It soon became apparent that one of the things that had spurred on the writing of the memoir was Bette’s relationship (or lack thereof) with B. D.’s husband Jeremy and their two sons Justin and Ashley. According to B. D., Davis was allegedly nasty and unpleasant to all members of her family, and even “terrorized” Justin and Ashley when they were small. This did not make sense to many people, particularly as B. D. was so quick to assure people that her own childhood was one of love and devotion.
What made her comments even more surprising was that Davis had worked on a movie (Family Reunion) with Ashley, during which time he had said some wonderful things about his grandmother. This, according to B. D., was as a result of having to say those things in order to keep her happy. Not so, said People magazine reader John Shea, who had worked with both Bette and Ashley on the set and found Davis to be very patient with her young grandson. According to Shea, each morning they would meet in Bette’s dressing room to rehearse, and every day would involve the same thing – a great deal of love, support and coaching from grandmother to grandson.
B. D. Hyman never received a great deal of public support after the publication of the book and this can be seen clearly through internet forums and YouTube comments even today. Of course, Christina Crawford had her fair share of detractors, too, but whereas she could be seen as having a definite reason for wanting to come out against her abusive mother, readers felt that the same just could not be said for Hyman. With no actual physical abuse involved, for the most part B. D. just came across as a disgruntled woman, angry at her controlling mother and anxious to get her to listen to her side of the story.
Sadly, it seemed clear to friends of Bette Davis that her heart had been broken by the supposed disloyalty expressed by her daughter, and her health seemed to get worse over the next few years before her death in 1989. For her part, Davis responded to My Mother’s Keeper in her own book, This ’n That, which was published in 1987. The book is a series of stories about Davis’s life and career, though she left it to the very end before mentioning her daughter’s work.
The last, untitled chapter is an open letter, which starts “Dear Hyman” and goes on to express a sheer disbelief at what had been written in her book. In the two-page note, Bette accuses her daughter of a lack of loyalty and appreciation for the life she was given, and says she believes her to be a great writer of fiction. The actress also states that she has no idea why the book was called My Mother’s Keeper and says that financially she had been a keeper of her daughter for many years, and continued to be so through the selling of the book. She also added a postscript which included many letters of support for the actress, before promptly disinheriting her disloyal daughter.
After both Joan and Bette’s deaths, public support has continued unabated and their films are still sold on DVD and watched on television. Both ladies are still legendary, and whether you love ’em or hate ’em, it is clear that they just don’t make them like Davis and Crawford any more. Despite claims put forward by their daughters, their fans still think of them as two of the greats, and it is likely to remain that way for the foreseeable future.
Bette Davis’s son Michael has continued to champion his mother’s memory as both a loving parent and wonderful actress, running her estate and hearing from countless fans who tell him even now just how much the actress has inspired and entertained them over the years. The same can be said for Crawford’s twins Cindy and Cathy, who have always denied their part in any awful childhood.
In spite of that, both B. D. Hyman and Christina Crawford have always stuck fast to the claims they made in their books, and B. D. actually went on to publish another volume, Narrow is the Way, in 1987. This book was not as popular, however, and she has since started her own church where she writes religious volumes and very rarely speaks publicly about her mother.
40
The Deaths of Charles Wagenheim and Victor Kilian
All suspicious deaths cause headlines in Hollywood, and there have been a great many over the years. But in 1979 two veteran actors were brutally murdered within days of each other and people began to wonder: Was there a serial killer on the loose, or were the deaths just a strange but tragic coincidence?
Charles Wagenheim was born on 21 February 1896 in New Jersey and suffered shyness for much of his childhood. His quiet nature was not something he particularly liked about himself so in an effort to gain some confidence, he decided he would try his hand at acting. The work was hard but rewarding; his shyness subsided somewhat and he became so enthralled with the idea of becoming a professional actor that he enrolled in an acting course at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
After graduating in 1923, Wagenheim went to Broadway where he was involved in several successful shows and ended up touring with a Shakespearean acting company. However, having most certainly developed a bug for the profession, he craved success not just on the stage, but in movies too, so in the late 1920s he moved to Hollywood to find his fame and fortune.
It was here that he received his first disappointment on the bumpy road to fame, when he discovered that work in Hollywood was very different to the New York theatre. While he had achieved a great deal of success on the East Coast stage, suddenly nobody seemed to want him in large roles in the movies. He therefore spent most of his time playing tramps, waiters, taxi drivers and anything else that came his way.
He did not complain, however, as the small roles he obtained helped to pay the bills, and after just over a decade of struggle, in 1940 he was given one of his best parts, as an assassin in Alfred Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent. His career continued on a slow but steady path, and after playing a thief in the 1959 film The Diary of Anne Frank television came knocking at his door. It was there that, in the 1960s and 1970s, he found most of his roles, including a popular, regular role as Halligan in Gunsmoke.
