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

by Parish, James Robert

  During the 1920s, John had starred in several highly romantic silent films, including The Beloved Rogue (1927). They paid for his yachts and his multimillion-dollar mansion. Once talkies came into fashion, Barrymore, with his resonant voice, continued to be in great demand. In contrast to his romantic lead opposite Greta Garbo in Grand Hotel (1932), he delighted in such movie roles as in Svengali (1931) and Topaze (1933), which disguised his still-handsome looks. There was much hoopla when John, Lionel, and Ethel teamed up on camera for the first and only time in Rasputin and the Empress (1933). The next year, John and Dolores divorced; she gained custody of the children.

  By the mid-1930s age and carousing had taken its toll on John; his looks were diminishing and he was having difficulty remembering his lines on camera. Nevertheless, he was still wanted for the supporting role of Mercutio in Norma Shearer’s Romeo and Juliet (1936). By now John had come under the sway of 19-year-old Elaine Jacobs (who used the stage name of Barrie). She became his protégée, and pursued him from New York (where they had met) to Los Angeles. On November 9, 1936, she and the 54-year-old Barrymore eloped to Yuma, Arizona. Hardly two months after the marriage, she filed for divorce, but they eventually patched up their differences.

  As the 1930s ended, Barrymore was reduced to playing caricatures of his once leading male roles, as in Midnight (1939). John had not been on the stage since the mid-1920s, but at Elaine’s urging he paired with her in My Dear Children. The new comedy emphasized the costars’ offstage relationship. It toured the East Coast, but the visibly aged and weary Barrymore took sick in Washington, D.C. When the tour reopened in St. Louis, John and Elaine had a quarrel and she left the cast. The couple were divorced in November 1940; Barrymore never remarried.

  With his life in ruins, the sickly Barrymore took any sort of buffoon-like screen part, such as in The Great Profile (1940). By 1942 his activities were confined largely to radio, where he was the “comedy relief” on Rudy Vallee’s weekly program. When his increasing ailments forced him to miss performances, his brother Lionel substituted for him. John’s daughter Diana was now making movies in Hollywood, but he was too depleted to discipline his profligate offspring and her wild ways with drink and men.

  On May 19, 1942, John appeared at the radio station for a run-through of that week’s Rudy Vallee show. When it was time to start, he could barely stagger from his dressing room. Rudy hastened to his side. John, with tears in his eyes, said, “I guess this is one time I miss my cue.” He was rushed to Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital, where he remained in serious condition from complications to the liver and kidneys. Then too, after years of abuse, his heart had worn out. On May 29, 1942, after several hours of unconsciousness, he awoke and acknowledged his brother Lionel’s presence by saying hello. Then he lapsed into a coma and soon died. Although John had earned an estimated $3 million in his lifetime, he died in debt.

  Shortly before his death, John had granted an interview in which he said, “Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him.” The day that Barrymore passed away, two of John’s drinking buddies—director Raoul Walsh and actor Errol Flynn—were memorializing their late comrade at Flynn’s estate. While Errol went out on an errand, the inebriated Walsh hatched a scheme. He went to the Malloy Brothers Mortuary on Temple Street in Los Angeles, where Barrymore’s body had been taken. One of the owners, an actor who had worked with Walsh in movies, agreed to let Raoul “borrow” John’s corpse for a few hours. The director drove the body in his station wagon to Flynn’s estate. Arriving there, Walsh told Errol’s butler, “Alex, Mr. Barrymore didn’t die. He’s drunk. Help me carry him in the house.” They propped the dead star up on a couch. When Flynn walked in, he saw Barrymore’s corpse sitting there. Frightened by the sight, he dashed frantically from the house. A bemused Walsh shouted, “You missed the old boy and I brought him up here. At least come in and say hello to him.” When Flynn would have no part of it, Walsh and the butler returned the body to the mortuary. Arriving there, Raoul explained to the drunken co-owner what he had done. The owner said, “Why the hell didn’t you tell me? I’d have put a better suit on him!” (Whether this wild tale is fully true or not, Blake Edwards used its substance in his 1981 movie S.O.B.)

