The Hollywood Book of Death: The Bizarre, Often Sordid, Passings of More than 125 American Movie and TV Idols

by Parish, James Robert

  Ricky’s father, Ozzie Nelson (born in 1906), was a perpetual overachiever: America’s youngest Eagle Scout, a Rutgers University honor student, and a star quarterback. Before he graduated from New Jersey Law School, Nelson quit to form and headline his own band, which became very popular across the nation. He and band vocalist/screen starlet Harriet Hilliard (born in 1914) wed in 1935. Their son David was born in 1936. Four years later, Ricky was born in Teaneck, New Jersey. In 1944, the senior Nelsons began a long-running radio sitcom, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, with their real-life sons joining the program in 1949. When the successful series transferred to television in 1952, all four Nelsons appeared in the weekly episodes that revolved around the idealized American family, as well as in a full-length feature, Here Come the Nelsons (1952).

  To prove to a girlfriend that he could vocalize enough to make a recording, Ricky—then a student at Hollywood High School—persuaded Ozzie to let him record “I’m Walking” for the April 10, 1957 episode of the TV show. (Young Nelson accompanied himself on guitar, with the backing of the show’s orchestra.) Within a month, the song had scored nationwide, with the flip side, “A Teenager’s Romance,” rising to #2 on the charts. Ricky signed with Imperial Records and his single “Poor Little Fool” became #1 on the charts in August 1958. Wholesome, smart-alecky, cute Ricky became a confident multimedia star and even made a few films, such as Rio Bravo (1959) and The Wackiest Ship in the Army (1960).

  As Ricky matured into adulthood, his acting became more stilted. But as long as he had the family TV series, his professional standing was secure. On April 20, 1963, the sometime playboy—having dropped the “y” from Ricky—married Kris Harmon, the daughter of gridiron great Tom Harmon and the sister of then-budding actor Mark Harmon. Six months later, Tracy Kristine Nelson was born. (Rick and Kris would become the parents of twins, Matthew and Gunnar, in 1967, and another child, Sam, in 1974.) Rick and Kris costarred in a flop feature film, Love and Kisses (1965). The next year, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet finally went off the air.

  By the late 1960s, Rick’s once-promising career had faded, and efforts such as hosting a musical TV show, Malihu U (1967), didn’t help. He was a guest on several small-screen series with unremarkable results. He did, however, get a boost in the recording field when his single, “Travelin’ Man,” was a top hit in 1971, and the next year he created a stir while performing in a rock ’n’ roll revival show at Madison Square Garden in New York City. During the performance, he tested new material. The disappointed audience, who wanted him to perform only his old hits, booed him. He incorporated the disturbing experience into a hit recording, “Garden Party.” Meanwhile, his marriage to Kris was falling apart.

  In 1975, Ozzie Nelson died of cancer, with his sizeable estate placed in trust under Harriet’s supervision. By the early 1980s, Rick, who had never been good at saving his money, had lost his major record-label contracts and was barely making ends meet with low-level concert tours. As for his union to Kris, after several temporary separations, she filed for divorce in late 1980; the divorce became final in 1982. In 1983, Rick played the principal on a TV movie, High School, U.S.A.; Harriet Nelson was cast as his secretary. In early 1985 he made a TV series pilot called Fathers and Sons, starring Merle Olson, that failed to impress the networks.

  On December 30, 1985, Rick and his band did a gig at PJ’s Lounge in Guntersville, Alabama. They were scheduled to perform next in Dallas at the Park Suite Hotel for a New Year’s Eve show. (Nelson needed the cash flow to keep up heavy alimony payments.) At 5:15 P.M. on the 31st, the group’s 40-year-old chartered twin-engine DC-3 crashed in a hayfield approximately 135 miles east of Dallas. The faulty engines that had brought the plane down immediately burst into flames, sending up black plumes of oily smoke. (There was a briefly held contention, later refuted by the investigators, that Nelson and several others aboard had been “freebasing,” and that aerosol spray cans used to light the drug pipes had ignited the fire.) Rick, his 27-year-old fiancée Helen Blair, four band members, and one of the road crew were killed in the crash. Some of the bodies were so badly burned that they could be identified only through dental records. The coroner’s report noted that Nelson had been a confirmed cocaine user.

