CAUSE: He died in Oxnard, California, from emphysema, aged 80.
Bernard Bresslaw
Born February 25, 1934
Died June 11, 1993
He only arsked. The (mostly) lovable lug of the Carry On… films was born in Stepney, London, weighing 10lb 4oz. “I am the son of a poor East End tailor’s cutter,” he told one interviewer. His ambition to become an actor was born at an early age but the Jewish Bresslaw was convinced his height (6˝7˝) would count against him. He won a scholarship to RADA, where he won the coveted Emile Littler prize for most promising actor. His first big break came as the dopey Sergeant ‘Popeye’ Popplewell in the Granada sitcom The Army Game (1957–1958) a role that paid him £750 a week. His catch phrase “I only arsked” soon caught on with the public. He even got into the pop charts with the unlikely ‘Mad Passionate Love’ making number 6 in 1958. However, it was the Carry On s that made him instantly recognisable. He appeared in 14 between 1965 and 1975, ranging from Carry On Cowboy (1965), in which he played Red Indian Little Heap, through the Boris Karloff-like butler Sockett in Carry On Screaming (1966), the romantic Ken Biddle in Carry On Doctor (1967), the bloodthirsty Burpa Bunghit Din in Carry On Up The Khyber (1968), the randy but shy Bernie Lugg in Carry On Camping (1969), the fearsomely jealous wrestler Gripper Burke in Carry On Loving (1970), incompetent thief Ernie Bragg in Carry On Matron (1971) to his last appearance as Arthur Upmore in Carry On Behind (1975). His other films included Up Pompeii (1970), One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing (1976) and Krull (1983). Bresslaw was an avid reader. He and his wife Liz had three sons.
CAUSE: In the Eighties he began to lose his sight and at one stage was nearly blind for five months; an operation in 1990 at Moorfields Eye Hospital restored his sight. A tireless worker, he collapsed in 1992 and his health was compromised. Bresslaw was about to play Grumio in The Taming Of The Shrew in Regents Park when he suffered a massive heart attack. He was taken to University College Hospital where he died, aged 59.
Monte Brice
Born July 12, 1891
Died November 8, 1962
Multi-talent. Born in New York, Monte Brice was educated at Columbia University where he read mining and engineering. He became sales manager at the Texas Oil Company’s office in Manhattan. He longed to get into show business so for a time he was a businessman, actor, director, playwright, and also wrote songs (‘The Daughter Of Rosie O’Grady’ being one of his better known efforts). He made his first film in 1912 and then, disillusioned, left the business, returning five years later to make a few more films but concentrating on a career as a screenwriter. His films included Hands Up! (released January 1926) starring Raymond Griffiths, Behind The Front (1926) with Wallace Beery, Miss Brewster’s Millions (1926), The Fleet’s In (1928), Merry Go Round Of 1938 (1937), You’re A Sweetheart (1937), Mexican Spitfire Sees A Ghost (1942), Joan Of Ozark (1942), Genius At Work (1946) and Variety Girl (1947). He also directed Casey At The Bat (1927), directed The Golf Specialist (1930), W.C. Fields’ first sound film, Street Singer (1932), The Hold-Up (1933), The Radio Murder Mystery (1933), My Pal The Prince (1933), Beauty On Broadway (1933), Boswell Sisters (1933) and Sweet Surrender (1935). Brice later became a joke writer for Bob Hope.
CAUSE: He died in London, aged 71, of a heart attack.