  Father John O’Donnell, a friend of the family, presided at the requiem mass held for Barrymore at Calvary Cemetery in Los Angeles on June 2, 1942. Diana arrived escorted by Uncle Lionel. Elaine Barrie was in attendance, but neither John’s third wife Dolores nor their children appeared at the service. Among the active pallbearers were W. C. Fields, David O. Selznick, Louis B. Mayer, and Herbert Marshall. Barrymore was buried in a crypt beside that of Irene Fenwick, his brother Lionel’s wife, who had died in 1936. In 1980, John Barrymore’s remains were cremated and reburied at Mount Vernon Cemetery in Philadelphia, in the family plot. But his crypt at Calvary Cemetery—bearing the inscription “Good Night, Sweet Prince”—still remains.

  Sadly, John Barrymore’s profligate legacy was inherited by some of his children. His daughter Diana squandered her acting potential on booze and reckless living. She recorded her misdeeds in her autobiography Too Much, Too Soon (1957), written with Gerold Frank. It was turned into a tawdry screen adaptation the next year. By 1960, the depressed, 39-year-old actress was at a low ebb professionally and personally. But she was still game to host another of her impromptu parties at her modest New York apartment on the night of January 24, 1960. The next afternoon, her nude body-stretched facedown on the bed—was found by a maid. There were a trio of empty liquor bottles in the kitchen and an assortment of sedatives in a nearby cabinet. After an autopsy, the coroner ruled out suicide or foul play. Regardless, it was a distressing end for the once-promising talent.

  As for John Jr., despite the attempts of his mother (actress Dolores Costello) to keep him out of show business, he signed a film contract at age 17 and made his screen debut in The Sundowners (1950). But it was downhill thereafter. By the late 1950s he had wed actress Cara Williams, altered his name to John Drew Barrymore, and reemerged in pictures and on TV. Yet his substance abuse and antisocial behavior led him into scrapes with the law. Later he vanished and was thought to be living in the wilderness and communing with nature. Less charitable souls classified the once-handsome John Drew as a derelict. In late 2000, he turned up in the Baja desert area of Mexico, having fallen off a horse and apparently in such a disoriented state that Mexican authorities had to come to the rescue until his relatives could be located.

  One of John Drew’s children was the future actress Drew Barrymore, born in 1975. She made her film debut at age two in the TV movie Suddenly, Love (1978), but it was in the mega-hit science-fiction fantasy E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) that she shone. As she matured into a teenager, she exhibited the reckless abandon of her forebears, later writing of her wild experiences in Little Girl Lost (1990). To everyone’s amazement, in the 1990s she turned her life around, becoming a major box-office attraction (and a film producer as well) in a variety of bigscreen projects, and also displaying winning ways off camera. She seems to have kicked the curse of the Barrymore name that haunted so many of her clan.

  John Belushi

  January 24, 1949–March 5, 1982

  Over the decades, the ill effects of drugs have wasted many Hollywood celebrities, but none so tragically as the talented, manic, outrageous John Belushi. The stocky, highvoltage comedian was just 33 years old when he died of a drug overdose in Hollywood. His sudden death horrified his many fans, created a highly publicized industry scandal, and scared some of his pals into quitting their own substance abuse.

  Belushi was born in Wheaton, Illinois, on January 24, 1949. His father was in the restaurant business. There was an older sister, and after John’s birth came two other boys including Jim, who also became an actor. During high school, John played football, was a drummer for the Ravins, a rock ’n’ roll band, and fell totally in love with acting. When he missed getting a gridiron scholarship, he enroll
ed at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater, which had a solid drama department, and later matriculated at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. During the summer recesses, John handled dramatic roles in stock productions. Then he happened onto Second City Television, a prominent Chicago-based revue whose troupe specialized in cheeky improvisation. Second City opened the world of comedy to Belushi, who delighted in combining straight reality with near-slapstick comedy and heavy satire.

  John’s high-energy revue work generated good notices. These led to his being hired for the off-Broadway show National Lampoons Lemmings in 1973. He went on to do two others: The National Lampoon Radio Hour— for which he was both actor and writer—and The National Lampoon Show. His big career break occurred in 1975 when he joined the cast of an irreverent new television revue, Saturday Night Live. The program debuted on the NBC network on October 11, 1975, and quickly became a hit. In the four hectic years Belushi remained with this landmark series, he became famous for his repertoire of characters, which included a leering Samurai warrior and (with costar Dan Aykroyd, who called John the “Black Rhino”) one of the two singing, mayhem-inducing Blues Brothers. In 1976 John married his high school sweetheart, Judith Jacklin.

