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

by Parish, James Robert

  Haunted throughout the decades by personal demons, his on-screen characterization of cinema’s favorite psychopath, and his lifelong struggle against his homosexuality, Perkins took solace in his belated family life. Examining his own life choices, the 60-year-old Tony left a message for his sons, given to them after his death: “Boys, don’t try to find a woman as wonderful as your mother to marry because if you do, you’ll stay single your whole lives.”

  As for the issue of AIDS, and the star’s insistence on remaining closeted about his deadly ailment even in his last months, Perkins explained—posthumously—to his children, “I chose not to go public about this because, to misquote Casablanca, ‘I’m not too much at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of one old actor don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy old world.’”

  Susan Peters

  [Suzanne Carnahan]

  July 3, 1921–October 23, 1952

  It is difficult enough to earn the lucky break that results in movie stardom. But to be on the brink of fame, and then to have it vanish because of a crippling accident, is tragic. When this happened to the brave Susan Peters, what followed was even more anguish.

  She was born Suzanne Carnahan in Spokane, Washington, in 1921. (Her brother, Robert Jr., was born in 1923.) In 1928, the family was living in Portland, Oregon, when the father, a construction engineer, was killed in a car crash. The Carnahans moved to Los Angeles to stay with dermatologist Madame Maria Patteneaude, Suzanne and Robert’s French-born grandmother. As a youngster, Suzanne was athletic, excelling in swimming and horseback riding. She graduated from Hollywood High School in 1939 and, through a family contact, was introduced to director George Cukor at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He advised her to take acting lessons and cast her in a small role in Joan Crawford’s Susan and God (1940). That same year, Warner Bros, signed the young actress to a contract. Suzanne decided that she would allow herself three years to succeed in pictures; otherwise she would follow through on studying to become a doctor.

  By 1941, Suzanne was performing in minor movie roles under her new professional name, Susan Peters. Warner Bros, did not renew her contract when it expired, but she was soon cast at MGM in Tish (1942, starring Marjorie Main). For her sensitive portrayal of Ronald Colman’s young fiancée in Random Harvest (1942), she was Oscar-nominated as Best Supporting Actress. Then she had the lead opposite Robert Taylor in Song of Russia (1943). Later that year, on November 7, she married actor Richard Quine, who was then in the U.S. Coast Guard. She was cast in Gentle Annie (1944), but left the project when she suffered a miscarriage. Susan nearly died of complications from the miscarriage, and was away from movies for almost a year, with a previously made feature (Keep Your Powder Dry, starring Lana Turner) not released until 1945.

  On January 1, 1945, Susan was on a hunting trip with her husband and another couple in the Cuyamaca Mountains, not far from San Diego. Apparently, when she picked up her rifle, it accidentally discharged and the .22-caliber bullet lodged in her spine. Paralyzed from the waist down, she was taken to Mercy Hospital for emergency surgery. The courageous Susan recalled later, “I told myself I was going to come through this accident. I was going to walk again.” But she remained wheelchair-bound. MGM, luckily, continued to pay her $100-weekly salary.

  In December 1945, Susan’s mother died of a heart attack, causing Susan much distress. Adopting a baby, Timothy, in April 1946 did much to restore her spirits. She kept her career going by performing in several radio broadcasts. MGM, however, could find no realistic roles for the crippled actress and she ended her contract, insisting, “I won’t trade on my handicap.”

  Actor Charles Bickford brought a novel, Sign of the Ram, to Susan’s notice. It was custom-made for her: the story of a paralyzed vixen who destroys her family. Columbia Pictures agreed to make the project, but it was a strain on Susan. She was fine onscreen, but the 1948 movie was mediocre. In September of that year, she and Quine were divorced.

  In 1949 Peters played the crippled Laura in a Hollywood stage production of The Glass Menagerie. After that, it was two years before she reemerged professionally—this time in Miss Susan, a 15-minute daytime soap opera telecast live from Philadelphia. In the drama, she was a wheelchair-bound lawyer who dispenses advice. But by December 1951, she had fallen victim to the cold Pennsylvania winter and the emotional stress of doing the five-times-a-week program. The show was canceled and Susan was hospitalized.