Lloyd Bridges
Born January 15, 1913
Died March 10, 1998
Hardworking support actor. Despite never being nominated for an Oscar, Lloyd Vernet Bridges, Jr was a regular in films for over 60 years. Born in San Leandro, California, he worked in various repertory theatres before making his Broadway début in 1939. He made his first film, Freshman Love, in 1936 but it wasn’t until he signed for Columbia in 1941 that he worked regularly on the big screen. He was usually cast as a thug and it was only when he left Columbia that he began to play a wider range of characters. In the Fifties he testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee and admitted that he had been a member of the Communist Party. His films included: The Royal Mounted Patrol (1941) as Hap Andrews, Shut My Big Mouth (1942) as Skinny, Riders Of The Northland (1942) as Alex, Flight Lieutenant (1942) as Bill Robinson, Blondie Goes To College (1942) as Ben Dixon, Alias Boston Blackie (1942) as the bus driver, Passport To Suez (1943) as Fritz, Sahara (1943) as Fred Clarkson, Louisiana Hayride (1944) as Montague Price, Secret Agent X-9 (1945) as Secret Agent X-9, Abilene Town (1946) as Henry Dreiser, Ramrod (1947) as Red Cates, Unconquered (1947) as Lieutenant Hutchins, Red Canyon (1949) as Virgil Cordt, Calamity Jane And Sam Bass (1949) as Joel Collins, Trapped (1949) as Tris Stewart, Colt .45 (1950) as Paul Donovan, Little Big Horn (1951) as Captain Phillip Donlin, Last Of The Comanches (1952) as Jim Starbuck, High Noon (1952) as Harvey Pell, Plymouth Adventure (1952) as Coppin, Third Party Risk (1955) as Philip Graham, Apache Woman (1955) as Rex Moffett, Wetbacks (1956) as Jim Benson, Daring Game (1968) as Vic Powers, The Fifth Musketeer (1979) as Aramis, Airplane! (1980) as McCroskey, Airplane II: The Sequel (1982) as McCroskey, Weekend Warriors (1986) as Colonel Archer, Cousins (1989) as Vince, Joe Versus The Volcano (1990) as Samuel Harvey Graynamore, Hot Shots! (1991) as Admiral Benson, Honey, I Blew Up The Kid (1992) as Clifford Sterling, Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993) as President Thomas ‘Tug’ Benson, Blown Away (1994) as Max O’Bannon and Jane Austen’s Mafia (1998) as Vincenzo Cortino. His sons Beau (b. Los Angeles, California, December 9, 1941 as Lloyd Vernet Bridges, III) and Jeff (b. Los Angeles, California, December 4, 1949) and grandchildren: Casey (b. 1969), Jordan (b. 1975), Dylan (b. 1984) and Emily (b. 1987) are all actors.
CAUSE: He died of natural causes, aged 85, in Los Angeles, California.
Albert R. ‘Cubby’ Broccoli
Born April 5, 1909
Died June 27, 1996
James Bond’s cinematic dad. Born in New York City, Albert Romolo ‘Cubby’ Broccoli was introduced to films by his cousin the seedy Pat DeCicca (then married to Thelma Todd). He became a salesman selling make-up until landing a job as a dogsbody on The Outlaw (1943). A few more films followed but Broccoli felt frustrated and so he moved to England in 1951 and set up Warwick Pictures with Irving Allen, a fellow emigré. Their first effort was The Red Beret (1953) starring Alan Ladd. In 1956 Harry Saltzman bought the rights to Ian Fleming’s suave secret agent and offered Broccoli the chance to film them. However, in 1960 Warwick Films closed down following a series of disagreements between Allen and Broccoli. In June 1961 Broccoli and Saltzman made a deal on the options to the Bond books. They formed a company, Eon Productions (Eon stands for “Everything Or Nothing”). Broccoli approached Columbia Pictures with the project, but a minion there commented that James Bond was the poor man’s Mike Hammer. He was quickly proved wrong: the first Bond film, Dr No (1962), was a mammoth success and Broccoli was made. Apart from one film (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang [1968]) he concentrated all his efforts on 007. Yes, in case you were wondering, he is related to the vegetable. His ancestors crossed the cauliflower with the rabe to form broccoli. He was married twice. His first wife died of cancer, leaving him with two children. On June 20, 1959, he married Dana and their daughter, Barbara, was born in 1960.
CAUSE: He died in Beverly Hills, California, as the result of heart problems, on June 27, 1996.
Dana Broccoli
(DANA NATOL)
Born January 3, 1922
Died February 29, 2004
James Bond’s protector. Born in New York, she decided to become an actress at an early age and began studying at Cecil Clovelly’s Academy of Dramatic Arts, at Carnegie Hall. While there she met her first husband, Lewis Wilson, who was the first actor to play Batman (b. New York, January 28, 1920, d. San Francisco, California, August 9, 2000). In 1943, she gave birth to a son, Michael G., and three years later the family moved to California where Dana Wilson and her husband joined the Pasadena Playhouse. In 1950 she made her first film appearing as Jane in Once A Thief. The following year she played Queen Bonga Bonga in Wild Women. Her only other screen appearance was as a tourist in St Mark’s Square in Moonraker (1