  Belushi’s first major movie work was the raucous National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978), a box-office smash in which his gross, oversized humor made him an immediate big-screen favorite. In 1979, he abandoned Saturday Night Live to focus entirely on making movies. During this time, he became more insecure about his fluctuating weight and his inability to maintain friendships. Self-destructively, he turned increasingly to a variety of drugs, which, in turn, caused him to become more insecure and isolated. (One of John’s cardinal rules was that he did not wish his pals to see him under the influence.) He had a close friendship with his screen rival Chevy Chase, and the latter repeatedly attempted to get John to quit using drugs.

  Despite his talent and manic energy, Belushi made mostly unsuccessful movies, like 1941 (1979) and Continental Divide (1981). (Most of his successes, such as The Blues Brothers [1980], which also led to a top-selling record album, were done with his buddy Dan Aykroyd.) The relative failures of his less personally invested movies convinced John that the only way to survive the Hollywood jungle was to script and control his own film properties. He wanted very much to be considered not just a boorish comic, but a solid actor who could tackle romantic parts. Thus, he wrote a screenplay titled Noble Rot. Paramount Pictures eventually vetoed it and, instead, wanted him to make another boorish comedy, The Joy of Sex. Furious, John, who had been in New York with his wife, returned to the coast alone, registering at the Chateau Marmont Hotel in West Hollywood.

  John Belushi (right) with performer Leif Garrett (left) and Rick Wakeman (center) of the group Yes at a Los Angeles sporting event in 1978.

  Courtesy of Archive Photos

  On the night of March 4, 1982, John partied with friends at a private rock club, drinking very heavily throughout the evening. John eventually returned to his hotel bungalow (#3), and his new pal, Canadian-born Cathy Evelyn Smith—a backup singer for musician Gordon Lightfoot—joined him there. When she arrived, his complexion was pallid and he was sweating heavily, yet he continued drinking and snorting cocaine.

  Early the next morning on March 5, comedian-actor Robin Williams and Nelson Lyon, a Saturday Night Live writer, came by the bungalow, as did others. They departed after a few minutes. Belushi then showered, and after complaining of the cold and turning up the temperature control, went to bed sometime between 6:30 and 8:00 A.M. It would later be alleged that Cathy Smith helped calm John’s depression by injecting him with what proved to be a lethal speed-ball mix of cocaine and heroin.

  Afterward, Smith went into the living room. About an hour later, she hurried into the bedroom because she heard Belushi gasping for breath. He insisted he was all right and fell asleep again. About 10:15 A.M., she looked in on him again. He appeared OK, and she drove off in his car to have breakfast. She was still out at around noon when William Wallace, the physical therapist who was helping John get into better condition, visited the bungalow. He found Belushi in a fetal position on the bed. The room was strangely quiet, and this concerned Wallace, for John was typically a heavy snorer. Wallace felt the star’s pulse. There was none. Wallace ordered the front desk to send for a physician. Meanwhile, he tried to revive his friend without success. Some 15 minutes later, the paramedics arrived and pronounced Belushi dead.

  In Manhattan, John’s best friend, Dan Aykroyd, rushed over to Belushi’s townhouse at 60 Morton Street to tell Judy the bad news. On March 9, 1982, Belushi was buried in Abel’s Hill Cemetery in Chilmark, Massachusetts (on Martha’s Vineyard), where Belushi and Aykroyd owned property and had spent much of the previous summer relaxing. The solemn procession to the cemetery plot was led by a motorcycle-riding Aykroyd, clad in a leather jacket and jeans. Graveside, in the falling snow, James Taylor sang “That Lonesome Road.” On March 11, 1982, a memorial service was conducted in Manhattan at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, where out of respect for John’s wishes, Aykroyd played a tape recording of the Ventures’ “The 2,000 Pound Bee.” Belushi’s entire estate was left to Judy.

