old actress Martha Mansfield died of burns she suffered on the Texas movie set of 1923’s “The Warrens of Virginia.” Someone had tossed a lit match and it set her bulky Civil War costume on fire. Her body was brought back to NY; her mother had her buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx (where Olive Thomas is entombed, who is mentioned earlier in this thread.)

[bold]! ! !

Like Capucine, Elizabeth Hartman leapt from a window when she reached a certain age.

She was so touching in A PATCH OF BLUE, and just about everything else she did.

With Geraldine Page, Clint Eastwood… and[italic] Pamelyn Ferdin!

Great film r487

Norma Talmadge.

She told eager fans who were pressing her for an autograph as she left a restaurant, "Get away, dears. I don't need you anymore and you don't need me

R487. You left out Melody Thomas Scott!

R466: Paramount had no tv division in the 50s. Hitchcock's show was made at Revue (later Universal), which was part of MCA.

Corey was a Goldwater supporter and ended his career in "The Astro-Zombies", not long after starring in "Women of teh Prehistoric Planet" (with John Agar!).

Mr. Shirley Temple!

Toward the end of his life, Agar blamed John Wayne for getting him hooked on cigarettes and alcohol, two addictive habits that would later ruin his life.

Agar was the king of cheap sci-films of the 50s and early 60s. In real life, he spent a lot of time falling off barstools, drunk.

He should have stuck with drinking Shirley Temples.

Agar made it to 81, which isn't bad for a fall down drunk and nicotine addict. Granted, he was confined to an iron lung months before he died, so those final years must've been rough.

John Agar was very cute. It's easy to see why Shirley wanted his dick in her, drunk or not.

And BTW who in their twenties didn't have a relationship with somebody who was a total train wreck?

Agar probably was often confused with Sonny Tufts, who had a similar trajectory but a more noble background, descended from THOSE Tufts.

[quote]And BTW who in their twenties didn't have a relationship with somebody who was a total train wreck?

I agree -- what could that poor man have been thinking?

Who the fuck is Deanna Durbin?

She was the musical Garbo—she wanted to be alone.

[quote] —Everybody who's alive right now

Except all the people who know who she was, including R499

R491 I thought the poster was referring to his being cast in Rear Window. But I don't know.

R500 - Fucking Philistine - we all know Deanna Durbin

There’s only one star there. The one without the Double-Ds.

I can't believe Judy went on Jack Parr and talked about Deanna's "One eyebrow that wouldn't quit" and made fun of her singing. Those were the days. Late night TV.

Apparently when Judy was in Paris she was invited by Deanna to visit her country home out side the city, and they had a nice visit. Maybe D. D. didn't get The Tonight Show in France.

Maybe? Perhaps.

Neither of us was wearing a double D in those days.

[quote]Agar probably was often confused with Sonny Tufts, who had a similar trajectory but a more noble background, descended from THOSE Tufts.

I still have my autographed picture of Sonny Tufts.

THOSE Tufts were hardly the Forbeses, Cabots or Lodges. Second-string.

[quote]I can't believe Judy went on Jack Parr

Oh, dear.

^^STFU you dumb cunt.

Show us on the doll where the bad man touched you, R512.

Dustin^ is actually the ghost of Lael Rubin.

Sonny Tufts hated Johnny Carson because Johnny would make fun of him and his poor acting on film.

Johnny Carson was a cunt, ee ii ee ii ooh 🎶

As a gayling I remember discovering Sonny Tufts in Paramount's films made during WWII, often shown on The Early Show in the NY metropolitan area, which I guess was his brief heyday in Hollywood. Dorothy Lamour was another of the studio's big featured stars who's also mostly forgotten today.

Sonny looked a lot like Randolph Scott. I think his biggest problem might have been his name, which Paramount should have insisted he change.

Lamour wasn't a star on her own, she was always paired.

Did I say she was, r518?

Did I say you did, r519?

R518 Most female stars were paired.

I was just pointing out her level of stardom, r521.

In the 40s when she was a popular pinup girl, Lamour was usually top billed in her films, so her level of stardom was pretty high.

None of the pin-up girls had longevity, r523. Once their looks went they were lucky to show up decades later in a production of Dolly or Follies.

[quote]Once their looks went they were lucky to show up decades later in a production of Dolly or Follies.

Or in one of those cheesy AI beach pictures in the early 1960s.

She was shite. Move along, toots.

There was a whole urban legend surrounding Sonny Tufts

Suburban

r524, Betty Grable was a top box office star for 15 years. That's a long time in Hollywood stardom for a pin-up girl.

And, r518, even the great Myrna Loy, a top Hollywood star by any standard, never solely carried a film. Same for Lauren Bacall, Margaret Sullavan, Merle Oberon, Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino, Veronica Lake, Paulette Goddard, the Maureens O'Sullivan and O'Hara, et. al. I'm not saying Lamour was at any of their levels of stardom but with actresses, it's a bit dicey to use that as a standard.

I can think of more than one Ida Lupino film where she was the top star.

[quote] Corey was a Goldwater supporter [quote]

So was Hillary Clinton.

GUEST star!

She was in the top ten for 10 years, r529. Also Lamour was quite comparable to Lake and Sheridan. Yes they were stars but they were not stars at the level of Bette and Joan.

Carole Lombard.

