Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries

by Paul Donnelley

  CAUSE: He died of natural causes in Hollywood, California, aged 62.

  Jimmie Adams

  Born October 4, 1888

  Died December 19, 1933

  Cheekie chappie. Born in Paterson, New Jersey, James B. Adams began his career in Educational & Christie Film Company’s Mermaid comedies before he moved on to appear in the Hall Room Boys series replacing Harry McCoy. By 1924 he was back at Educational where he spent much of his remaining career apart from stints at Pathé and PDC. His films included: A Jungle Gentleman (1919), A Village Venus (1919), Chasing Her Future (1919), African Lions And American Beauties (1919), The Good Ship Rock’n’Rye (1919), Weak Hearts And Wild Lions (1919), A Baby Doll Bandit (1920), Over The Transom (1920), Movie Hero (1920), Kismet (1920) as Chamberlain, A Fresh Start (1921), Bang! (1921), Better Late Than Never (1922), Beware Of Blondes (1922), Breaking Into Jail (1922), Crash (1922), Bumps (1923), Broke (1923), Aggravating Poppa (1924), a painter in Triumph (1924), Hold Your Breath (1924) as a beauty salon owner, Hotel Hysteria (1924), Stop Flirting (1925) as Count Spinagio, Be Careful (1925), Whoa, Emma! (1926), Chase Yourself (1926), Her Man O’ War (1926) as Shorty Flynn, Beauty A La Mud (1926), For Sadie’s Sake (1926), Break Away (1927), Swiss Movements (1927), Meet The Folks (1927) as James Pettingill, The Farmer’s Daughter as Cicero Hopkins, Goofy Ghosts (1928), The Office Scandal as Delaney, The Grand Parade as Jones, High Cs (1930), Rough Seas (1931), The Tabasco Kid (1932), Arabian Tights (1933), Sherman Said It (1933), Midsummer Mush (1933) and Luncheon At Twelve (1933).

  CAUSE: Adams died aged 45 in Glendale, California, of a heart attack.

  Nick Adams

  (NICHOLAS ALOYSIUS ADAMSCHOCK) Born July 10, 1931

  Died February 5, 1968

  The poor man’s James Dean. Born in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania, the son of a Lithuanian miner, he was raised in New Jersey. The chillingly ambitious Nick Adams hitchhiked to Hollywood when he was 18, determined to make his mark on the movie capital. “Some men bet on horses and dogs. I gambled on myself,” he would tell interviewers. At first his gamble didn’t pay off and in 1952 he joined the Coast Guard. However, on leave he would return to Tinseltown and badger producers and directors for work. His persistence landed him a role in a Betty Hutton musical Somebody Loves Me (1952), but his first major part was playing Reber in Mister Roberts (1955). On leaving the Coast Guard, Adams was cast in Rebel Without A Cause (1955) as Moose. Following the death of James Dean, Adams was brought back to the studio by director George Stevens and dubbed some of Dean’s dialogue. In 1956 Adams befriended Elvis Presley, who was visiting Hollywood to film his first feature, Love Me Tender. Presley, a Dean fan, took to Adams, who in turn introduced Elvis to Natalie Wood (with whom Adams had an affair). Both Adams and Wood visited Elvis in Memphis but the friendship was discouraged by Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, who thought that Adams might be a bad influence or that he might, at the very least, put unwelcome ideas into Elvis’ head. From October 4, 1959, until September 12, 1962, he played Johnny Yuma in the ABC television series The Rebel, so named to cash in on Adams’ association with Dean. When The Rebel was cancelled Adams played a journalist in Saints And Sinners. The following year he played Ben Brown, a man wrongly accused of murder, in Twilight Of Honor (1963). He lobbied hard for an Oscar (spending $8,000 on advertisements in trade papers) and gave interviews to anyone who wanted one, talking himself up. He was nominated as Best Supporting Actor but lost out to Melvyn Douglas for Hud (1963) at the ceremony held at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on April 13, 1964. Anticipating that he would receive the award, Adams and his wife had turned up one and a half hours before the show began. Reporter Sidney Skolsky wrote: “I was fascinated by the face of Nick Adams. Nick looked like Instant Murder. I never believed I’d want to give Nick a prize, but really, he should be given an Oscar for his Portrait of a Loser. I’ll say this for him, his face and emotions were honest.” After that disappointment, Adams found work hard to come by. He was further distraught by the break-up of his marriage to actress Carol Nugent and her new boyfriend’s habit of punishing his two children, Allyson and Jeb Stuart, for supposed misbehaviour. A court awarded him custody, allowing the mother limited access but only alone. He appeared in low-budget fare such as Frankenstein Conquers The World (1964), Die, Monster, Die! (1965) as Stephen Reinhart, Monster Zero (1966), Fever Heat (1967) as Ace Jones, and Mission Mars (1968) as Nick Grant, one of the first American astronauts on the moon.

