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

by Parish, James Robert

  In 1962 Martha costarred with Doris Day and Jimmy Durante in Billy Rose’s Jumbo. During the making of the elaborate screen musical, she attempted suicide again. After her Vietnam tours, where she was twice wounded by enemy fire, “Boondocks Maggie” (as the troops affectionately called her) spent several months on Broadway (and on tour) starring in Hello, Dolly! In April 1969, at the Academy Awards, she received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her “devoted and often dangerous work in entertaining troops in combat areas almost constantly since World War II.”

  To keep herself busy, Raye appeared on a TV children’s show (The Bugaloos), participated in another Broadway revival (No, No, Nanette), and became part of a successful TV series when she took over for Nancy Walker as the comedic foil on Rock Hudson’s detective show McMillan (1976–77). When asked why, after all these years, she still kept working so hard, Martha said, “My husbands cost me a fortune, and I’m not getting residuals from my old movies, but that’s not why I’m working. I’m working because I’d die if I didn’t.”

  Having done several very lucrative Polident denture commercials, Martha returned to touring, first in the ensemble revue The New 4 Girls 4 and then in a road company doing the musical Annie. The death of her ex-husband Nick Condos in July 1988 sent her into an emotional tailspin, which was aggravated by her ongoing clashes with her daughter, Melodye.

  In January 1990 Raye suffered a stroke, which left one side of her body paralyzed and caused her famous wide mouth to droop noticeably. Her recuperation was hindered by her refusal to do the prescribed physical therapy and by her ongoing depression. By this time, Martha’s fans were petitioning Congress to award the Medal of Freedom to the ailing entertainer. Meanwhile, Martha was having constant court skirmishes with her daughter over TV-commercial commissions supposedly due to Nick Condos.

  Then, in 1991 the Bette Midler movie-musical For the Boys opened (and sank). In many respects, the plot was based on Martha’s wartime entertainment efforts. Because Raye and Condos had once met with Midler about having Bette star in Maggie, a screenplay about Raye’s USO touring, Martha was bitter about the new film, which was done without her consent or financial compensation. In June 1991 the entertainer endured a second stroke.

  In the summer of 1992, the wheelchairbound Martha was introduced to Mark Harris, a one-time singer, garment industry designer, and cosmetologist. On September 25, 1991, just weeks later, the 42-year-old Harris and 76-year-old Raye were married in Las Vegas. Martha spent most of the wedding night at the Desert Springs Hospital with severe abdominal pains. When they returned to Los Angeles, shocked relatives and friends were amazed at how fast Mark had taken charge of Martha’s life, including her business affairs. As for Raye, depicted by the media as a pathetic invalid whose mind wandered from the effects of her strokes, she claimed to be happy for the first time in years. She didn’t seem to mind that her spouse was apparently using his new status as “Mr. Raye”—and the funds that came with it—to build a new career for himself.

  Martha’s daughter Melodye retaliated by petitioning the court to have Raye declared incompetent because of her several strokes. A temporary conservator was appointed. By the end of the year, Mark had filed a claim against Bette Midler and others regarding For the Boys, and soon thereafter he and Raye reaffirmed their marriage vows in the presence of Hollywood friends.

  In April 1992 Martha suffered another stroke while visiting in Las Vegas, followed by yet another one in June. Harris continued to throw lavish parties with and without Maggie present. When asked by the media if she felt her husband was taking advantage of her, she vehemently denied it. In October 1993 part of a toe on her left foot had to be amputated; later her left leg was removed just below the knee. During this critical period, it was announced that President Clinton had finally awarded Martha the long-sought Medal of Freedom. Meanwhile, Raye had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

  In January 1994, the court dismissed Martha’s suit against Bette Midler and others over For the Boys. The next month, a part of Raye’s right leg had to be amputated. On October 19, 1994, at 1:35 P.M., Martha died of pneumonia at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. Reportedly, Melodye had not been allowed in the room to see her mother that day because of orders left by Mark Harris, who was out of town at the time.