  Susan continued to be bombarded with troubles. Her engagement to an army colonel (Robert Clark) fell apart, and she went to her brother’s farm near Visalia, California, to recuperate. There, she grew depressed and reclusive. She was later hospitalized for skin-graft surgery and once released, retreated again into privacy. In September 1952, she announced plans to do The Barretts of Wimpole Street onstage. But by this point she was too physically weak to tackle the project. Not only did she have a damaged heart, but she had also developed an eating disorder (anorexia nervosa).

  Susan told her physician, “I’m getting awfully tired. I think it would be better if I did die.” On October 23, 1952, she fulfilled her prophecy and passed away at a hospital in Visalia, California. The official causes of death were listed as bronchial pneumonia, chronic kidney problems, and starvation. The attending physician, however, stated, “I felt she had lost the will to live.” Susan was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

  A coda to the sad saga of Susan Peters occurred on June 10, 1989. The 68-year-old actor and director Richard Quine (who had not made a film for 10 years) shot himself in the head in his California home. He had been in poor health for several years.

  Tyrone Power

  [Tyrone Power Jr.]

  May 5, 1913–November 15, 1958

  Tyrone Power’s frequent costar, Alice Faye, said it all: “He was the best-looking thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Kissing him was like dying and going to heaven.” But being especially handsome can also be a professional curse. Ty grew bored with the endless pretty-boy and swashbuckler screen roles he played; he wished to be acknowledged as a serious actor. It was a creative battle he would fight all his life. When he died (on a movie set, like his father before him), Ty was shooting another of those costumed sword-and-horse-play epics he had grown to hate so much.

  He was born in 1913 in Cincinnati, Ohio, to actors known professionally as Tyrone and Patia Power. A daughter, Ann, was born in 1915. Two years later, the family relocated to San Diego, California, because of Ty Jr.’s frail health. The boy made his stage debut at age seven, as a monk in the annual mission play. The Powers later returned to Ohio, and Ty graduated from high school there in 1931. That same year he appeared with his dad in a Chicago production of The Merchant of Venice, did radio dramas, and appeared with his parent in a Broadway production of Hamlet. Tyrone Power Sr. traveled to the West Coast in late 1931 for a film role. He suffered a massive heart attack on the soundstage and died soon afterward, in the arms of his 18-year-old son.

  Ty Jr. made his screen debut as a schoolboy in Tom Brown of Culver (1932), but didn’t get another screen opportunity for two years. The discouraged young actor headed east, stopping off in Chicago for radio and stage work. Reaching New York, he was introduced to Katharine Cornell. He understudied and played bit parts in three of her 1935-36 plays. A Twentieth Century-Fox talent scout saw Power onstage and offered him a studio contract. After two warm-up movies, Tyrone starred in the elaborate costume picture Lloyds of London (1936), which set the tone of his entire career—swashbuckling adventure stories. He was the newest rival to Warner Bros.’ Errol Flynn.

  The studio also cast Power in light fluff with Loretta Young or Sonja Henie, and sometimes in big-budget period musicals with Alice Faye, such as Alexander’s Ragtime Band (1938). Ty was so adept, however, at costume romance films filled with swordplay that he usually toiled in such productions as The Mark of Zorro (1940), Blood and Sand (1941), and The Black Swan (1942). Rarely was he permitted a dramatic challenge like that of Johnn
y Apollo (1940). In 1939, he wed the French-born actress Annabella (and adopted her daughter by a prior marriage), but this did not stop the conflicted, bisexual actor from having several romances during the next decade, including flings with Judy Garland and Lana Turner.

  Tyrone escaped the Hollywood treadmill by enlisting as a private in the U.S. Marine Corps in August 1942. After delays in which he made a picture (Crash Dive, 1943) and spent an extended period at a Texas flight-training school, he was stationed in the Pacific theater of war in February 1945, flying mostly supply missions. First Lieutenant Power returned to Hollywood in early 1946 and received a new studio contract. He and Annabella separated in October and divorced two years later. His much-heralded screen return was in the idealistic The Razor’s Edge (1946), but swashbuckling capers were still his bread-and-butter assignments. In January 1949, he capped his pursuit of actress Linda Christian across three continents by marrying her in Rome. They would have two daughters, Romina and Taryn, both of whom eventually became actresses. To halt his acting rut, Ty starred as Mister Roberts (1950) on the London stage.