  CAUSE: Suicide or accident? The death of 36-year-old Nick Adams is still something of a mystery. His lawyer and friend, Erwin Roeder, had a dinner date with Adams on February 6, but the actor never arrived. Going to Adams’ house at 2126 El Robles Lane in Beverly Hills the next night he found his car garaged. Roeder broke into the house and found Adams dead in his bedroom, leaning against a wall, his eyes wide open. Adams had died of a drug overdose but police found no drug paraphernalia and nothing to suggest his death was the result of anything other than natural causes. The coroner Dr Thomas Noguchi’s report stated that Adams died instantly from paraldehyde, a drug prescribed for alcoholics, and promazine intoxication. The cause of death on the death certificate is listed as “Accident; Suicide; Undetermined”. Adams is buried in Saints Cyril & Methodius Cemetery, 706 North Warren Street, Berwick, Pennsylvania 18603.

  Stanley Adams

  Born April 7, 1915

  Died April 27, 1977

  Sturdy actor. Adams appeared in over 50 films and was a regular face on television. Among his movies were The Atomic Kid (1954) as Wildcat Hooper, Calling Homicide (1956) as Peter von Elda, Hell Ship Mutiny (1957), Hell Bound (1957) as Herbert Fay, Jr, North By Northwest (1959) as Lieutenant Harding, Studs Lonigan (1960), Breakfast At Tiffany’s (1961) as Rusty Trawler, Ship Of Fools (1965) as Hutten and Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex (1972). On television he played Cyrano Jones in a memorable episode of Star Trek (‘The Trouble With Tribbles’) and also appeared in Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Gilligan’s Island, Lost In Space, Gunsmoke, Laredo, Wagon Trail, Perry Mason, The Twilight Zone and Rawhide.

  CAUSE: He shot himself in Santa Monica, California, aged 62.

  Stella Adams

  Born April 24, 1883

  Died September 17, 1961

  Early star. Born in Sherman, Texas, she began her career with the company Nestor in the early days of the motion picture industry. The majority of her work was in silent films – she made no movies between 1917 and 1927 and she retired in 1936 at the age of 53. Her films included: In The Sultan’s Power (1909), The Passing Parade (1912) as G.A.R. bazaar worker, The Lucky Loser (1912) as Lily Worthing, The Lady Barber Of Roaring Gulch as Mrs Allen, To The Brave Belong The Fair (1913) as Alice’s mother, Four Queens And A Jack as the girl’s mother, When His Courage Failed (1913) as the club president, The Tale Of A Hat (1913) as Mother Gray, The Power Of Heredity (1913) as Mrs Del Mar, The Girls And Dad (1913) as Jennie, When Cupid Won (1913) as Jenny Simpkins, The Girl Ranchers (1913), Under Western Skies (1913), Hawkeye’s Great Capture (1913), A Man Of The People (1913), His Wife’s Burglar (1913), The Prairie Trail (1913), The Golden Princess Mine (1913) as the young prospector’s mother, War Of The Cattle Range (1913), Her Friend, The Butler (1913), A Woman’s Way (1913), Teaching Dad A Lesson (1913), The God Of Girzah (1913), The Unhappy Pair (1913), A Tale Of The West (1913), When Ursus Threw The Bull (1914), Cupid’s Close Shave (1914), Twixt Love And Flour (1914), His Royal Pants (1914), Scooped By A Hencoop (1914), She Was Only A Working Girl (1914), What A Baby Did (1914), Those Persistent Old Maids (1914), The Wrong Miss Wright (1914), When The Girls Joined The Force (1914), Her Husbands (1914), Could You Blame Her? (1914), When Eddie Went To The Front (1914), Way Of Life (1914), When Bess Got In Wrong (1914), For The Good Of The Cause (1915), A Maid By Proxy (1915), All Aboard (1915), The Heart Of Sampson (1915), When He Proposed (1915), A Coat’s A Coat (1915), His Wife’s Husband (1915), It Happened On Friday (1915), All In The Same Boat (1915), Her Friend, The Milkman (1915), Almost A King (1915), Following
Father’s Footsteps (1915), With Father’s Help (1915), Behind The Screen (1915), A One Cylinder Courtship (1915), Those Kids And Cupid (1915), Father’s Lucky Escape (1915), A Looney Love Affair (1915), Wanted: A Leading Lady (1915), Keeping It Dark (1915), Where The Heather Blooms (1915) as Mary’s mother, Love And A Savage (1915), Her Steady Carfare (1916), When Aunt Matilda Fell (1916), Mingling Spirits (1916), Mixed Kids (1916), Her Friend, The Doctor (1916), Cupid Trims His Lordship (1916), He Almost Eloped (1916), A Leap Year Tangle (1916), Eddie’s Night Out (1916), The Newlyweds’ Mix-Up (1916), Her Hero Maid (1916), Never Lie To Your Wife (1916), The Janitor’s Busy Day (1916), Good Night, Nurse (1916), Twixt Love And The Iceman (1916), What Could The Poor Girl Do? (1916), The Browns See The Fair (1916), Double Crossing The Dean (1916), By The Sad Sea Waves (1916), Dad’s Masterpiece (1916), Cupid’s Uppercut (1916), Almost A Scandal (1917), A Bold, Bad Knight (1917), Keeping In Trim (1927), Society Breaks (1927), Passing The Joneses (1927), Showing Off (1927), Horse Play (1928), Meet The Count (1928), Start Something (1928), Indoor Golf (1928), Her Only Husband (1928), A Big Bluff (1928), A Full House (1928), Reel Life (1928), McGinnis Vs Jones (1928), Me, Gangster (1928) as Lizzie Williams, Polished Ivory (1930), Prize Puppies (1930) as a landlady, College Cuties (1930), Bachelor Mother (1932) as Mrs Smith, Sister To Judas (1932) as Mrs Frayne, The Vampire Bat (1933) as Georgiana, Whirlwind (1933), Sing, Sinner, Sing (1933), Whom The Gods Destroy (1934) as the Newfoundland Woman, The Tonto Kid (1934) as a landlady and Theodora Goes Wild (1936) as a townswoman.

