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

by Parish, James Robert

  In June 1977, Elvis returned to Graceland after a tour of the Midwest. That year, one live-in girlfriend (Linda Thompson, a former Miss Tennessee) departed and another, 23-year-old Ginger Alden, became her replacement. Elvis’s young daughter, Lisa Marie, had flown out from Los Angeles for a lengthy stay at Graceland.

  On Monday, August 15, Presley was preparing to leave Graceland the next day for Portland, Maine, to kick off another tour. (Colonel Parker was already in Maine organizing the opening show.) Because of his hectic performing schedule, his days were the reverse of most people’s: sleeping in the days, up at night. He had become increasingly sedentary and reclusive lately, more often than not in a drug-induced stupor.

  At 4:00 P.M. that Monday, Elvis awoke, had breakfast, and played with his daughter as she raced about the grounds in her blue electric cart. (She was to return the next day to California and her mother, Priscilla.) Elvis’s original idea for the evening was to rent the local movie theater for a special showing of Mac Arthur, but that plan fell through. About 10:30 P.M., Presley, with his entourage in tow, visited his dentist and had two cavities filled.

  The group returned home about 2:00 A.M. on Tuesday, August 16. Two hours later, Elvis summoned a few associates to join him and Ginger for racquetball at the estate’s indoor court. About 6:00 A.M., Presley retired with Ginger, and she soon fell asleep. Meanwhile, Elvis took another bunch of pills to help him get to sleep as well. About 9:00 A.M., clad in his gold pajamas, he grabbed a book about psychic energy (some sources insist it was a raunchy astrology study) to read in his extravagant bathroom on his cushiony “throne.” Around 2:00 P.M., Ginger awoke, and after searching for Elvis, found him lying in a fetal position on the bathroom floor. While having a seizure, he had thrown the book in a spasm and then lurched forward a few steps before collapsing four feet from the toilet. In the process he had bit down on his tongue.

  All attempts by Ginger, Vernon Presley, the bodyguards, and others to revive Elvis—including mouth-to-mouth resuscitation—proved useless. An ambulance was then summoned; it arrived at 2:33 P.M. The paramedics, after placing a life-support mask on the singer’s face, examined the comatose Presley for any signs of life. None were apparent, but they prepared to take him to the hospital. Just as the vehicle was about to leave Graceland’s gates, Dr. George Nichopolous, Elvis’s personal physician, made his appearance and jumped into the waiting ambulance. En route, the doctor pounded Presley’s chest, yelling, “Breathe, Presley! Come on! Breathe for me!” The ambulance reached Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis at 2:56 P.M. The medical trauma team there worked on Elvis, attempting to revive him. (After performing a thoracotomy so they could begin open-heart massage, they forced breathing tubes down his throat, in the process having to knock out his front teeth.) The emergency efforts failed to revive the patient. At 3:30 P.M., Dr. Nichopolous pronounced Elvis dead.

  The initial autopsy indicated that Elvis had expired of an erratic heartbeat; it was hurriedly announced to the press that Elvis had suffered “cardiac arrhythmia due to undetermined causes.” (This is what Presley’s handlers wanted the public to believe. As part of the “cover-up,” by the time the medical examiner could examine Elvis’s bedroom and bathroom at Graceland to reconstruct events leading up to his death, the rooms had been tidied up and rearranged.) Later, more complete tests determined there were at least 10 drugs in Elvis’s bloodstream when he died, including quaaludes, codeine, and morphine. Dr. Nichopolous was later tried, but acquitted, of writing illegal and unnecessary prescriptions for the star. (Reportedly, on August 15 alone, he had written eight prescriptions for Presley, including two for the strong narcotic Dilaudid. In the last seven months of Elvis’s life, the doctor had prescribed nearly 5,000 pills, and an estimated 19,000 in the last two and a half years.) Later theories about Presley’s demise would attribute it to everything from suicide to murder, and the persistent, wishful belief sprang up that Elvis was not dead at all, but merely in hiding.