979). When she left her husband she became a screenwriter in Beverly Hills. At a party in 1959, she met the widower Cubby Broccoli. Twelve years earlier, Broccoli had had a job selling Christmas trees on a street corner and was particularly struck by a beautiful young woman who had bought one of the trees and for whom he had built a stand to hold it. The beautiful woman was Dana Wilson. Both remembered the incident and believed that fate had brought them together. They married on June 21, 1959, in Las Vegas with Cary Grant as the best man and then moved to London. On June 18, 1960, their daughter Barbara was born. That year Broccoli and the Canadian producer Harry Saltzman created a film company to put Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels on the silver screen. Helped by his shrewd and glamorous wife, the New Yorker struck up an unlikely friendship with Fleming, an Old Etonian who had a marked disdain for Hollywood. “I found him a lovely man,” Dana Broccoli recalled years later, “charming and intelligent.” It was Dana who decided that the unknown Sean Connery was the right man to play 007 in Dr No (1962), the first of the Bond films. “One day,” Dana Broccoli later recalled, “Cubby called me and said, ‘Could you come down and look at this Disney leprechaun film, Darby O’Gill And The Little People, at the Goldwyn Studios? I don’t know if this Sean Connery guy has any sex appeal.’ I saw that face and the way he moved and talked, and I said, ‘Cubby, he’s fabulous!’ He was just perfect, he had star material right there.” However, Connery and the Broccolis were to have several fallings-out. In 1966 Connery gave an interview in which he mentioned “fat-slob producers living off the backs of lean actors”. Eighteen years later, Connery issued a lawsuit against Broccoli demanding more royalties from the Bond films. The actor eventually abandoned the dispute after settling for merchandising rights. In 1996 Connery did not attend Broccoli’s memorial service. “I don’t have to understand Sean,” she said in 2000, “and he doesn’t need my understanding; he’s doing very well without my understanding.” Dana Broccoli was not someone to cross. She recalled, “I’m half-Irish and half-Italian. I’m just bloody-minded.” “Dana,” Cubby wrote in his autobiography, “takes no prisoners. She does not have the gift of forgiveness.” Dana Broccoli also published two novels, Scenario For Murder and Florinda. She adapted the latter for the musical, La Cava, which was staged in London in 2000.
CAUSE: She died, aged 82, of cancer in Los Angeles, California.
Helen Broderick
Born August 11, 1891
Died September 25, 1959
Deadpan comedienne. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to parents who were light opera stars and who discouraged her from entering show business. She was to later forbid her only child from the business – he ignored her. Despite their opposition she became a chorus girl when she was 14 and then joined the Ziegfeld Follies. With her husband, Lester Crawford (b. Massachusetts, Christmas Day, 1882, d. Los Angeles, California, November 24, 1962 – their only child being the actor Broderick Crawford) she formed a double act “Crawford & Broderick – Songs, Dances, Funny Sayings”. She appeared in numerous Broadway shows: in the chorus for Ziegfeld Follies Of 1907 (July 8, 1907–November 10, 1907), Algeria (August 31, 1908– October 10, 1908), The Honeymoon Express (opened February 6, 1913), Nifties Of 1923 (September 25, 1923), The Wild Westcotts (December 24, 1923), Puzzles Of 1925 (February 2, 1925), Mama Loves Papa (February 22, 1926), Oh, Please (December 17, 1926) as Emma Bliss, Fifty Million Frenchmen (November 27, 1929–July 5, 1930 at The Lyric Theatre which ran for 254 performances), The Band Wagon (opened June 3, 1931 at the New Amsterdam Theatre and ran for 260 performances), Earl Carroll’s Vanities (September 27, 1932– December 10, 1932) and As Thousands Cheer (September 30, 1933–September 8, 1934 at the Music Box Theatre which ran for 400 performances). She is said to have made her film début in High Speed (1924) but was definitely in For Art’s Sake (1930) and Nile Green (1930). She wrote screenplays for two films, High Speed (1924) and The Mystery Club (1926). Her other films, included Cold Turkey (1931), Court Plastered (1931), Fifty Million Frenchmen (1931) as Violet, The Spirits Of 76th Street (1931), Top Hat (1935) as Madge Hardwick, To Beat The Band (1935) as Freeda McCrary, Love On A Bet (1936) as Aunt Charlotte, Murder On A Bridle Path (1936) as Hildegarde Withers, The Bride Walks Out (1936) as Mattie Dodson, Swing Time (1936) as Mabel Anderson, Smartest Girl In Town (1936) as Gwen Mayen, We’re On The Jury (1937) as Agnes Dean, Meet The Missus (1937) as Emma Foster, The Life Of The Party (1937) as Pauline, She’s Got Everything (1937) as Aunt Jane Carter, The Road To Reno as Aunt Minerva, Radio City Revels (1938) as Gertie Shaw, The Rage Of Paris (1938) as Gloria, Service De Luxe (1938) as Pearl, Stand Up And Fight (1939) as Aunt Amanda Griffith, Naughty But Nice (1939) as Aunt Martha Hogan, Honeymoon In Bali as Lorna Smith, The Captain Is A Lady (1940) as Nancy Crocker, No, No, Nanette (1940) as Mrs Smith, Virginia (1941) as Theo Clairmont, Nice Girl? (1941) as Cora Foster, Father Takes A Wife (1941) as Aunt Julie, Chip Off The Old Block (1944) as Glory Marlow, Sr, Her Primitive Man (1944) as Mrs Winthrop, Three Is A Family (1944) as Irma, Love, Honor And Goodbye (1945) as Mary Riley and Because Of Him (1946) as Nora.