In his later years, Charles Wagenheim lived quietly with his psychologist wife and earned money as landlord of a number of apartments that he had purchased in years gone by. Still, he continued to win the occasional acting job, too, and in 1979 took on a role on the TV show All in the Family, where he worked with fellow actor Victor Kilian.
Kilian was also born in New Jersey and had gone into acting as a teenager by joining a vaudeville company. His early career took an eerily similar path to that of Wagenheim, appearing on Broadway before trying his hand in the movies at the end of the 1920s. However, Kilian’s career in films had been more successful than Wagenheim’s, and he quickly became known as a stellar character actor, with roles in the likes of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938) and 1939’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, in which he played Pap Finn.
Unfortunately his career was tragically marred during one film which saw him working with John Wayne. During a particular fight scene, things took a horrifying turn when he suffered an injury so bad that it led to the loss of an eye. Then in the 1950s things became bleak again when he was a victim of communist blacklisting in the McCarthy witch-hunts, which had hurt the careers of many actors and writers alike. Still, these setbacks did not deter the hard-working actor and he persevered with his career, appearing in various theatre shows and later making the successful switch to television, just as Wagenheim had done. It was while working on the small screen that he achieved a great deal of success and became a household name by starring as the Fernwood Flasher in Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.
By the time Kilian worked with Charles Wagenheim in an episode of All in the Family, both actors were well into their eighties. The episode was entitled “The Return of Stephanie’s Father” and revolved around the story of alcoholic Floyd Mills, who arrived at the home of main characters Archie and Edith to try and sell them his daughter, whom they had already been looking after.
Floyd is staying in a rundown, prostitute-filled hotel when Arthur and Edith arrive to negotiate with him over the care of the child. Before they meet him, however, they encounter the desk clerk played by Kilian, who asks the couple if they want to ren
t the room for an hour. Assuring him that they’re not interested in sex as they’re already married, they then move over to some chairs in the lobby, one of which is occupied by a tramp played by Wagenheim. At first he seems reluctant to leave, but eventually moves from his perch when Archie tells the tramp that there is an unconscious man in the alley who appears to have some money on him. “Oooh thank you,” Wagenheim says, as he scuttles towards the door.
The two roles played by Kilian and Wagenheim may have been small, but they certainly raised a laugh or two during the filming. Unfortunately, just weeks later, before the episode was aired, the laughter stopped when tragedy struck both of the actors.
Charles Wagenheim’s wife Lillian had previously suffered a stroke and a nurse, Stephanie Boone, was hired to help out at the couple’s apartment at 8078 Fareholm Drive. Little did they know, however, that the woman apparently had a criminal record for armed robbery, and she now saw the Wagenheims as easy targets and allegedly began stealing items from their home.
Details of the last moments of Wagenheim’s life are sketchy, but there are two theories as to what might have happened. The first is that the actor had become suspicious that his wife’s nurse had been writing cheques and cashing them for her own gain. He had been keeping tabs on the woman, and after finding that he was right with his suspicions, had decided to have it out with her. She became so incensed at his bravado that their encounter inevitably led to Wagenheim’s death.
The other theory is that the unsuspecting actor came back to the apartment after shopping and caught Boone rifling through his drawers and stealing items. Once again, he confronted her and demanded to know what she was up to, and the scenario ends with the same result as the first – she kills him after a heated argument.
Nobody is entirely clear on what exactly happened in the house that day but we do know this: on 6 March 1979 (which quite coincidentally was fellow-actor Victor Kilian’s birthday) Charles Wagenheim was severely beaten around his head while in the bedroom of his apartment. The pounding he received was enough to knock him to the ground and ultimately kill him.
After the man had died, the nurse phoned the police and told them that she had briefly gone to the building’s laundry room and returned to see the body of the elderly actor lying face down on the floor. His bedroom window was open, she said, and his wife was in the living room, oblivious to everything that had happened. Unfortunately for both Wagenheim and the police, the ailing woman was unable to help with any details after a stroke had left her unable to communicate.
At first the police said they had no idea who could have done such a thing to the innocent actor. However, just five days later, their suspicions were aroused when it was reported that Victor Kilian, who had acted with Wagenheim just a short time before, was also found beaten to death at his home at 6550 Yucca Street.
Kilian’s son, Victor Jr, had been trying to get his father on the telephone but was unable to get through. Being concerned, the man travelled to his house and was devastated to discover his father was dead; the television was still switched on and a snack remained uneaten nearby. The police were called and an investigation revealed that the apartment doors looked as though they had been opened with a pass key. There was no definite motive for the killing, but it was decided that robbery was most certainly a possibility.
When they then discovered that Kilian and Wagenheim had recently worked together in All in the Family, the police were intrigued. Was it possible that the two men had been targeted because they had worked together? Was there a serial killer on the loose, going after old actors? It was hard to tell. However, there was no doubt that at first the two deaths did look as though they were somehow related, and police began intensively investigating the Wagenheims’ nurse over the course of the next three months to see if she was responsible for one or both murders.