  There was worldwide grief in the wake of Elvis’s death. President Jimmy Carter stated that his passing “deprives our country of a part of itself. His music and his personality changed the face of American popular culture. His following was immense and he was a symbol to the people the world over of the vitality, rebelliousness, and good humor of this country.” Tennessee Governor Ray Blanton ordered all flags on state buildings to fly at half-mast; the same was done at the county and city level. RCA Records shut down all of its offices to commemorate the death of its leading star.

  Thousands of fans and media representatives from around the world scurried to Memphis for Elvis’s funeral on Thursday, August 18, prompting the National Guard to be called out. During the several hours of public viewing at Graceland, it was estimated that 100,000 people passed by the open coffin where Elvis lay. He was dressed in a white suit and tie and a blue shirt. Thousands of others were jammed up along Elvis Presley Boulevard as the hearse brought Elvis back from the Memphis Funeral Home in his copper-lined, nine-hundred-pound coffin.

  The funeral service was conducted at 2:00 P.M. that Thursday in the music room at Graceland by Reverend C. W. Bradley, pastor of the local Whitehaven Church of Christ. The Stamps and the Statesmen, two quartets who had often performed in concert with Presley, sang songs including “How Great Thou Art.” Final remarks were offered by comedian Jackie Kahane, and the eulogy was delivered by television evangelist Rex Humbard. Among the celebrity attendees were Sammy Davis Jr., Ann-Margret and her husband Roger Smith, George Hamilton, Burt Reynolds, and Caroline Kennedy (whose account of the event was later published in Rolling Stone).

  After the service, Elvis’s coffin, covered with hundreds of red rosebuds, was transported by hearse in a 50-car procession down Elvis Presley Boulevard to the Forest Hills Cemetery four miles away. The motorcade contained, as Presley had requested in his will, 16 white Cadillacs and one white hound dog. At the cemetery, his coffin was placed in a six-crypt white marble mausoleum next to his mother’s resting place. (Coincidentally, Elvis’s mother had also been 42 when she died—19 years and two days before her famous son.)

  Elvis was survived by his father, his grandmother (Minnie Mae Presley), and his nine-year-old daughter, Lisa Marie. His will, signed in March 1977, left the bulk of his multimillion-dollar estate to these three relatives, with Vernon appointed as estate trustee. In 1989, 10 years after Vernon Presley’s death, disposal of the estate was concluded, with all property being held in trust for Lisa Marie until she reached the age of 25.

  Lisa Marie, who was married to musician Danny Keough, became a mother in 1989 when she gave birth to daughter Danielle. She later divorced Keough and then—to everyone’s bewilderment—married and divorced Michael Jackson, the self-appointed King of Pop. Lisa Marie’s life after her famous father’s death has been as interesting as that of her mother, Priscilla, who became a TV and movie actress.

  Remarkably, after Elvis’s death, his career continued just as if he had been alive. Albums, movies, merchandising tie-ins, impersonators, books, and documentaries continue to trade on the nonextinguishable Elvis legend. Obviously, for many, Elvis the Great still lives on in numerous ways.

  George Reeves

  [George Keefer Brewer]

  January 5, 1914–June 16, 1959

  It is not just idle speculation when fans insist that George Reeves—best known for playing TV’s caped crusader Superman— did not commit suicide. The Beverly Hills police ruled that his death on June 16, 1959, “indicated suicide.” But Reeves’s mother insisted, “I had just spoken to him, he was in a splendid frame of mind.” She could not believe the official theory that he had shot himself while in a drunken, depressed stupor. George’s pal, the actor Gig Young, protested, “He was a clean guy, in no way capable of bumping himself off.” Movie star Alan Ladd contended, “He was never happier.” (Ironically, Young would murder his wife before commiting suicide in 1978, and Ladd’s death from a combination of pills and alcohol was believed to be more suicidal than accidental.)
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  In his pre-Superman days, Sergeant George Reeves appeared in the U.S. Army/Air Force–produced feature film Winged Victory (1944).

  Courtesy of JC Archives

  Decades later, Reeves’s agent Arthur Weissman would argue that George Reeves’s death was caused by the malicious intent of someone who knew him well. Weissman speculated that someone—most likely at the direction of MGM studio executive Eddie Mannix or his wife Toni (who had had a long affair with George)—somehow had replaced the blank in George’s favorite gun with a real bullet, knowing that sooner or later he would play his usual exhibitionist game of simulated Russian roulette. Despite full-length books and TV documentaries on the subject, the true facts in the case may never be known publicly.

