CAUSE: Crosby was playing golf at La Moralejo Golf Club in Spain when, having just completed the 17th hole, he suffered a massive heart attack. He was dead before the ambulance could get to Madrid’s Red Cross Hospital. He was 74. He said he wanted his epitaph to read “He was an average guy who could carry a tune.” In his will, Crosby stated that none of his sons could use a trust fund he had set up for them until they reached 65. After his death, Crosby’s son Gary wrote a book saying his father tortured him. Said his old friend Bob Hope, “Bing used to sing to me too but I didn’t feel I had to write a book about it.”
FURTHER READING: Bing Crosby: The Hollow Man – Don Shepherd & Robert F. Slatzer (London: W.H. Allen, 1981).
George Cukor
Born July 7, 1899
Died January 23, 1983
‘The women’s director’. George Dewey Cukor (he was named after the US naval hero Admiral George Dewey) was born in New York, New York, and began directing on Broadway in the Twenties before moving west in February 1929 to work as a dialogue director on River Of Romance (1929) and All Quiet On The Western Front (1930). His first directing role proper came in 1930 with The Royal Family Of Broadway. A meeting with David O. Selznick led to Cukor directing Katharine Hepburn in her first film, A Bill Of Divorcement (1932). They would work together ten times. He began directing some memorable films, including Dinner At Eight (1933), Little Women (1933), David Copperfield (1935), Sylvia Scarlett (1936), Romeo And Juliet (1936), Camille (1937), The Prisoner Of Zenda (1937) and began work on Gone With The Wind (1939) on January 26, 1939. He was sacked on February 12. There have been any number of theories to explain the firing. The 5́ 9˝ Cukor was a middle-class, Jewish and a (very closeted) homosexual (John Carradine recalled, “He was the type of gay Jew who would never dream of admitting to anyone that, yes, he was gay and he was Jewish. Above all he wished to be thought very rich yet very common …”). In his younger days Clark Gable had serviced Billy Haines, a friend of Cukor. Haines would have told Cukor and this made Gable unhappy at the knowledge the director knew of his gay past. Cukor constantly called Gable “Dear” or “Darling” on set, but then he did the same to everyone, both male and female. Did Gable see this as an unsubtle dig at his masculinity? Gable claimed, “Fuck this! I won’t be directed by a fairy – I have to work with a real man.” Gable believed that Cukor would favour Vivien Leigh. Producer David O. Selznick didn’t believe Cukor good enough. You pays your money … His dismissal rankled with Cuk or for the rest of his long life, although he churned out notable fare such as The Philadelphia Story (1940), Gaslight (1944), Adam’s Rib (1949), A Star Is Born (1954), Lust For Life (1956), Bhowani Junction (1956), Let’s Make Love (1960) starring Marilyn Monroe and Yves Montand (“You never really know about chemistry. I directed Monroe and Montand in Let’s Make Love, which they proceeded to do. Miss Signoret was accompanying her husband, but right under her nose he had an affair with Marilyn. They were intoxicated with each other. But on the screen? Marilyn. Yves. Nothing!”), MM’s last, unfinished, film Something’s Got To Give (1962) and My Fair Lady (1964), which won him his only Oscar. Cukor was a committed Anglophile and his home was a retreat for many ex-pat Brits including David Niven, J.B. Priestley, Christopher Isherwood and Ronald Colman. His last film, made at the age of 82, was the disappointing Rich And Famous (1981), his first film for MGM for 25 years. Cukor’s sex life mainly consisted of one-night stands. He was terrified of his homosexuality becoming public knowledge and went to great trouble to cover his tracks.
CAUSE: He died in Cedars-Sinai Hospital Medical Center, 8700 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, aged 83, from heart failure at 10.58pm. He was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks, 1712 South Glendale Avenue, Glendale, California 91209.
FURTHER READING: George Cukor: A Double Life – Patrick McGilligan (London: Faber, 1992); George Cukor, Master Of Elegance: Hollywood’s Legendary Director And His Stars – Emanuel Levy (New York: William Morrow, 1994).