After looking at the case for some time, the police came to the conclusion that while it was likely that the care-worker was at the very heart of the Wagenheim mystery, it just did not make sense that she would have had the inclination or opportunity to be at Kilian’s house too. So in the end, their suspicions came to nothing and, to this very day, the savage killer of the elderly actor Victor Kilian has never been found or brought to justice.
The same could not be said in the Wagenheim case, however. After the police discovered the nurse’s past armed robbery and escape convictions, things started to make more sense. On Friday, 25 May, the police travelled to the Los Angeles County Animal Shelter, where the nurse was now working as a kennel attendant. There they arrested and charged the woman for the murder of Charles Wagenheim, and for good measure added on a charge of grand theft too. She eventually pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and in January 1980 was sentenced to eight years in prison.
No other details were ever revealed about why the nurse had any motive or wish to kill Charles Wagenheim, and to this day people still take to the internet to discuss what really happened during the course of that week in March 1979. Many still believe that somehow the two killings are related, though after studying what we know of the events, it seems unlikely. The two actors had worked together, certainly, but it appears just a tragic coincidence that they were both taken from life within a week of each other, and in such a violent and undignified way.
41
Natalie Wood Drowns Mysteriously
There have been many, many mysterious deaths in Hollywood. Some involve hotels, some involve mansions, a few involve gardens or driveways, but ask anyone for the name of someone who suffered a strange death involving a boat, and most – if not all – will say just one person: Natalie Wood.
Born on 20 July 1938, Natalia Nikolaevna Zahkarenko was the daughter of Russian parents, though she herself was born in San Francisco. Natalie loved the movies and her mother would take her to the cinema at every opportunity, where she would sit on her lap and watch the great stars sparkle on the silver screen. Her mother saw a certain something in her child, and after Natalie gained a few small roles, she decided to move the family to Los Angeles, where she actively pursued a career as a showbiz mother to her young daughter. Once in California, things looked bright for Natalie and she was cast – aged just seven – as a German orphan in the movie Tomorrow Is Forever (1946). Not only that, but the film was a vehicle for Claudette Colbert and Orson Welles, meaning that Wood was introduced to Hollywood royalty from a very early age.
But while Tomorrow Is Forever was a success, it was her appearance in the 1947 Christmas movie Miracle on 34th Street that propelled the young child to superstardom. The film tells the story of a department store Santa who insists he is the real thing, and Natalie plays a young girl who had been prompted by her mother to reject all notions of Santa Claus, magic and fantasy. Of course, everything works out well in the end and as a result the film has gone on to become one of the all-time Christmas favourites, still being shown on television each year over sixty-five years since its first release.
Natalie’s star continued to climb and she made a successful transition from child star to young actress, starring opposite James Dean and Sal Mineo in the 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause. But in spite of the fact that she was a hard-working actress, she still managed to keep up with her studies and graduated successfully from high school, much to the delight of herself and her family. Then six years after Rebel Without a Cause came West Side Story, which was undoubtedly one of her most – if not the most – famous and successful movies as an adult actress.
But away from a movie career, the young woman craved a happy and peaceful personal life, and in the mid-1950s, while still a teenage actress, Natalie was introduced to actor Robert Wagner, who was eight years her senior. The two travelled in different circles, so they did not have the chance to get to know each other well at that time, and it was not until 1956 when Wagner saw her again at a fashion show that he began to take a real interest in her. Natalie had long since had a crush on the famous movie star (although she had chosen not to advertise the
fact), so when Wagner asked her to accompany him to a film premiere – which also happened to be on her eighteenth birthday – she was absolutely delighted.
The couple began dating seriously from that moment on, though Natalie’s family – and in particular her mother Maria – were very much against the idea of the young actress dating an older man. Still, the relationship continued and on 28 December 1957 they were married in a quiet ceremony in Scottsdale, Arizona, away from the glare of Hollywood glitz and glamour.
Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner were classed as Hollywood’s golden couple – the happiest romance in the whole of California. It was, as these perfect marriages often are, just an illusion though, and in reality the marriage began to crumble quite quickly, with Wood later complaining that her husband would criticize her friends and the way she kept house. He was also reported to have left her alone while she was ill with flu and had also been rude to her mother, which did not go down too well at all, considering her mother was against the marriage in the first place.
Things were tested even more when Natalie got herself into a dispute with Warner Brothers, which saw the studio taking offence at the actress asking for more money and retaliating by suspending her for eighteen months, the longest suspension in Hollywood history. With no work to do, Wood was often seen sitting on Robert Wagner’s sets, watching him film his latest movie, but this too caused problems and on one particular occasion a director put his foot down and ordered her off the set.
The Mammoth Book of Hollywood Scandals Page 36
