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

by Parish, James Robert

  Some of Eugene’s frustrations dissolved magically when he participated in high school track events, especially javelin throwing. He developed the theory that his long hair was a symbol of strength (similar to Samson in the Bible); the appealing hairstyle would remain a signature throughout much of his career. Eugene’s talent with the javelin won him an escape from his bitter home life. He went to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles on an athletic scholarship, but a torn ligament in his arm ended his sports career during his freshman year. Eugene quit college and was working at a warehouse unloading freight cars when an actor friend asked him to help with an audition. Eventually, it was Eugene instead who was accepted at the Warner Bros, acting school. He adopted a new name, Michael Landon, which he claimed he picked from a telephone book when his original choice—Mike Lane—already belonged to a working actor.

  Michael Landon meeting the public.

  © 1991 by Albert L. Ortega

  Landon’s early movies were not exactly class vehicles. He was Tony, the angry student, in I Was a Teen-age Werewolf (1957), which has since become a camp classic. He played the albino in God’s Little Acre (1958) and was the hero/outlaw in The Legend of Tom Dooley (1959). He had guest-starred on several TV Westerns before he finally won his show-business break. The baby-faced actor was cast as Little Joe, one of the three sons (the other two were played by Pernell Roberts and Dan Blocker) of Ben Cartwright (Lorne Greene) on Bonanza, set at the Ponderosa ranch in 1860s Nevada. The hour-long television series debuted in September 1959 and remained on the air through January 1973. Roberts left the hit series after the 1964–65 season, and the burly Dan Blocker died of a heart attack in May 1972. Michael, however, remained through to the end, not only acting but directing and sometimes scripting episodes that aired in its last few seasons.

  In 1956, Landon married Dodie Fraser, a legal secretary who was nine years his senior. She already had a son, Mark, from a prior marriage. The couple adopted two sons, Josh and Jason, but the marriage fell apart in 1962. (In 1964, Landon and his ex-wife agreed for Jason to be privately adopted by a Texas couple.) In 1963, Landon married Lynn Noe, a model and actress. She had a child named Cheryl from her first marriage, and Michael and Lynn eventually became the parents of four children: Leslie, Michael Jr., Shawn, and Christopher. They divorced in 1982, and Michael married Cindy Clerico, a makeup artist, on Valentine’s Day in 1983. He had two children with Cindy: Jennifer and Sean. In 1988, they built a $3 million, ten-thousand-square-foot house in Malibu, California.

  After overcoming some family catastrophes and his own tendency to do too much (at one point he collapsed with seizures from pushing himself to work too hard), Michael became quite religious. He was a firm believer in traditional American values, saying of his television series, Little House on the Prairie (1974-82), “I want people to laugh and cry, not just sit and stare at the TV. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I think viewers are hungry for shows in which people say something meaningful.” For this very popular series about 1870s America, Michael produced, sometimes directed and scripted, and always starred. He played Charles Ingalls, a pioneer struggling to make a go of his small farm in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, and to raise his family with his wife (who was played by Karen Grassle). Michael, wanting new challenges, left the show in 1982, and the program—in a new format—continued on as Little House: A New Beginning for one additional season. From 1981 to 1984, Landon also produced (and sometimes directed) the TV series Father Murphy, which starred Merlin Olsen.

  For his third successful prime-time television show, Michael starred in Highway to Heaven (1984–89) as Jonathan Smith, an angel “on probation” whose mission is to return to Earth and assist needy individuals. Victor French was his earthly sidekick, an ex-cop who traveled around the countryside with him carrying out heavenly assignments.

  Not content to quit the acting treadmill after Highway to Heaven, Landon next began working on a new TV series, US. It focused on a man released from prison after serving 17 years for a crime he didn’t commit. He then must deal with a father who rejected him and a son who has never known him.

  Landon had been experiencing stomach pains for several weeks. He thought he was developing an ulcer. On April 3, 1991, he arrived at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles for a CAT scan. He learned that he had a large abdominal tumor; two days later, he was told that he also had inoperable cancer of the pancreas. On April 8, Landon called a press conference. He joked, “I want my agent to know that this shoots to hell any chance of doing a health-food commercial.” He added, “Life has been good to me. . . . I had a pretty good lick here. I am going to fight [the cancer]. . . . Every moment gets a little more important after something like this.”

