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