  In the 1950s, Power’s acting career faltered as Twentieth Century-Fox promoted younger personalities, especially Gregory Peck. Frustrated by mediocre projects, Ty toured in the adaptation of Stephen Vincent Benet’s solemn John Brown’s Body. By 1955, Tyrone had left Fox, divorced Linda Christian, and starred in an impressive West Point saga, The Long Gray Line. His screen career was also boosted by The Eddy Duchin Story (1956). In 1957, he had an off-camera romance with his Abandon Ship! costar, the Swedish-born Mai Zetterling. His last completed movie was Witness for the Prosecution (1957), opposite Marlene Dietrich.

  Never long without a romantic attachment, Power married Deborah Minardos in May 1958. She was 26, divorced, and had a daughter; he was 45. Thereafter, he flew to Madrid to play King Solomon opposite Gina Lollobrigida in a Biblical epic, Solomon and Sheba. On a hot November 15, 1958, while shooting a difficult dueling scene with George Sanders that required many retakes, Tyrone suddenly turned very pale and asked to rest. Once in his dressing room, he commented on the pain he was experiencing in his arms and chest, but insisted it was merely bursitis; there was no doctor on the set to deal with his complaints. At 11:30 A.M., having gotten worse, he was rushed to the nearest hospital, where he died within the hour of a heart attack. (Ironically, during the summer of 1958, Power had made an educational movie short sponsored by the American Heart Association, in which he emphasized the necessity of avoiding overwork because “time is the most precious thing we have.”)

  Power’s body was taken from the hospital to the U.S. Torrejon Air Force Base and then flown to California. His November 21 funeral at Hollywood Memorial Park was a circus. The crowd—many with box lunches—began lining up at dawn to await the procession of celebrities (who, as they arrived, were cheered by the throng of excited fans). At the service, Power’s widow Deborah sat next to the open casket holding Power’s hand, while the organist performed “I’ll Be Seeing You.” A navy chaplain conducted the ceremony and Cesar Romero delivered the eulogy. He read Thomas Wolfe’s “The Promises of America” (which Tyrone had planned to read on Thanksgiving Day at the air force base in Spain). Romero then reflected on his late pal: “He constantly gave of himself until one day he gave a little too much. He was a beautiful man. He was beautiful outside and he was beautiful inside. Rest well, my friend.”

  Among the invited guests at the funeral were Loretta Young (who arrived at the chapel wearing Geisha makeup for a TV role), Yul Brynner (who was later hired to replace Tyrone in Solomon and Sheba), Henry Fonda, Clifton Webb, James Stewart, and Robert Wagner. Power’s widow had urged his ex-wife Linda Christian not to attend. Not one to be ignored, Christian, who had flown in from France, arrived several hours after the service to place a five-foot cross of white gardenias at her ex-husband’s gravesite. Ty’s aged mother, who had suffered a stroke several years earlier, was not told of her son’s passing. (She died less than a year later, in October 1959.) In France, Annabella, Ty’s first wife, told the media she had seen him the previous week in Madrid and had met his “new little wife.”

  On January 22, 1959, Deborah Power gave birth to a son (Tyrone William) at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Hollywood. (He would grow up to become an actor, and was recently diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease.) Linda Christian made a $200,000 claim against the estate on behalf of her and Ty’s daughters. Meanwhile, the court granted the plea of the estate’s executor to reduce allowances to the beneficiaries because of the mounting claims. In November 1962, effects from Tyrone’s estate were auctioned at New York’s Plaza Art Gallery. In mid-1974, Tyrone’s two daughters by Linda Christian each received a sizeable inheritance from their father’s estate.

  These days, one of the prime tourist attractions at Hollywood Forever (formerly known as Hollywood Memorial Park) is still the Tyrone Power white marble memorial stone bench. At one end are bookends holding a single volume that displays the masks of Comedy and Tragedy. Atop the bench is a quotation from Hamlet, ending with “Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

  Gilda Radner

  June 28, 1946–May 20, 1989

  It definitely was not supposed to happen this way. She was America’s clown princess, a quirky individual with inner beauty to spare who had spent years mocking the absurdities of life and making a nation laugh. Then, only a few years into her happy marriage to screen comedian Gene Wilder, she developed ovarian cancer, a disease difficult to diagnose in its early stages and often not detected until it is too late to save the patient. If there is any meaning to the frightening, frustrating, and painful odyssey Gilda endured, it is that her publicized plight has made the world far more sensitive to early diagnosis and treatment of this horrible disease.