  Funeral services were held at a memorial chapel in Santa Monica, California, on October 20. The next day, Melodye discovered that the pine coffin exhibited at the funeral had not contained her mother’s remains. The body had been already sent on to Fort Bragg in North Carolina and buried in the military cemetery there. (Supposedly, Martha was buried with a bottle of vodka.) A marker would be placed on the grave inscribed: “Martha Raye, Civilian.” In 1997, veteran entertainer Steve Allen and others saluted Martha at the Friars Club. The honorary Oscar she had once won was presented to the club by her estate.

  Raye’s will left Melodye $50,000; Raye’s husband Mark Harris received the rest of the $2.4 million in assets. He used some of the money to back his own cabaret act.

  Years earlier, Martha Raye had observed, “Few people actually know me or take me seriously. I thought success in show business was the answer to everything. It isn’t. I don’t know what is.”

  Norma Shearer

  [Edith Norma Shearer]

  August 15, 1902–June 12, 1983

  For many fans throughout the decades, Academy Award-winning Norma Shearer is Hollywood’s ultimate movie star. Her participation in a motion picture, or arrival at a social function, gave it Class with a capital “C.” On camera, Norma excelled at sophisticated drawing-room comedy (Private Lives, 1931), and could sashay effectively through costume drama (Marie Antoinette, 1938) or biting social commentary (The Women, 1939) with equal aplomb. The dark-haired actress was not a raving beauty and she had a troublesome physical defect, being walleyed. But with careful lighting, she could glow with a well-bred radiance that substituted for sex appeal.

  Norma Shearer, the young star of After Midnight (1927).

  Courtesy of JC Archives

  During the 1930s, Norma reigned as Hollywood’s first lady. Her consort for much of that time was MGM’s executive producer, Irving Thalberg. But unfortunately, there is always an end to every royal regime. In Norma’s case, it was not the “happily-ever-after” portrayed in most of her pictures. Her final years were marked by failing health, mental instability, and (the worst fate of all for her) being forgotten by those she loved best—her adoring fans.

  Norma was born on August 15, 1902 (not 1900 or 1904 as often given, and not on August 10 as sometimes is listed) in a suburb of Montreal, Quebec, the daughter of a Scottish construction-company executive and an Englishwoman whose forebears had been in the clergy. She had an older brother, Douglas, and sister, Athole. A frail child, Norma was persuaded by her mother to become a pianist, as she had some musical talent. Then, after Norma won a beauty contest at age 15, her mother guided her toward amateur theatricals.

  In early 1920, Mr. Shearer’s business was doing poorly, and Mrs. Shearer escorted her children to New York City to seek their fortune. Stage work failed to materialize, but the Shearer girls found work as extras in silent movies, including D. W. Griffith’s Way Down East (1920). (Athole would soon abandon her show-business career, and later marry and divorce director Howard Hawks; Douglas would go on to create and supervise the MGM sound department, in the process winning many Academy Awards for his achievements.)

  After a few years of tiny film parts and modeling assignments, Norma was signed by moviemaker Louis B. Mayer and his new second-in-command, Irving G. Thalberg, for their growing film company (soon to be called Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). Shearer traveled to California with her mother and sister in early 1923. During this training period, she made several pictures with fellow studio employees Lon Chaney and John Gilbert, including He Who Gets Slapped (1924). On September 29, 1927, Norma (now converted to Judaism) married Thalberg at his Beverly Hills home in a lavish ceremony. Their son, Irving Jr., was born in 19
30, and their daughter, Katherine, in 1935.

  Norma proved she could make the transition to talkies with The Trial of Mary Dugan (1929). She received an Oscar for The Divorcee (1930). Now earning $6,000 weekly, she had first choice of MGM’s roster of new screenplays and costars. She gathered more Oscar nominations: A Free Soul (1931), The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934), Romeo and Juliet (1936), and Marie Antoinette (1938). After Thalberg’s premature death in 1936 from heart and other ailments, Norma considered retiring but then charged ahead with more pictures, such as Idiot’s Delight (1939) with Clark Gable. She entered her “Merry Widow” social period, dating the likes of George Raft and Mickey Rooney.