Clark, in mourning dress.

Yeah, r534, it would have been interesting to see how her career would have played out.

Oscar—then yada yada.

James Stephenson

Loved James Stephenson in The Letter

[quote]She was shite. Move along, toots.

Nobody likes a hall monitor, especially an inept one.

Stephenson should have Best Supporting Actor for The Letter—Brennan didn’t deserve one, let alone three, the racist fuck.

Inept 🫣

R541 still thinks the studio system was based on merit.

Dorothy Lamour was initially famous as the Sarong Girl but is best remembered for co-starring with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in their "Road" movies. The question is, what does she have to do with sad tales from Old Hollywood?

[quote]The question is, what does she have to do with sad tales from Old Hollywood?

She died of Panamania, r544. It was a drawn out, albeit terpsichorean, death.

The story of Rachel Roberts upsets me.

On 26 November 1980, Rachel Roberts died at her home in Los Angeles at the age of 53. Her death was initially attributed to a heart attack.[5] Her gardener found her body on her kitchen floor, lying amidst shards of glass; she had fallen through a decorative glass divide between two rooms.[14] An autopsy later determined that her death was a result of swallowing lye or another alkali, or another unidentified caustic substance, as well as barbiturates and alcohol, as detailed in her posthumously published journals. The corrosive effect of the alkali was the immediate cause of death. The coroner documented the cause of death as "swallowing a caustic substance" and, later, "acute barbiturate intoxication."[14][15] Her death was ruled a suicide.[15]

R529 I have to correct your impression of Margaret Sullavan. She was billed above the title and carried several films (see the poster below).

It's blacked out.

Little Man, What Now

Next Time We Love

Also The Good Fairy (1935) a film I've NEVER been able to get into. But I am not a fan of Sullavan.

Jeanne Eagels

Rondo Hatton…

Kim Novak played Jeanne Eagles in a movie. It wasn't very good

The Jeanne Eagles version of The Letter is on YouTube. Her acting style is a little different.

[quote]Kim Novak played Jeanne Eagles in a movie. It wasn't very good

It was a Kim Novak film; no one expected much anyway...

r553 r554 EAGELS, not Eagles.

Gene Egrets

R556 I knew it looked wrong.

Jeanne Eagels was born Eugenia Eagles. I wonder what prompted the transposition.

Take a guess...

Did she ever stay at the Hotel California?

Kim Novak played Jeanne Eagles in a movie. It wasn't very good

Novack as Sadie Thompson is pure drag queen camp. But then everyone except Rita Hayworth seemed to go camp for the role.

No, but she rented a room in Eagle Rock one time.

Joan's fine and isn't campy, r562.

Kim Novak (no c) never played Sadie Thompson but she did play Mildred Rogers, the venal waitress of Of Human Bondage.

r565...

The old chick in the Seinfeld Hollywood pisode who hasn't been in a movie since 1937.

*episode

Bette gave a trenchant and moving performance as Sadie.

Elaina

r562 see r556

Because it's...

June, June...June

Gloria Swanson as 'Sadie Thompson.'

Jeanne...

Funny how prostitutes dressed in the past. Now they wear less.

Can we get back to the Sad Tales?

Lina Basquette

[quote]Kim Novak played Jeanne Eagles in a movie. It wasn't very good.

The movie is on YT.

RUBBER! X 3

How is Kim Novak doing these days? A true survivor, she must be in her 90s by now.

Lucille Ricksen, a child model at age 4, a film actress at 11, and at age 13, dubbed "the youngest leading lady in movies" (although her studio said she was 16), playing the unhappy wife of a Russian official in "The Rendezvous" (1923).

As the family breadwinner, she worked often, completing 10 feature films in seven months, before suffering a "complete physical and nervous collapse" at age 14.

While keeping vigil at Lucille's bedside, her mother, Ingeborg, suffered a fatal heart attack and collapsed atop her bedridden daughter. Thereafter, producer Paul Bern and actress Lois Wilson tended to Lucille's bedside needs. But Lucille never recovered, dying a few months later from tuberculosis, March 13, 1925.

Her life was hardly a tragedy, r577.

A sad incident

On August 9, 1943, Basquette was raped and robbed in Burbank, California after she gave a ride to 22-year-old army private George Paul Rimke. Basquette later testified that after she picked up the soldier, he forced her into the backseat and raped her. Rimke denied the charges but was found guilty on August 26, 1943, and sentenced to life in prison.

[quote]While keeping vigil at Lucille's bedside, her mother, Ingeborg, suffered a fatal heart attack and collapsed atop her bedridden daughter. Thereafter, producer Paul Bern and actress Lois Wilson tended to Lucille's bedside needs. But Lucille never recovered, dying a few months later from tuberculosis, March 13, 1925.

I assume that this was the same Paul Bern who was at the center of a much more high-profile sad tale from old Hollywood.

[quote]I assume that this was the same Paul Bern

Yes, the very same Paul Bern. He helped pay Lucille's medical bills and sat by her bedside almost daily to read her stories.

The rumor in town was that Lucille's 38-year old co-star in "The Rendezvous" and "The Galloping Fish," Sydney Chaplin (Charlie's brother) knocked her up and that a botched abortion contributed to Lucille's illness and eventual death.

No. There were actually two Paul Berns.

Paula Blackton died at 48.