Finlay Currie
Born January 20, 1878
Died May 9, 1968
Authoritarian old man. Formerly a choirmaster and organist, William Finlay Currie was born at 35 Cumberland Street, Edinburgh, the illegitimate son of Annie Currie, a Post Office clerk (his birth certificate names no father). He was educated at George Watson’s College in Edinburgh and turned to acting, first appearing on stage on May 3, 1898 as a courtier in W.H. Murray’s Cramond Brig at The Pavilion, Edinburgh. Currie made his London début in June 1902 at the South London Music Hall, billed as “Harry Colvo, the double-voiced vocalist”. In 1906 he toured America, including a stint in New York at Tony Pastor’s renowned Vaudeville Theater on 14th Street. He then went to Australia for more than ten years where he worked in the company managed by Sir Benjamin Fuller. Back in England, he appeared in more than 20 West End plays between 1930 and 1950. He made his film début in The Frightened Lady as Brooks. His best role was probably as the criminal Magwitch in David Lean’s Great Expectations (1946). His other films included Rome Express (1932), Excessive Baggage as Inspector Toucan, Little Friend (1934) as Grove, Edge Of The World (1937) as James Gray, 49th Parallel (1941) as Albert, I Know Where I’m Going! (1945) as Ruairidh Mor, Bonnie Prince Charlie (1948) as the Marquis of Tullabardine, Whisky Galore! (1949), The Black Ros e (1950) as Alfgar, The Mudlark (1950) as Queen Victoria’s ‘friend’ John Brown, Quo Vadis as Peter the Apostle, People Will Talk (1951) where he played Sunderson, Ivanhoe (1952) as Cedric, Zarak (1956) as the Mullah, Ben-Hur as Balthazar, Solomon And Sheba (1959) as David, Kidnapped as Cluny MacPherson, Francis Of Assisi (1961) as the Pope, Murder At The Gallop (1963) as Old Enderby, Billy Liar (1963) as Duxbury, The Fall Of The Roman Empire (1964) as a senator and Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) his final film. He was married to the American variety actress Maud Courtney (1884–1959), who first appeared on the London stage in 1901. She was the original performer of the song ‘The Honeysuckle And The Bee’. They had two children, George and Marion. Currie’s hobby was collecting books on Rabbie Burns.
CAUSE: He died at the age of 90 in the Chalfont and Gerrards Cross Hospital, Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, of kidney and heart failure. He was worth £1,588 at the time of his death.
Michael Curtiz
(MIHáLI KERTéSZ)
Born December 24, 1886
Died April 10, 1962
Mixed-up director. Curtiz was born in Budapest, Hungary, the son of a Jewish architect and an opera singer. Despite working in Hollywood from 1926, he never quite mastered the English language. Among his verbal lapses were “Don’t talk to me while I’m interrupting” and “Keep quiet. You are always interrupting me in the middle of my mistakes.” He once told Gary Cooper, “Now ride off in all directions.” Approached by a man he didn’t know, Curtiz was greeted with, “Hello, stranger.” Replied the director, “What do you mean, stranger? I don’t even know you.” According to David Niven, while directing the 1936 classic The Charge Of The Light Brigade Curtiz shouted a request for some riderless chargers to be brought onto the set: “Okay, bring on the empty horses!” Niven and his co-star Errol Flynn fell about laughing. Curtiz was furious. “You lousy bums. You and your stinking language … you think I know fuck nothing … well, let me tell you – I know FUCK ALL !” Casablanca (1942) won three Oscars and director Curtiz accepted his with the words “So many times I have a speech ready but no dice. Always a bridesmaid, never a mother.” Among his 170-plus films were: Az Utolsó Bohém (1912), Rablélek (1913), Házasodik Az Uram (1913), Bánk Bán (1914), A Kölcsönkért Csecsemök (1914), Makkhetes (1916), Karthausi (1916), Farkas (1916), Árendás Zsidó (1917), Tatárjárás (1917), Halálcsengö (1917), Varázskeringö (1918), 99 (1918), Die Dame Mit Dem Schwarzen Handschuh (1919), Miss Tutti Frutti (1920), Boccaccio (1920), Namenlos (1923), General Babka (1924), The Third Degree (1926), Madonna Of Avenue A (1929), Bright Lights (1930), God’s Gift To Women (1931), 20,000 Years In Sing Sing (1932), Private Detective 62 (1933), Captain Blood (1935), Anthony Adverse (1936), Kid Galahad (1937), Th
e Adventures Of Robin Hood (1938), Angels With Dirty Faces (1938), The Private Lives Of Elizabeth And Essex (1939), The Sea Hawk (1940), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Mildred Pierce (1945), Night And Day (1946), Life With Father (1947), Flamingo Road (1949), Young Man With A Horn (1950), Jim Thorpe – All American (1951), The Story Of Will Rogers (1952), King Creole (1958), The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn (1960), Francis Of Assisi (1961) and The Comancheros (1961).