  More than one thousand people attempted to fill the 275-seat Church of the Hills at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills, California. (Nelson’s body had not yet reached the cemetery, as it had been delayed by the complex paperwork required to transport the remains back to California.) Rick’s daughter Tracy eulogized: “I remember his grace, his gentleness. He was the kindest man you ever met. The man had class. He was an artist. He was wise. And he loved ice cream. Pop wouldn’t want you to be sad.” Eleven-year-old Sam delivered a Native American poem dedicated to his dad. The twins sang “Easy to Be Free.” Brother David read a message of condolence from President Ronald Reagan. David concluded by requesting the congregation to join him in reciting the Lord’s Prayer, which the family had sung each night at bedtime when Ozzie was alive and the boys were children.

  Although the hard-working Rick Nelson had earned over $700,000 in the last year of his life, debts, alimony, and the pressures of his lifestyle had left a residue of only $43,000. There were about $1 million in debts, including estate claims by Nelson’s ex-wife, Kris. As for Harriet Nelson, Rick’s will stated, “I have specifically failed to provide for my mother . . . as she is well taken care of and comfortable at this time.” Regarding his fiancée, “I specifically fail to provide herein for Helen Blair as that is our wish.” In 1990, the aviation company (who reportedly had repaired the plane’s malfunctioning heater several weeks prior to the crash) settled the long-standing case. Some $4.5 million was split among 10 plaintiffs.

  Rick Nelson left a show-business legacy, not only through his own media performances, but also through those of his children. His daughter Tracy became a TV-series star (Square Pegs, Glitter, Father Dowling Mysteries) and the long-haired twins Matthew and Gunnar became rock stars for a time in the 1990s, calling their band “Nelson.”

  In 1987, Rick’s brother David directed a special about Rick Nelson, entitled A Brother Remembers, which aired on the Disney cable network. Far more revealing, however, was the 1998 two-hour cable-TV biography Ozzie and Harriet: The Adventures of America’s Favorite Family, which showed in vivid detail that the sitcom image of the Nelsons was far different than the real-life household, in which Ozzie had been a stern, demanding taskmaster. As for Harriet Nelson, she couldn’t comment on the show’s many revelations, having died of congestive heart failure on October 2, 1994, in Laguna Beach, California, at the age of 85.

  The legend of the life and times of Ricky Nelson continued. In August 1999 the VH1 cable channel aired Rick Nelson: Original Teen Idol, starring Greg Calpakis in the title role, with Jamey Sheridan and Sara Botsford as his famous parents. It focused heavily on the difficulties of being part of the Nelson family when the cameras weren’t rolling.

  A small ceremony for Rick Nelson was held on May 8, 1995, which would have been his 55th birthday. At the Guitar Center on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, California, Nelson was enshrined in Hollywood’s Rockwalk. The occasion reminded the world that it was gifted young Ricky Nelson, on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, who helped to bring rock ’n’ roll into the U.S. mainstream.

  Will Rogers

  [William Penn Adair Rogers]

  November 4, 1879–August 15, 1935

  Few, if any, entertainers in the annals of American show business could ever hope to match the qualities of Will Rogers. Not only was Will greatly beloved as a humorist and actor, but his wry commentaries on the contemporary American scene (especially on politics) remain unparalleled today. He was at his career peak when he died in a plane crash on an Alaskan flying expedition with the celebrated pilot Wiley Post. The shocking calamity was front-page news around the globe. The irony of Will’s death was that Rogers would not have been aboard the craft, if he had not abruptly withdrawn from a pend
ing motion-picture commitment to make the aerial trek.

  Will was the eighth and final child born to a rancher and his quarter-blood Cherokee wife in 1879, in the Native American territory that became Oklahoma in 1907. Will’s mother died in 1890 and, after the father remarried, the Rogers family moved to Claremont, 12 miles north of the family spread. Will was filled with too much wanderlust to remain in any school for long. He found himself in South Africa in the early 1900s, where he made his show-business debut as a lasso artist and roughrider in a Wild West circus.