  CAUSE: She died at the Motion Picture & TV Hospital Country Home, 23388 Mulholland Drive, Woodland Hills, California.

  Al Adamson

  Born July 25, 1929

  Died August 2, 1995

  Gore machine. Albert Victor Adamson, Jr was born in Hollywood, California, the son of silent Western star-turned-director Denver Dixon (1901–1972) a.k.a. Art Mix. After an unsuccessful acting career in other people’s forgettable films, Adamson turned to writing, producing and directing and also appearing in his own forgettable films. He wrote, directed, produced and appeared (using the pseudonym Lyle Felisse) as Vito in Psycho A Go-Go ([1965], later [1969] re-released with added scenes and re-released again shortly thereafter with the new title of Blood Of Ghastly Horror [1971]) and Horror Of The Blood Monsters (1970). He produced and directed Blood Of Dracula’s Castle (1967) starring John Carradine as George the butler, Hell’s Bloody Devils (1967) starring Carradine, Broderick Crawford and Scott Brady, Five Bloody Graves (1969) starring Carradine, Brady and Dallas’ Jim Davis, Satan’s Sadists (1969) starring Russ Tamblyn and Regina Carrol (a nightclub singer and Adamson’s real-life wife), Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1969, 1971) starring J. Carrol Naish, Lon Chaney, Jr, Tamblyn and Carrol, Brain Of Blood (1971) with Carrol, Angels’ Wild Women (1972) with Carrol as Margo and a Diana Ross-lookalike with a 48˝ bust, Jessi’s Girls (1975), Black Heat (1976) and Cinderella 2000 (1977), and directed such fare as The Female Bunch (1969) starring Lon Chaney, Jr, Tamblyn and Carrol and filmed on mass murderer Charles Manson’s ranch, I Spit On Your Corpse (1974) starring porn star Georgina Spelvin, Blazing Stewardesses (1974) again starring Carrol, Death Dimension (1978) Naughty Stewardesses (1978), Sunset Cove (1978) with John Carradine and Doctor Dracula (1981). Many of his films, which were gorefests or overtly sexual, featured respected actors (such as John Carradine, Lon Chaney, Jr, Broderick Crawford and Scott Brady) who didn’t quite know when to quit.

  CAUSE: Adamson was murdered aged 65 at his home on Avenue 49 in Indio, California, about 150 miles south-east of Los Angeles. Adamson’s body was stuffed into a hole where his whirlpool bath had been, covered in four tons of cement and then tiled over. A warrant was issued for the arrest of his handyman, 46-year-old Fred Fulford, who had been living at the house since October 1994 while remodelling it. The builder had fled to Florida a week before Adamson’s body was found on August 2, 1995 and avoided extradition to California until 1996. A preliminary hearing took place in July of that year and Fulford indicated that he wanted to conduct his own defence but later relented and took counsel, Robert Hurley. At his trial, which opened in October 1999, Fulford was accused of hitting Adamson over the head with a heavy object, a charge he denied. Adamson’s brother, Kenneth, testified that the film director had told him that Fulford was stealing from him and had run up $4,000 in telephone calls. On November 9, taking the stand Fulford admitted perjury, theft and forgery but denied killing Adamson. He claimed that he had an arrangement with the director that the house would be sold and they would split the profits. However, the jury disagreed and after less than two hours’ deliberation on November 17 they found Fulford guilty of first degree murder. On March 3, 2000 he was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