  Michael initially agreed to undergo chemotherapy, but after his first traumatic treatment, he opted for a holistic program of special diet and exercise. But a second CAT scan on April 24 confirmed that the cancer had spread, and he was advised that he had only weeks to live. On May 9, the star appeared on his friend Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. Displaying class and valor, Michael quipped that it had required plenty of makeup and two blood transfusions for him to make it to the telecast. His guest appearance—filled with a sense of humor and pathos, his trademarks in life and work-gave the show its second-highest rating since Carson had begun hosting it in 1962.

  After that, Michael remained secluded, wanting to devote his remaining time and energy to his family. On May 13, 1991, he began a new round of chemotherapy and submitted to an experimental cancer treatment in which chemicals were injected into the malignant tumors. But when he collapsed a week later in excruciating pain, he decided to forego further treatment. On May 25, Landon was released from the hospital to an intensive-care unit that had hastily been established at his Malibu house. He insisted to his family and circle of friends, “I have absolutely no fear of dying.”

  Despite his weakness, Michael made videos in which he read his will (detailing the disposition of his $100-million estate) and made his final wishes known. By June 28, Michael was down to a mere 90 pounds and his hair had turned white. The entire family was gathered at the compound, keeping a bedside vigil. On July 1, Landon suddenly became very alert. After addressing his family, he asked them to please leave so he and Cindy could be alone. Two hours later, at 1:20 P.M., she came downstairs to tell them that Landon was dead. By that evening, his body had been cremated.

  On July 5, five hundred of Landon’s friends and family members gathered at Hillside Memorial Park and Mortuary in Los Angeles for his funeral service. Among the attendees were Ronald and Nancy Reagan, Ernest Borgnine, Brian Keith, Merlin Olsen, Melissa Gilbert, and Melissa Sue Anderson. Michael’s daughter, Leslie Landon Matthews, read a poem Michael had written for a Little House episode: “Remember me with smile and laughter, for that is how I will remember you all. If you can only remember me with tears, then don’t remember me at all.”

  On September 17, 1991, a two-hour-long tribute aired honoring Landon, the man with the “can-do” philosophy. It was produced by Michael Jr. and featured family members. US, the TV-movie pilot for his last projected series, was shown on September 30. With Landon’s consent, a March 1991 commercial he made for educational-study seminars continued to be aired long after his death. Perhaps the most touching eulogy to the late star came from Michael Jr.: “My father left us with a legacy we will cherish from one generation to the next. His shows touched our hearts, our souls, and our minds. He taught us the value of life and the importance of family.”

  Liberace

  [Wladziu Valentino Liberace]

  May 16, 1919–February 4, 1987

  The man they called “Mr. Showmanship” was a more-than-competent pianist who found his forte in shrewdly kitschy renditions of pop songs and classical-music favorites. As the decades wore on, the smiling entertainer with the wavy hair spiced up his act with progressively more outrageous gimmicks—from sequined, fur-lined capes and hot pants to a performance finale that had him flying up int
o the stage rafters on guy wires. Wisely, Liberace learned to make fun of his fey, glitzy image, always chiding the sold-out audience, “Well, look me over! I don’t dress like this to go unnoticed!” Whenever detractors insisted that he was making a fool of himself in public, the astute Liberace “cried all the way to the bank.”

  In the more naive middle decades of the twentieth century, the flamboyant Liberace was able to convince many of his older female fans that the real reason he had never married was because he hadn’t found any girl as perfect as his beloved mama. More worldly observers knew, however, what Liberace would not admit publicly—that he was gay. Over many years, the lifelong bachelor had a lengthy procession of boyfriends and lovers. But to the very end—even when he was dying of AIDS—he refused to come out to his adoring public.