CAUSE: Curtiz died of cancer aged 75 in Hollywood, California. He was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks, 1712 South Glendale Avenue, Glendale, California 91209.
Peter Cushing, OBE
Born May 26, 1913
Died August 11, 1994
Horror star. One of the truly nice men in the film world, it was ironic that Peter Cushing made his name in so many fright-inducing films. He was born in Kenley, Surrey, weighing a whopping 10lb but grew into a man with a thin, hawk-like appearance. On leaving school he became a surveyor’s clerk and studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In 1935 he made his stage début as Captain Randall in The Middle Watch at the Connaught Theatre, Worthing. His Broadway début was to come two years before his first West End appearance. The débuts were, respectively, November 21, 1941, Mansfield Theater, playing Percival in The Seventh Trumpet; August 6, 1943, Phoenix Theatre, playing Alexander I and Captain Rambalel in War And Peace. The reason for this was because he had gone to Hollywood to appear in a number of films including: The Man In The Iron Mask (1939), Women In War (1940) as Captain Evans, A Chump At Oxford (1940) as Jones, The Hidden Master (1940) as Robert Clive Of India and They Dare Not Love (1941) as Sub-Lieutenant Blacker. He returned to England to make his first film, Hamlet (1948), in which he played Osric. Starting in the mid-Fifties he began to appear in Hammer Films productions. They were almost exclusively horror films and he excelled in many of them but also found time to play the world’s greatest detective and one of sci-fi’s greatest heroes. His films included: Alexander The Great (1956) as Memnon, The Curse Of Frankenstein (1957) as Baron Victor Frankenstein, The Abominable Snowman (1957) as Dr John Rollason, Dracula (1958) as Dr Van Helsing, The Revenge Of Frankenstein (1958) as Dr Victor Stein, The Hound Of The Baskervilles (1959) as Sherlock Holmes, The Mummy as John Banning, The Hellfire Club (1960) as Merryweather, The Brides Of Dracula (1960) as Dr Van Helsing, Sword Of Sherwood Forest as Sheriff Of Nottingham, The Evil Of Frankenstein (1964) as Baron Frankenstein, The Gorgon (1964) as Dr Namaroff, Dr Who And The Daleks (1965) as Dr Who, She (1965) as Major Horace Holly, Dr Terror’s House Of Horrors (1965) as Dr Sandor Schreck, Island Of Terror (1966) as Dr Brian Stanley, Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 AD (1966) as Dr Who, Night Of The Big Heat (1967) as Dr Vernon Stone, Frankenstein Created Woman (1967) as Baron Victor Frankenstein, The Blood Beast Terror (1967) as Inspector Quennell, Scream And Scream Again (1969) as Major Benedek, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969) as Baron Victor Frankenstein, The Vampire Lovers (1970) as General von Spielsdorf, I, Monster (1971) as Frederick Utterson, Twins Of Evil (1971) as Gustav Weil, Horror Express (1972) as Dr Wells, Dr Phibes Rises Again (1972), Dracula AD 1972 (1972) as Lawrence Van Helsing/Professor Larimer Van Helsing, The Creeping Flesh (1973) as Emmanuel Hildern, And Now The Screaming Starts! (1973) as Dr Pope, The Satanic Rites Of Dracula (1974) as Professor Larimer Van Helsing, The Legend Of The 7 Golden Vampires (1974) as Professor Larimer Van Helsing, Frankenstein And The Monster From Hell (1974) as Baron Frankenstein, The Beast Must Die (1974) as Dr Christopher Lundgren, Tender Dracula (1975) as MacGregor, Legend Of The Werewolf (1975) as Paul Cataflanque, Land Of The Minotaur as Baron Corofax, Star Wars as Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, Hitler’s Son (1978) as Heinrich Hussner, Black Jack (1980) as Sir Thomas Bedford and Biggles (1986) as Colonel Raymond. He became somewhat weary of his horror film tag: “If I played Hamlet, they’d call it a horror film.” On April 10, 1943, at Kensington Register Office he married Helen Beck (b. St Petersburg, Russia February 8, 1905, d. Kent January 14, 1971). There were no children.