  In 1942, proving that times were indeed changing, three of MGM’s legendary mainstays (Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, and Norma Shearer) left that glamorous studio. Also that year, Norma married Martin Arrouge, a ski instructor several years her junior. For years, they lived in the spacious Santa Monica beach home she had once shared with Thalberg; in 1960 they moved to more modest West Hollywood digs. Until the mid-1960s, Norma and Martin continued their regimen of skiing, traveling, and increasingly infrequent entertaining.

  By 1967, Norma was experiencing the same sort of anxiety attacks that had caused her sister to suffer several nervous breakdowns. Shearer underwent shock treatment to help her “make the adjustment” to her diminished lifestyle and social influence. Ironically, Norma was enduring the same twisted fate—albeit to a lesser degree—as the character Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard (1950), a role Shearer had been offered and rejected. The former star became suicidal, and in 1970, attempted to throw herself from a window on the top floor of a Los Angeles high-rise but was stopped in time.

  Norma spent many months at a private sanatorium. Although the shock treatments reduced her depression, they also impaired her memories of current events and the world around her. Her past became more real than her present. In the late 1970s, having already undergone corrective surgery once, Norma’s eyesight began to fade again. She clung to earlier times when life had been fulfilling, and kept searching in the present for ties to the long-dead Irving Thalberg.

  By September 1980, the frail, withered Norma, whose hair had turned snow-white, was a permanent patient at the Motion Picture Country House in Woodland Hills, California. Shearer’s splendid domain had now shrunk to her small room (D133) in the hospital wing. Infrequently lucid, she generally remained wheelchair-bound or resting in bed. When she made contact at all with those about her, it was only to repeat the query, “Are you Irving?” Irrational and confused, she would sometimes wander the hospital corridors dressed in her nightgown and bathrobe, not sure how to find her way back to her little room. In June of 1983, Norma contracted bronchial pneumonia. She died at about 5:00 P.M. on June 12, 1983. She was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, next to Thalberg in his marble pavilion. At last, she had come home.

  Murders

  Hollywood Forever in Hollywood, California © 2001 by Albert L. Ortega

  Dominique Dunne

  November 23, 1959–November 4, 1982

  In June 1982, the beautiful young actress Dominique Dunne was praised for her performance in the hit movie Poltergeist (1982), in which she played the elder daughter of Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams. Five months later, with everything to look forward to, she was strangled to death by her estranged boyfriend, John Sweeney, at her West Hollywood apartment.

  Dominique was born with the proverbial silver spoon in her mouth. Her industry pedigree was impeccable; she was the daughter of socialite Ellen Griffin Dunne and film producer, screenwriter, and novelist Dominick Dunne. Her older brother, Griffin, would also become an actor, director, and producer. Dominique was the niece of writers John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion. Dominique was born in Santa Monica, California. After her parents’ divorce, she lived first on the East Coast and then in Beverly Hills. She attended the fashionable Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut, the Fountain Valley School in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and also the British Institute and the Michelangelo School in Florence, Italy.

  Deciding on an acting career, Dominique had more than enough industry contacts to break into show business with a minimum of fuss. She had roles on segments of several major TV series (Breaking Away, CHiPs, Fame, Family, Hill Street Blues, and Lou Grant) and appeared in such telefilms as Diary of a Teenage Hitchhiker (1979) and The Day the Loving Stopped (1981). She gained further popularity with her role in Poltergeist. Most recently, she had been cast as a regular on the projected science fiction series V (1983), which was then shooting an elaborate four-hour pilot.

  Meanwhile, Dominique’s buoyant social life led her to John David Sweeney, then a chef at Ma Maison, a very chic Los Angeles eatery. A relationship soon developed and just as quickly turned turbulent. He was so physically and emotionally abusive to her that everyone warned her to end the situation. Dominique did so and was relieved that the troubled Sweeney was out of her life—or at least she thought so.