  Wladziu Valentino Liberace was born in 1919 in West Allis, Wisconsin, one of a pair of twins—the other baby boy died at birth. He had three siblings: Rudolph (called Ralph), George, and Ann. His father, Salvatore, was an Italian immigrant who had played French horn with John Philip Sousa’s concert band and with the Milwaukee Symphony. Salvatore supported his wife, Frances, and their children by operating an Italian specialty grocery.

  Walter—as he became known—was fascinated with the piano and began lessons at age four. Early in life, he knew that he wanted a career in music, despite his dad’s desire that he become an undertaker. (Coincidentally, in 1965, Liberace would later play a coffin salesman in The Loved One.) When Walter was 11, his parents separated and then divorced. Walter helped support the household by playing at local movie theaters and ice-cream parlors. He said once, “Except for music, there wasn’t much beauty in my childhood.”

  By age 17, Walter had performed with the Chicago Symphony and was actively pursuing a concert career. When he played as a cocktail lounge pianist he used the name of Walter Buster Keys, indulging his innate sense of fantasy and illusion. By 1939, he had managed to blend the two contrasting sides of his performing self into a unified whole. Liberace moved to New York, where he played during intermissions at the Plaza Hotel’s Persian Room club. By the mid-1940s, he was a featured performer at swank clubs nationwide (especially in Las Vegas), with his violin-playing brother George as his bandleader. As part of his act, he used an oversized grand piano with an (imitation) Louis XIV candelabrum atop it. He attributed much of his growing success to his belief in positivism.

  Walter was now called Liberace (pronounced Libber-ah-CHEE)—sometimes Lee Liberace. During this period, he made a few Hollywood movies such as South Sea Sinner (1950) and Footlight Varieties (1951). But it was TV that would make him famous. His first program, in 1951, was a local Los Angeles show, followed by a 15-minute summer offering in 1952, and finally The Liberace Show (1953–55). The latter show was enormously popular and was carried by more stations than I Love Lucy. Liberace always ended his program with “I’ll be looking at the moon, but I’ll be seeing you.” He won several Emmys, and his LP albums became major hit releases.

  In his home in Sherman Oaks, California, Liberace had a piano-shaped pool with 88 keys painted in black and white on the cement deck at the wide end. To appease his ever-curious public, he wrote a fan magazine article that insisted he had been engaged to be married three times already. Then he dated minor film actress Joanne Rio, but that ended quickly. Liberace always claimed that he feared marriage because his family was so divorce-prone. His one professional failure during this period was his starring movie vehicle, Sincerely Yours (1955).

  By the late 1950s, Liberace was considered passé by mainstream America; nevertheless, he remained a constant on the Las Vegas entertainment scene. By now, Liberace was earning more than $800,000 annually, and his gaudy performing outfits had reached the level of high camp. (He always insisted he had to outdo his rival, Elvis Presley.) Wanting to reconquer an old medium, he returned to network TV with a variety show in the summer of 1969, but it was not popular.

  By the 1970s, Liberace was residing in Nevada for tax purposes. He had authored a cookbook (Liberace Cooks! Recipes from His Seven Dining Rooms, 1970), an autobiography (Liberace, 1973), and an elaborate coffee-table volume (The Things I Love, 1976). He indulged his weaknesses for fancy cars, glitzy residences (he had 10 at one time), and intricate wardrobes. On Easter Sunday 1979, the Liberace Museum in Las Vegas opened in a five-thousand-square-foot, one-story, Spanish-style building. (It later expanded into a new three-exhibit-area complex and became the state’s third most popular tourist attraction.) Among the fascinating items housed there are Liberace’s 115,000-carat rhinestone—the largest in the world, several of the showman’s outfits (including a mink coat that weighs more than 100 pounds), and an assortment of the musician’s uniquely decorated pianos.

  By the mid-1980s, Liberace had only one surviving close relative, his sister. His brother Ralph died in 1967, his father in 1977, his mother in 1980, and his brother George (with whom he feuded in later years) in 1983. Amidst too much media coverage, Liberace survived a palimony suit begun in 1982 by his former employee and chauffeur, the dancer Scott Thorson. Thorson, age 23, claimed that the much-older entertainer had reneged on an agreement to provide continuing financial support in exchange for sex. The suit (for a reported $100 million) was dismissed, and a countersuit was later settled out of court for a reported $95,000. Liberace’s next companion was Cary James, an even younger man, who remained with the entertainer to the end. (James said in 1994 that he’d contracted the HIV virus from Mr. Showman, but held no grudge against his late benefactor and friend.)