  In 1905, Rogers was performing in a rodeo show at Madison Square Garden in New York City. When an out-of-control steer careened toward the spectator stands, he roped the animal, earning tremendous publicity that could only help his career. Soon he drifted into vaudeville, performing both in the United States and abroad. He had met Betty Blake in 1899, and on November 25, 1908, they wed in Arkansas. Rogers always insisted, “The day I roped Betty, I did the star performance of my life.” They would have four children: Will Jr., Mary, James, and Fred (who died in 1919, one year after his birth).

  Will graduated to “real” acting when he appeared onstage with Blanche Ring in The Wall Street Girl (1913). Two years later, he began a profitable association with showman Florenz Ziegfeld by joining the latter’s Midnight Frolic. Rogers’s act typically featured him spinning a rope and spouting observations (such as “All I know is what I read in the papers”) on the absurdities of pompous individuals and high-living politicians. Rogers made his movie debut in Laughing Bill Hyde (1918), and the next year he authored two books of humorous commentary.

  Also in 1919, Rogers starred in his first Hollywood movie (Almost a Husband). Throughout the 1920s he alternated between Broadway Follies and making movies, as well as writing a syndicated newspaper column, making recordings of his monologues, and pursuing the lecture circuit. His fame was so great that whenever he traveled abroad, he quickly became a social intimate of government heads, royalty, writers, and those he loved best—the average people.

  Will Rogers and his son, Jimmy, costar in Strange Boarder (1920).

  Courtesy of JC Archives

  Three Cheers (1928) was Rogers’s last Broadway outing. They Had to See Paris (1929) was his first talkie, made at Fox Films (where he would remain for the rest of his screen-acting career). He averaged three to four features per year.

  In 1934, Rogers returned to the footlights in Eugene O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness!, in the role of the father that George M. Cohan had done on Broadway. It was his first full-fledged stage characterization, and Will received rave reviews when the comedy opened in San Francisco in late April. After three hit weeks, the production moved on to Los Angeles, where the sold-out engagement was extended for three additional weeks. The plan all along had been for MGM to borrow Rogers from Fox to star in the upcoming movie version of Ah, Wilderness! But suddenly, after Will finished his play run in late June 1934, he vetoed doing the screen edition, which had been scheduled to start filming in 1935.

  According to Will’s longtime friend Eddie Cantor, during the comedy’s run Will had received a strongly worded letter from a clergyman. It so upset the actor that he wanted nothing more to do with Ah, Wilderness! The note stated that the religious man had taken his 14-year-old daughter to a performance. He had been so offended by the scene in which Will’s character explains to his son about dealing with a “shady lady” that he and his child had left the theater in shame.

  Now freed from his stage obligations, Will took a cruise around the world, not returning to the United States until September 1934, when he continued his screen-acting career at Fox. In mid-1935, Rogers, long a plane enthusiast, received an offer he simply couldn’t refuse. Fellow Oklahoman Wiley Post (who had broken several aviation records, including the record for around-the-world flights) offered to take him as a passenger on his next global jaunt if Will would finance the flight, which he agreed to do. There was tremendous media coverage of the preparations and takeoff of this trek, since it featured the world’s most famous pilot (Post) and a very popular passenger (Rogers).

  On August 15, 1935, the plane took off from Fairbanks, Alaska, and, after a stopover at Harding Lake to wait until the fog lifted, flew onward toward the North Pole. At 8:18 P.M., Post and Rogers were nearing desolate Point Barrow, Alaska—some three hundred miles inside the border of the Arctic Circle. Suddenly, their shiny red plane faltered in the sky; there was a defect in the 550-horsepower engine. The plane crashed head-down on the earth, slid along the ground for 50 feet, and then plowed into a riverbank. The impact drove the engine back into the fuselage, fatally crushing both Post and Rogers.

  The world was stunned by the deaths. In Manhattan, a plane squadron with long, trailing black streamers flew over the metropolis; flags flew at half-mast everywhere and theaters were darkened. Famed singer John McCormack expressed the loss best: “A smile has disappeared from the lips of America and her eyes are suffused with tears.” A week before the crash, the crew and cast of MGM’s Ah, Wilderness! had gone to Massachusetts for location filming, with Lionel Barrymore cast in the role once intended for Will Rogers.

  Once the bodies were recovered, they were flown back to California, and Will was initially buried at a Los Angeles cemetery. On May 22, 1944, his body was re-interred in a crypt in the gardens of the Claremont Memorial to Will Rogers in Claremont, Oklahoma. In June 1944, his wife Betty died and was buried in the family crypt in Oklahoma near their baby son Fred. Later that same year, Will’s surviving children donated his three-hundred-acre Santa Monica ranch to California as a state park.