CAUSE: She died in Beverly Hills, California, aged 68. She was buried in Ferndale Cemetery, Johnstown, Fulton County, New York.
Clive Brook
(CLIFFORD HARDMAN BROOK)
Born June 1, 1887
Died November 17, 1974
The son of an opera singer, 5́ 11˝ Brook was born in London. His father wanted the boy to become a lawyer and to this end he was sent to Dulwich College. However, aged 15, he had to leave after the family’s fortunes dived. He moved to a polytechnic to study elocution and became so proficient that he became a teacher to earn some pin money. Upon graduation he became a journalist and joined the army in September 1914. He was demobbed with the rank of major at the end of the war to end all wars, and decided to give acting a shot. His first appearance in London was at the St Martin’s Theatre in Just Like Judy on February 11, 1920. On October 2 of that year he married co-star Charlotte Elizabeth Mildred Evelyn. He fathered a son, Lyndon (b. 1926) who became a playwright, and a daughter, the actress Faith Brook (b. York, February 16, 1922). Around this time he began to appear in silent films such as Debt Of Honour (1918) and The Royal Oak (1923). When the latter was seen in Hollywood, Brook was offered contracts by no less than three studios. He began with Thomas Ince before moving briefly to Warner Bros. In 1926 he moved again, this time to Paramount where he stayed for eight years. Adolph Zukor described Brook as being like the Rock of Gibraltar, a description the actor loathed. Brook soon tired of only playing cads or gentlemen, yet was continually cast in those roles. Among his films were the title role in The Sheik (1922), A Tale Of Two Cities (1922) as Sidney Carton, Through Fire And Water (1923) as John Dryden, Woman To Woman (1924) as David Compos/ Davis Anson-Pond, Christine Of The Hungry Heart (1924) as Dr Alan Monteagle, When Love Grows Cold (1925) as Jerry Benson, Seven Sinners (1925) as Jerry Winters, You Never Know Women (1926) as Norodin, For Alimony Only (1926) as Peter Williams, Underworld (1927) as ‘Rolls-Royce’, Sir John Marlay in Interference (1928) which was Paramount’s first talkie, Four Feathers (1929) as Lieutenant Durrance, The Return Of Sherlock Holmes (1929) as the great detective, Scandal Sheet (1931) as Noel Adams, Shanghai Express (1932) as Captain Donald Harvey, Sherlock Holmes (1932) again in the title role, Gallant Lady (1933) as Dan Pritchard, and Cavalcade (1933) as Robert Marryot. In 1936 he returned to England permanently after a short time with RKO. He was worried by threats to kidnap his children. He appeared regularly in films, television and on the stage in his native land and ended his days in a spacious flat at 95 Eaton Square, London SW 1. Although he wrote his autobiography, he was unable to find a publisher for it.
CAUSE: He died in London.
Tyler Brooke
(VICTOR HUGO DE BIERE)
Born June 6, 1886
Died March 2, 1943
‘The best dressed leading man of Broadway’. Born in New York, 5́ 8˝ Brooke studied commercial law before working in banking for many years. Commerce’s loss
was show business’ gain because Brooke threw in his “boring” job and began appearing in musical comedies in theatres. He was signed by Hal Roach in 1925 and often appeared in his comedies, playing lounge lizards in films such as Moonlight And Noses (1925), Wandering Papas (1925), Should Husbands Pay? (1926) and Wise Guys Prefer Brunettes (1926), the last two starring Laurel & Hardy’s regular foil James Finlayson, Raggedy Rose (1926) starring Mabel Normand, On The Front Page (1926) starring Stan Laurel (Brooke played the playboy son of a tough newspaper editor), Love Me Tonight (1932), Hallelujah, I’m A Bum (1933) starring Al Jolson, Belle Of The Nineties (1934) with Mae West, Reckless (filmed between December 6, 1934 and February 23, 1935 and released by MGM on April 17, 1935) starring Jean Harlow in her musical début which lost $125,000, In Old Chicago (1938) and the film that introduced Abbott & Costello, One Night In The Tropics (1940). In March 1929 Brooke sued Oliver Hardy for $109,570, alleging that Hardy “hit him with a billiard cue and broke his arm” at a pool hall at Sycamore Avenue and Cahuenga in Los Angeles. The outcome of the lawsuit is not known. Tyler Brooke was married to the exotically named La Runa Walcott.
Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries Page 39