  On Saturday evening, October 30, 1982, at her home on the 8700 block of Rangely Drive in West Hollywood, Dominique and John got into a screaming argument about a possible reconciliation and his desire to move back in with her. When she said “No!” he began to throttle her in a fit of anger. Police were summoned to the scene of the disturbance and found a distraught Sweeney standing over her. When taken into custody, he said, “I have killed my girlfriend.” But Dunne was not dead. The unconscious actress was rushed to the intensive-care unit at the nearby Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she remained comatose on a life support system for five days. At about 11:00 A.M. on November 4, her heart stopped beating. (Hospital authorities stated later, “We did not pull the plug. She never regained consciousness and just died.”) Dominique was buried at Westwood Memorial Park where her marker, featuring a rose, was inscribed “Loved by All.” Her kidneys were donated to an organ transplant bank.

  At John Sweeney’s subsequent trial, it was revealed that several weeks before Dominique’s death, the obsessive man had already tried to strangle her once. Becoming fearful of him, she had ordered him to move out of her place and had changed the locks. During the court proceedings, a letter from the victim to the killer was read. It stated, “The whole thing has made me realize how scared I am of you and I don’t mean just physically. I’m afraid of the next time you are going to have another mood swing.” (The jury, however, was not allowed to hear testimony from one of Sweeney’s former girlfriends who had endured several beatings from him, resulting in a broken nose and a collapsed lung.) When the jury convicted Sweeney of only involuntary manslaughter in November 1983, the presiding judge (Burton Katz of Santa Monica Superior Court) angrily lectured the defendant: “You hung on to this fragile and vulnerable woman and squeezed and squeezed and squeezed the oxygen from her while she flailed for her life. . . . This is an act that is qualitatively not of manslaughter but of murder.” Sweeney was sentenced to the maximum prison term of 62 years. Nevertheless, he was released in June 1986, having served less than four years behind bars. Such is justice.

  Phil Hartman

  [Philip Edward Hartmann]

  September 24, 1948–May 28, 1998

  Being a Hollywood comedian in the mid-1990s obviously wasn’t everything it was cracked up to be. A massive heart attack claimed the life of the extremely rotund funnyman John Candy in 1994, while drugs and alcohol decimated the corpulent Chris Farley in 1997. Farley had been a Saturday Night Live TV series cast member in the early 1990s, overlapping with veteran funster Phil Hartman (whose tenure on SNL lasted from 1986 to 1994). Thereafter, Phil had gone on to costar in the sitcom NewsRadio, which debuted in March 1995. The show and Hartman (as the self-centered anchor Bill McNeal) were well-received; on May 12, 1998, NewsRadio broadcast its fourth season finale. The series had been renewed for the 1998–99 season. All seemed well for the cast of this NBC show.

  But then on May 28, 1998, came the tragic news that the 49–year-old Phil Hartman—the master of comic imp
ressions—was dead. What was even more shocking was that Hartman had been violently murdered in his bed by his wife, Brynn. And the tragedy got worse. A few hours after shooting her husband to death, Brynn committed suicide.

  Philip Edward Hartmann (he dropped the final “n” of his surname when he entered show business) was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, in 1948. He was the fourth of eight children of Rupert Hartmann (a building-supplies salesman) and Doris Hartmann. His family later moved to Connecticut, and then to southern California, where Phil grew up in the culture of the 1960s. At Westchester High School, he was voted the class clown, famous for his impressions of Jack Benny and John Wayne. He attended Santa Monica College (1967–68), and later California State University in Northridge (1972–73), where he studied graphic arts. After that, he found employment designing album covers for rock bands. A marriage to Gretchen Lewis in 1970 was short-lasting.

  In 1975, Phil’s life took a new turn. One day, he attended a performance by the Groundlings (an improv group), and more tired of his humdrum existence than he imagined, he impulsively jumped from the audience to the stage. He quickly became part of the Los Angeles—based troupe. From the start, Phil had no fear onstage and thrived on the process of becoming other people. (One of his favorite characters was a film-noir private eye named Chick Hazzard.) In December 1982, Phil, age 31, married 22-year-old Lisa Strain, a real-estate agent. That union lasted less than three years; she later claimed that he would “disappear emotionally.”