CAUSE: He died of cancer aged 81 in Canterbury, Kent. He left £282,163.
FURTHER READING: An Autobiography – Peter Cushing (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986).
D
Robert Dalban
(GASTON BARRÉ)
Born July 19, 1903
Died April 3, 1987
L’acteur du police. Born in Celles-sur-Belle, Deux-Sèvres, France, Dalban was a talented and wide-ranging actor but usually found himself cast as a policeman. His films included: Passeurs D’Hommes (1937), L’Alibi (1937), Promesse A L’Inconnue (1942), Peloton D’Exécution (1945), Le Jugement Dernier (1945), Quai Des Orfèvres (1947) as Paulo, Fandango (1948), Au-Delà Des Grilles (1948) as Bosco, Berlin Express (1948), Le Secret De Monte-Cristo (1948) as Mathieu Loupian, Un Homme Marche Dans La Ville (1949), Quai De Grenelle (1950) as Café Owner, Ouvert Contre X (1952) as Inspector Sylvestre, Destinées (1953), Mandat D’Amener (1953) as Alexandre Brion, Minuit, Champs-Élysées (1954) as Inspector Bougeaud, Obsession (1954) as Inspector Chardin, M’sieur La Caille (1955) as Dominique le Corse, Les Diaboliques (1955) as the petrol pump attendant, Paris Canaille (1956), A La Manière De Sherlock Holmes (1956) as Commissioner Sanois, Zaza (1956) as Gascard, La Tour, Prends G arde! (1957) as Barberin, Je Reviendrai A Kandara (1957) as Cardelec, Marie-Octobre (1959) as Léon Blanchet, La Menace (1960), Quai Du Point-Du-Jour (1960) as Dominique, La Prostitution (1962) as Robert, L’Oeil Du Monocle (1962), Le Repos Du Guerrier (1962) as the police sergeant, Chair De Poule (1963) as the brigadier, Les Tontons Flingueurs as Jean, Les Gorilles (1964) as Montecourt, Le Gentleman De Cocody as Pepe, Fantômas (1964) as the magazine editor, Trois Enfants Dans Le Désordre (1966) as Gaubert, Fantômas Contre Scotland Yard (1966), Un Idiot A Paris (1967) as Patouilloux, Le Pacha (1967) as Inspector Gouvion, Faut Pas Prendre Les Enfants Du Bon Dieu Pour Des Canards Sauvages (1968) as Casimi, Las Bellas (1969), Le Cerveau (1969), Mon Oncle Benjamin (1969) as Jean-François, Elle Boit Pas, Elle Fume Pas, Elle Drague Pas, Mais … Elle Cause! (1970) as Belpech, Point De Chute (1970) as the inspector, Il Etait Une Fois Un Flic (1971) as the superintendent in Nice, Quelques Messieurs Trop Tranquilles (1972) as the inspector, L’Insolent (1972) as Roger, La Valise (1973) as Mercier, Comment Réussir Dans La Vie Quand On Est Con Et Pleurnichard (1974), La Gifle (1974), Le Téléphone Rose (1975), L’Incorrigible (1975) as Freddy, Le Maestro (1977), Dracula Père Et Fils (1977), Coup De Tête (1979), La Boum (1980) as Serge, Les Compères (1983) as the hotel receptionist and P’tit Con (1984) as the concierge. To English television viewers, Dalban is best known as the captain in the classic serial The Adventures Of Robinson Crusoe, broadcast on the BBC between October 12 and December 30, 1965.
CAUSE: Dalban died in Paris, France, aged 83.