  The future comedian was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1946, the second child of hotel businessman Herman Radner and his wife, Henrietta (Dworkin) Radner, a legal secretary. Gilda was named after the popular Rita Hayworth movie of the same name that came out that year. When Gilda was 12, Herman Radner developed a brain tumor. He lingered in pain for two years before dying, the horrifying experience leaving an indelible impression on his traumatized daughter.

  In 1964, Gilda graduated from a private school and then attended the University of Michigan. For six years, she hung around Ann Arbor taking undergraduate courses, frequently dropping out of the curriculum because she refused to follow the rules. When she was on campus, she was active in theater. In 1969, she fell in love with a Canadian sculptor and moved to Toronto, but that relationship ended 16 months later.

  Wallowing in low self-esteem, Gilda found herself suddenly fascinated while watching a musical at a local avant-garde theater. She instinctively now knew where she belonged. She took a job at the theater, first in the box office and then working in pantomime shows for elementary-school children. This experience led to a year with the Toronto company of Godspell in 1972. From there, the blossoming comedian joined the local branch of Second City, an improvisational comedy group. Her equally spontaneous coworkers included Dan Aykroyd and Eugene Levy. By 1974, she was in New York City, appearing in The National Lampoon Show with John Belushi, Bill Murray, and Harold Ramis.

  Gilda had known Canadian entertainer Lorne Michaels since her early Toronto days as a performer. When NBC signed him to put together the innovative Saturday Night Live, he hired Gilda to join his Not Ready for Prime Time Players, who also included Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, and Laraine Newman. Working within the program’s weekly onslaught of outrageous comedy, Gilda developed into a nationally known TV personality, renowned for her bawdy, physical humor and raucous characterizations.

  Gilda remained with Saturday Night Live through 1980. By then, she was also working on Broadway (Gilda Radner Live, 1979), in movies (First Family, 1980), and in TV specials. While making the movie Hanky Panky (1982), she and her costar Gene Wilder fell in love. They wed in the south of France in September
1984. During the shooting of their Haunted Honeymoon (1986), Radner suffered a miscarriage.

  Gilda’s journey into hell began in January 1986, when she developed what was thought to be chronic fatigue syndrome. Different symptoms appeared and then evaporated as Radner underwent repeated testing by a battery of physicians. Finally, that October, it was established that she had very advanced ovarian cancer. (There had been several members of her mother’s family who suffered from the same disease.) When the doctors operated 36 hours later, they removed a large tumor. To ensure that all the malignancy had been cut out, Gilda underwent an intensive course of chemotherapy. Always searching for humor even in the worst circumstances, Radner and Wilder made home videos of the progress of the treatments. Even when her hair fell out, the heartbroken funster learned to treat it humorously.

  While dealing with the physically and emotionally depleting chemotherapy treatments, Gilda attended sessions of The Wellness Community, a therapy group for individuals dealing with cancer. This support group—in addition to Wilder’s constant bolstering—greatly helped her cope with the disease that had so abruptly halted her career.

  On June 4, 1987, Gilda underwent “second look” surgery, confident that she was well again. Unfortunately, a few malignant cancer cells were detected. She endured further chemotherapy and then radiation treatment. Hoping she was finally on the road to recovery, she agreed to a February 1988 cover article in Life magazine that focused on her experiences with The Wellness Community. In April 1988, she felt well enough to make her first professional appearance in years, as a guest on TV’s It’s Garry Shandling’s Show. Some weeks later, however, Gilda’s medical team found that her cancer was not in remission, but was spreading. She went through carboplatin treatment and then tried a macrobiotic diet. As Gilda became thinner and weaker, she felt increasingly fearful and angry enough to stop visiting her doctor. Later, she tried chemotherapy once again. In October 1988 she endured her third surgery in three years, this time for intestinal blockage.