  President Franklin D. Roosevelt said of Will Rogers, “The American nation, to whose heart he brought gladness, will hold him in everlasting remembrance.”

  Trinidad Silva Jr.

  January 30, 1950–July 31, 1988

  On TV’s Hill Street Blues (1981–87), Trinidad Silva Jr. played the recurring role of smart-mouthed Chicano gang leader Jesus Martinez. He was the one who repeatedly taunted police Captain Frank Furillo (Daniel J. Travanti) by calling him “Frankie boy.” In the controversial movie Colors (1988), Trinidad played Frog, the older gang leader. But one Sunday evening in July 1988, Silva had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In one brief instant, his life was taken by a drunk driver in Whittier, California.

  Mexican-American Trinidad Silva Jr. was born in Mission, Texas, in 1950. Moving to Los Angeles, he gravitated to acting, making a strong impression in the stage play Hijos. He had a bit part in The Master Gunfighter (1975) and was in the movie Alabrista! (1977) with Edward James Olmos, who became a close friend. His other acting credits included Walk Proud (1979) with Robby Benson, the Robert Redford-directed The Milagro Beanfield War (1987), The Night Before (1988) with Keanu Reeves, and UHF (1989) with “Weird Al” Yankovic. Besides his recurring role on Hill Street Blues, Trinidad was in the cable-TV series Maximum Security (1985) with Jean Smart. He formed his own production company and, with Michael Warren (another Hill Street alumnus), costarred in a new TV pilot, Home Free, which aired on July 13, 1988.

  On Sunday, July 31, 1988, Trinidad was driving in his small pickup truck with his wife, Sofia, and their two-year-old son, Samuel. As they pulled through an intersection in Whittier, California, at about 6:45 P.M., a sedan car (going about 45 miles per hour) went through a red light and hit their vehicle broadside. The force of the impact spun the truck around. Trinidad and his son were thrown from the vehicle; Trinidad was hurled more than one hundred feet before hitting the pavement. He died instantly. The dazed little boy and Mrs. Silva (who had been pinned in the wreckage) suffered minor injuries; the other driver—inebriated—was not injured at all. He had attempted to flee the crash site, but onlookers held him until police arrived.

  Alcohol and Drugs

  Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills, California © 2001 by Albert L. Ortega

  John Barrymore

  [John Sidney Blyth]

  February 15, 1882–May 29, 1942

&n
bsp; Onstage he was known as “The Great Profile.” In private life, however, he was most definitely “The Great Indulger.” Everything about the dashingly handsome John Barrymore was prodigious: his talent, his thirst for drink, and his adoration of pretty women. His vices dissipated a great career, but ironically ensured his status as one of the entertainment world’s premier hedonists.

  Barrymore was born in 1882 in Philadelphia, the son of illustrious stage troupers Georgie Drew and Maurice Blyth (who adopted the grandiloquent surname of Barrymore). There were two older siblings—brother Lionel (1878–1954) and sister Ethel (1879–1956)—both of whom would also enjoy lengthy acting careers. Hoping to escape the family tradition of acting, John sought a career as a painter. He studied art in Europe until his funds ran out. He then worked briefly in New York City, first as a cartoonist and then as a newspaper illustrator. Fired from both jobs, he accepted his fate and made his stage debut in Chicago in Magda (1903). John’s performance was undistinguished, but it was a start.

  By 1909 he had succeeded on Broadway with the comedy The Fortune Hunter. The next year he wed stagestruck socialite Katharine Harris, a union that lasted seven years. (She would divorce the philandering John, charging desertion.) He continued his stage successes, reaching his pinnacle with Hamlet (1922). Meanwhile, he appeared sporadically in silent movies, most notably Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920). In 1920, the aristocratic playboy wed poetess Michael Strange. Their daughter, Diana, was born the next year. The tempestuous marriage dissolved into three years of separation, during which he courted actress Mary Astor. Barrymore and Strange divorced in November 1928, and six days later, he married the much-younger Dolores Costello, a film actress. They would have two children, Dolores Ethel Mae and John Jr.