  Reeves was born George Keefer Brewer in 1914 in Woolstock, Iowa, five months after his mother, Helen Lescher, wed Don C. Brewer, a small-town druggist. (Later, his mother would alter the birth certificate to make it appear that her son had been conceived in wedlock.) Months after George’s birth, the battling Brewers divorced. Helen took George to live first in Ashland, Kentucky (near her parents), and then to Pasadena, California, where her sister resided. In Pasadena, she met Frank Bessolo, a second-generation Italian-American whose family owned a lucrative vineyard in northern California. The couple married in 1917, and a few years later he adopted George. Helen would later tell George that his real father was dead, having committed suicide by gun when George was very young.

  George was athletic as a youngster and thought that he’d like to be a physician, but his grades at school were not good enough to achieve that ambition. When he graduated from high school, he was a strapping six feet, two inches and thought he might become a professional boxer. His overly possessive mother, however, feared such activity would be dangerous and talked him out of it. Instead, George went to Pasadena Junior College, where he became involved in music, guitar playing, and acting in school plays.

  In 1935, by which time his mother had divorced Frank Bessolo, George took acting classes at the famed Pasadena Playhouse, and began to appear in productions there. After four years at the Playhouse, George, now using the surname Reeves, was spotted by a movie talent scout. He had several bit parts in movies before he was launched in 1939’s most prestigious feature film, Gone with the Wind, as one of the frisky Tarleton twins. In 1940 he married Eleanora Needles, another fledgling actor, whom he met while they were both at the Pasadena Playhouse. (They would divorce in 1949.)

  Unfortunately, George’s screen career never really took off. He had small parts in many major features and was cast in several Hopalong Cassidy Westerns in the early 1940s. His most impressive performance was as Claudette Colbert’s romantic interest in So Proudly We Hail (1943). He was in World War II service for a few years, serving in the special theatrical unit of the U.S. Army Air Corps and appearing in several training films while stationed on the East Coast. While he was performing on Broadway in the army’s production of Winged Victory, George’s biological father showed up and introduced himself to his son. This unexpected return from “death” led to a breach between George and his mother, one which never healed.

  By the time the 32-year-old George was released from the service, his career momentum was lost. The best role he could get in the ever-changing film business was playing the lead in a low-budget serial entitled The Adventures of Sir Galahad in 1949. That same year, George’s wife left him for another man (show-business attorney Edward Rose).

  Reeves turned to TV work in the late 1940s, although he always considered it a lower rung within the profession. In 1951, he appeared in the low-budget movie Superman and the Mole Men, which served as the pilot for a forthcoming TV series. The first batch of 26 segments were shot that year, but did not reach the air until 1952. When they did, though, they were an enormous hit with youngsters (and adults). Between 1953 and 1957, 78 other episodes were filmed. The series made George a well-known personality worldwide, but Reeves was uncomfortable making his living by wearing, as he called it, a “union suit.” He had occasional screen roles during this time, but as he’d predicted, his TV image harmed his chances on the big screen.

  Once the series went off the air, George continued with personal appearances as the invincible Superman. But he was typecast by his TV work and frustrated by the stalemate it had created in his movie career. Soon, however, things turned around professionally for him. At the time of his death, Reeves was scheduled to start an Australian personal appearance tour worth $20,000. In addition, he was under contract to begin a new Superman TV series in 1960, and to participate in a televised exhibition boxing match with light-heavyweight champion Archie Moore. Supposedly, he was very upbeat about his future.

  At the time of his death, Reeves was living in Los Angeles, at 1579 Benedict Canyon Drive, in a home bought for him by Toni Mannix. She was the wife of Loew’s, Inc., vice president Eddie “The Bulldog” Mannix (a man with an unsavory past and sinister connections, who once had been the number-three man at Louis B. Mayer’s MGM studio). George and Toni, 10 years Reeves’s senior, had enjoyed an on-again, off-again romance for a decade, but it had broken up in the past year. During the last months of his life, George had received many death threats on his unlisted phone. He’d reported the calls to local authorities, only to learn that Toni herself had been receiving such calls. To Reeves, this proved that Toni could not have instigated the death threats (as he’d originally thought). George had also been involved in several recent traffic mishaps, which in retrospect could have been potential murder attempts.