  Peter Adamson

  Born February 16, 1930

  Died January 17, 2002

  Paedophile soap star. For almost twenty-three years (February 1961–August 1983) Peter Adamson played the role of rough diamond Len Fairclough in Coronation Street. In his £500-a-week time in Britain’s most famous thoroughfare Len was elected to the local council, romanced Elsie Tanner and Bet Lynch, bought the Kabin, was suspected of murder, married Rita Littlewood, was beaten up by Fred Gee and was finally killed in a car crash on the way home after visiting his secret mistress. Peter Adamson led an equally eventful life. An alcoholic, he was arrested for drink driving and attempted suicide three times before giving up booze in February 1973. Ten years later to the month, he was suspended by Granada TV for six weeks for selling a series of backstage articles to a tabloid. On April 23, during his suspension, he was arrested at Haslingden, Lancashire, and accused of molesting two 8-year-old girls in a swimming pool where he worked as a part-time instructor teaching young kids to swim. Adamson hired top lawyer George Carman, Q.C. to defend him. Carman had previously engineered the acquittal of Jeremy Thorpe, M.P. on conspiracy to murder charges and would also later ensure Ken Dodd’s acquittal on tax avoidance charges. Adamson’s trial began at Burnley Crown Court in July 1983. One of his alleged victims reputedly considered suicide asking her mother if she would die if she jumped off a roof. However, after just eight days Adamson was acquitted of all charges on July 26 after the four-woman, eight-man jury deliberated for just 36 minutes. His legal costs were estimated at £120,000 and to recoup some of the outlay he sold more stories to The Sun. Unsurprisingly, he was not allowed back to the Street and claimed, “It gives me the chance to prove that I’m capable of doing things other than soap opera.” He toured in a play in Canada. Work, however, began to dry up. On September 26, 1984, Jean Adamson, his arthritis-suffering wife, died aged 55. In June 1988 he was signed to appear in a play featuring children but just before it opened Adamson pulled out admitting he had been guilty of the assault five years previously. In a startlingly frank and often bizarre interview he admitted, “I am bloody fascinated by paedophiliacs [sic] … If you think I am a paedophile – Okay, print it. But also print that I would willingly fuck my lovely little granddaughter who is only six months old … If you think I am a paedophile – Okay, I love old women too.” Adamson said he sometimes thought he was partly gay. “I think I am possibly one of the few people in the world to admit to being 35 per cent homosexual. I will kiss a man but I have never engaged in the act of buggery. That is abhorrent to me.” In 1985 55-year-old Adamson began drinking again. Six years later, in August 1991, he went bankrupt with debts of £33,000. As with many soap stars he spent much of the time playing just the one role but Adamson did find time to appear outside of Weatherfield. He was in the film Take Her By Surprise (1967) playing Korba. Before Len Fairclough he was in the television series Knight Errant Limited (1959) and Skyport (1959).

  CAUSE: Adamson died aged 71 of stomach cancer at Lincoln County Hospital, Lincoln. He left £5,000 in his will to his elder son, Michael (b. 1954). His ashes were left to his other child, Greg (b. 1962).

  Dawn Addams

  Born September 21, 1930

  Died May 7, 1985

  Unspectacular
glamourpuss. Born in Felixstowe, Suffolk, the daughter of test pilot Captain James Ramage Addams and Ethel Mary Hickie. Her stepmother was actress Arlene Judge (1912–1974), who was married and divorced seven times. Her sixth marriage was to her former brother-in-law Bob Topping, who was to marry Lana Turner. The 5˝6˝ Dawn Addams auditioned for the film National Velvet (1944) but lost out to another pretty dark-haired, dark-eyed girl by the name of Elizabeth Taylor. Educated at 14 schools in England, India and America and at RADA, she made her West End début as Amy Spettigue in a production of Charley’s Aunt on December 22, 1949, at the Piccadilly Theatre. She went to Hollywood seeking stardom in 1950. The following year she appeared in Night Into Morning as Dottie Phelps and followed that up with a bit part in Singin’ In The Rain (1952), The Robe (1953) as Junia, Return To Treasure Island (1954) as Jamesina Hawkins, Khyber Patrol (1954) as Diana Rivington, Riders To The Stars (1954) as Susan Manners, A King In New York (1957) as Ann Kay, I Battellieri Del Volga (1958), Geheimaktion Schwarze Kapelle (1959), The Two Faces Of Dr Jekyll (1960) as Kitty Jekyll, Follow That Man (1961) as Janet Clark, Come Fly With Me (1965), The Vampire Lovers (1970) and The Vault Of Horror (1973) as Inez. In 1954 she married Prince Vittorio Massimo and, on January 10, 1955, gave birth to their son Prince Stefano. Although they were not divorced until 1971 they separated in 1958. A seven-year custody battle for the boy ensued, which was eventually won by his father. Following her marriage to former journalist James White, Addams retired from acting.