  In the immediate aftermath of John’s sudden demise, Judy Belushi was stunned into silence. She later grew angry, however, about the way it occurred. Judy convinced famed Watergate reporter Bob Woodward to investigate John’s death. His exploration led to the bestselling book Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi (1984) and to the later movie flop Wired (1989). Although the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s office listed the cause of Belushi’s passing as “acute toxicity from cocaine and heroin,” local authorities wanted the furor to fade away. Nevertheless, thanks to the tumult stirred up by Belushi’s widow, a Los Angeles grand jury was convened in March 1983. It determined that Smith’s actions during Belushi’s last, crucial hours were potentially negligent enough to be trial-worthy. Meanwhile, Smith had been allowed to return to Canada, and an extradition warrant for her was obtained. Before the June 1986 trial actually began, Smith pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, as well as to three other lesser charges, in exchange for avoiding the more severe second-degree murder charge. She received the maximum sentence of under 10 years for these offenses.

  Gone but certainly not forgotten, John Belushi’s meteoric rise and fall is perhaps best summed up by the placard at his gravesite: “He could have given us a lot more laughs, but noooooo.”

  Montgomery Clift

  [Edward Montgomery Clift]

  October 17, 1920–July 23, 1966

  Sometimes the path to self-destruction is tortuously slow, filled with years of agonizing self-doubts, incapacitating vices, and self-punishing acts. At some point, body and soul cannot cope with further abuse and simply give out. Such was the case with songbird Judy Garland; a similar victim was her Judgment at Nuremberg costar—the handsome, talented, sensitive, and moody Montgomery Clift. In fact, it was another legendary icon and emotional muddle—Marilyn Monroe, who had teamed with Monty in The Misfits (1961)—who said sadly of Clift, “He’s the only person I know who is in worse shape than I am.”

  Montgomery was born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1920, to William and Ethel “Sunny” (Fogg) Clift. There was an older brother, Brooks, and “Monty” (as he became known) had a twin sister Roberta, who was a few minutes older. Because Sunny had been adopted as a child and eventually learned that her biological forebears came of aristocratic stock, she devoted her entire later life to publicizing the blue blood of her family. The Clifts moved to Chicago in 1924, and in 1930 to New York, where William proved successful in the banking business. It allowed Sunny to indulge her fantasies of leading a refined life, frequently traveling abroad with her children but without her husband.

  By age 12, Monty was intrigued with the theater, an improvement over the modeling career that his overly possessive mother had already chosen for him. After a few seasons of summer stock, Clift came to Broadway in Fly A
way Home (1935). Over the next decade, he sharpened his skills by appearing in such New York productions as The Wind and the Rain (1938) with Celeste Holm, There Shall Be No Night (1940) with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, The Skin of Our Teeth (1942) with Tallulah Bankhead, and You Touched Me! (1945) with Edmund Gwenn. Never in solid physical condition, the slender, darkly handsome Clift was rejected for World War II duty because of chronic diarrhea.

  During his young adult years, Clift was in constant conflict about his homosexuality, his feelings toward his demanding mother, and his mounting insecurities about his professional abilities. One who knew the sensitive, polite young man then said of Clift, “Monty had a fence around himself. He told you in certain ways, ‘Just don’t come too close to me.’” Eventually, Clift and his mother would become almost totally estranged.

  Film director Howard Hawks had been impressed by Clift on Broadway and cast him opposite John Wayne in the rough-and-tumble Western Red River (1948), for which Monty was paid $60,000. Before that successful movie about a cattle drive was released, Clift went into The Search (1948), which earned him the first of four Oscar nominations. By the time he made the period drama The Heiress (1949) opposite Olivia de Havilland, Monty was earning $100,000 per film and was considered one of Hollywood’s major new finds. Branded as “unconventional,” he insisted, “I’m not odd. I’m trying to be an actor. Not a movie star, just an actor.” By now, he had become addicted to assorted drugs and drink, which caused escalating trouble on and off the soundstages. (A lot of Clift’s bizarre physical behavior was caused by an underactive-thyroid condition, but it was often misattributed to his substance abuse.) Despite additional psychiatric therapy, Clift’s complex nature grew more knotted.

  Montgomery Clift with Roddy McDowall in Clift’s final motion picture, The Defector (1966).