  By June of 1959, Reeves was engaged to marry Lenore Lemmon, a New York showgirl who had once been barred from several elite Manhattan clubs for being a “troublemaker,” and who had her own set of unsavory connections. On June 15, three days before he and Lenore were to marry and leave for their honeymoon in Spain, the couple and their houseguest Robert Condon, a writer, were at home celebrating the upcoming marriage after a dinner on the town (during which George and Lenore had argued). About 12:30 A.M. on June 16, the three went to bed. Around 1:00 A.M., two neighborhood pals, Carol Von Ronkel and William Bliss, came by the house for drinks and merriment—both things for which host Reeves (increasingly an alcoholic) was well-known.

  Lenore admitted the noisy visitors, only to have Reeves stomp downstairs and yell at them for having shown up at such a late hour. Soon afterward, the sulking Reeves went upstairs. In a joking mood, Lenore quipped, “He’ll probably go up to his room and shoot himself.”

  A few minutes later they heard a shot from Reeves’s bedroom. When they reached the room upstairs, they found Reeves lying on his bed. He had been shot in the head with his .30-caliber Luger pistol, but no suicide note was found. (Later police discovered two bullet holes in the bedroom floor, but could draw no conclusions from them.)

  The police investigation concluded that the facts of George’s death indicated suicide, insisting that the confusing reports of the intoxicated houseguests made it difficult to draw a cohesive picture of the evening’s events. Besides, police added, Reeves was known for playing with his gun, simulating a game of Russian roulette. Speculation ran high in favor of the “suicide” theory, but no one who might have had the real answers was talking, for example, about what caused the bruises found on George’s body at the time of his death.

  Reeves—wearing the gray double-breasted suit he used as Clark Kent on Superman—was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. When his will was read, the public learned that most of his $71,000 worth of assets, including his house, were left not to his fianceée, but to Toni Mannix.

  Mrs. Bessolo, convinced that her son had been murdered, hired private detectives to investigate the case. They concluded that the death was not a suicide, based on the position of the body (with the empty cartridge found underneath the corpse), the lack of powder burns on the victim’s body, and the location of the entrance and exit wounds in Reeves’s head. No official charges were ever brought against anyone. George’s mother, who fore
ver after kept a shrine of George’s life and career in her Pasadena home, died in 1964.

  After George’s death, the production company that was to make the new Superman series wanted to piece together new episodes by using outtakes from earlier Reeves footage and employing a double. But a very depressed Jack Larson (who had played cub reporter Jimmy Olson on the original TV series) refused to go along with this plan, and the deal fell apart.

  Years after Eddie Mannix’s death in 1965, Reeves’s one-time agent, Arthur Weissman, called on Eddie’s reclusive Beverly Hills widow. Weissman recalls that during most of the visit, Toni insisted that they watch reruns of George’s Superman series. She died in 1974. In 1996, Sam Kahsner and Nancy Schoenberger authored Hollywood Kryptonite: The Bulldog, the Lady and the Death of Superman, a 312-page treatise on their very plausible theory that Toni had hired a hit man to do in George Reeves, everyone’s favorite Man of Steel.

  Jean Seberg

  November 13, 1938–September 8, 1979

  In 1974, writer, diplomat, and occasional filmmaker Romain Gary said of his ex-wife, Jean Seberg:

  To understand Jean, you have to understand the Midwest. She emerged from it intelligent, talented, and beautiful, but with the naiveté of a child. She has the kind of goodwill that to me is infuriating—persistent, totally unrealistic idealism. It has made her totally defenseless. In the end it came between us.

  On September 8, 1979, Seberg was found dead in her car in a Paris suburb, an apparent suicide. On November 2, 1980, the despondent Romain Gary killed himself in his Paris apartment by shooting himself in the mouth with his Smith and Wesson .38-caliber gun. The source of this double tragedy can be traced back to 1956, when filmmaker Otto Preminger conducted a nationwide talent search for his upcoming St. Joan (1957) and cast Iowa-born unknown Jean Seberg in the lead.