Suzanne Dalbert
Born May 12, 1927
Died December 31, 1970
French sex kitten. Born in Paris, she was discovered by Hal Wallis who brought her to America. She made her début playing a sexy student, Susan Duval, in The Accused (1948). Although attractive she adorned a number of films but didn’t quite have that spark needed to illuminate Tinseltown. She returned to France desperately unhappy. Her movies included: Trail Of The Yukon (1949) as Marie Duval, Breakthrough (1950) as Collette, Mark Of The Gorilla (1950) as Nyobi, Target Unknown (1951) as Theresa, My Favorite Spy (1951) and Thunderbirds (1952) as Marie Etienne.
CAUSE: Suzanne died aged 43 by her own hand. She overdosed on sleeping pills.
James Daly
Born October 23, 1918
Died July 3, 1978
Patriarch. Originally a Broadway actor, Wisconsin Rapids-born Daly began appearing on television in 1945 and was a regular face on the screen throughout the Fifties and Sixties. He guested on Dr Kildare and Mission: Impossible and his final TV role was in Roots: The Next Generation. He made his film début in The Court Martial Of Billy Mitchell (1955) and also appeared in The Young Stranger (1957), I Aim At The Stars (1960) and Planet Of The Apes (1968) as Honorius. His daughter is the Cagney & Lacey actress Tyn
e Daly (b. Madison, Wisconsin, February 21, 1946) and his son is the actor Timothy Daly (b. New York, March 1, 1956).
CAUSE: Daly died aged 59 of a heart attack in Nyack, New York, where he was rehearsing a play. After his death, a gay lover sued his estate.
Dorothy Dandridge
Born November 9, 1922
Died September 8, 1965
‘The black Marilyn Monroe’. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Dorothy Jean Dandridge was the daughter of a clergyman and an actress. When she was just four years old her mother put her and sister Vivian on stage. They sang and danced and were billed as “The Wonder Children”. In 1937 she made her first film appearance, in The Marx Brothers’ A Day At The Race, but it didn’t lead to the breaks she hoped for. When she was 16 she was thrown onto a bed and assaulted by a female friend of her mother’s, Eloise Matthews. The woman, a lesbian, excused her action by saying that she was checking to see if Dandridge was still a virgin, but was probably really just satisfying her own sexual urges. The incident scarred Dandridge so badly that she acquired a frigid attitude toward sex and abstained until she married. Her first sexual encounter with a man finally came on her September 1942 wedding night with her first husband, Harold Nicholas of the tap dancing duo the Nicholas Brothers. Their daughter Lynn was severely brain damaged. They divorced five years later, mainly due to his constant womanising. Dorothy made a number of films in the Forties but almost always in small bit parts. Away from the screen she began a successful nightclub act but racism meant she was never entirely comfortable about how she would be received. Although hotel and casino owners were more than happy for her to sing for her supper, they did not allow her to use the facilities enjoyed by other patrons. It was even reported that one hotel emptied its swimming pool lest Dorothy pollute the water. In 1953 she had an affair with Peter Lawford, but knew it could never go anywhere because the scandal would kill both their careers. One friend commented: “Peter didn’t have the courage to take Dorothy Dandridge to parties. He’d have me pick her up and I’d walk into the party with her; then she’d hook up with Peter. I once took her to a party at [agent] Charlie Feldman’s house … When we walked in every man in the room started paying attention to her – Richard Burton, William Holden, David Niven, all of them. She was a gorgeous woman and a very nice person.” In 1954 she made an all-black version of Carmen entitled Carmen Jones. She became the first black woman to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress but lost out to ice maiden Grace Kelly. She had an affair with director Otto Preminger while making Carmen Jones for which she was paid $18,000. (Strangely, considering she worked in a nightclub, her singing was dubbed in the film.) In 1959 she starred opposite Sydney Poitier in Porgy And Bess, for which she won a Golden Globe. That same year on June 22 she married restaurateur Jack Denison in the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of St Sophia in Beverly Hills. It was not a happy match: he beat her up and spent her money on a failed nightclub venture. They divorced after three years and she declared herself bankrupt. She died shortly before she was due to perform at a New York gig.
Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries Page 57