  In 1984, Liberace enjoyed a hugely successful 14-performance run at Radio City Music Hall. He topped that record with 21 performances at the Hall in 1985 that grossed over $2.4 million. (His stunts by this time included dancing with the Rockettes and being driven onstage in a chauffeured Rolls-Royce limousine.) His last appearance was in October 1986, by which time he was haggard and listless. He spent Christmas 1986 quietly at the Cloisters, his residence in Palm Springs, California. In early 1987, despite gossip that he was ailing, he wrote close friends that he was on the road to recovery. But by now, speculators were contending that Liberace’s symptoms indicated AIDS. Through his spokespeople, the master showman insisted that he was suffering from a mix of anemia, emphysema, and heart disease. Privately, he was praying daily that a miracle would save him.

  Liberace makes a guest appearance in When the Boys Meet the Girls, a 1965 Connie Francis musical.

  Courtesy of JC Archives

  By early February, the word was out that Liberace was truly dying. Reporters and photographers set up a vigil outside his Palm Springs mansion, monitoring everyone who came and went from the Cloisters. Inside, the once-lively personality lay almost motionless in his bed, usually clutching a rosary and frequently watching tapes of his favorite TV show, The Golden Girls. On February 4, 1987, at 11:02 A.M., Liberace passed away, with his favorite dog, Wrinkles, close at hand. His doctors listed the major cause of death as cardiac arrest, due to congestive heart failure. But when the Riverside County Coroner performed an autopsy, and the report was made public, it indicated, in so many words, that the famed entertainer had indeed died of AIDS. He was buried in the Court of Remembrance at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills, next to his mother and brother George. The marker on the ornate family tombstone bears Liberace’s signature and a drawing of a piano, along with the inscription “Sheltered Love.” On top of the elaborate white marble tomb is a marble statue of a woman holding flowers.

  Liberace’s last will, signed 13 days before he died, left his sizeable estate (he had earned well over $125 million in his lifetime) to the Liberace Revocable Trust, created on the day the will was signed. The terms of that trust were confidential, but Liberace’s attorney stated that a goodly portion of the estate would go to the Liberace Foundation for the Performing and Creative Arts.

  In 1988, two one-hundred-minute tele-features devoted to Mr. Showman appeared. Liberace starred Andrew Robinson as the master musician with Rue McClanah
an as his mother Frances; Liberace: Behind the Music featured Victor Garber as the famed pianist and Maureen Stapleton as his mama. In 2000, Liberace: An American Boy, by Darden Asbury Pryon, was published. The 494-page tome was devoted to explaining the depths and byways of this pop-culture icon. In the fall of 2000, it was announced that no less a personage than the Academy Award-winning comedian and actor Robin Williams was thinking of starring in a new screen biography of the enigmatic, glitzy superstar. It was to be directed by Philip Kaufman.

  Maria Montez

  [Maria Africa Antonia Gracia Vidal de Santo Silas]

  June 6, 1918–September 7, 1951

  Maria Montez was truly unique. Not only was she stunning and highly motivated, she was also volatile and uninhibited. She was her own greatest fan and believed it was her destiny to succeed on a high level. Maria frequently consulted astrologers; one of them warned her that her time on Earth would be short and that the end would be abrupt. A few years later, at age 33, she died of a heart attack while soaking in her bathtub.

  Maria was born in Santo Domingo in 1918, 1 of 10 children of the Spanish consul to the Dominican Republic and his wife, a political refugee. Maria was educated at a convent school in Santa Cruz. When she was 17, her father was given a new post, to the city of Belfast in Northern Ireland. There, Maria married William McFeeters, a British Army officer. But it was an ill-suited union; before long, Maria divorced her spouse and headed to New York City.