CAUSE: She died aged 77 in Newport Beach, California, of liver failure.
Roger Delgado
(ROGER CAESAR MARIUS BERNARD DE DELGADO TORRES CASTILLO ROBERTO)
Born March 1, 1918
Died June 18, 1973
The Master. Delgado, the son of a Spanish banker father and a French mother, was born in London during the last air raid of the First World War. He longed to be in drama but followed his father’s footsteps and began working in a bank. Then, one Friday in 1938, after 18 months in the job he walked out of his City bank and on the following Tuesday began rehearsals with the Nelson Repertory Company at the Theatre Royal, Leicester, for a production of You Can’t Take It With You. He then found a niche playing villains and appeared in all forms of show business except cabaret and ice shows. His best-known villain was on television playing Dr Who’s nemesis, the renegade Time Lord known as The Master, a mantle he took up in an episode called Terror Of The Autons on January 2, 1971. His films included: The Broken Horseshoe (1953), Blood Orange (1953) as Marlowe, Storm Over The Nile (1955), Mark Of The Phoenix (1958), The Stranglers Of Bombay (1960), The Terror Of The Tongs (1961) as Tang Hao, The Road To Hong Kong (1962) as Jhinnah, Masquerade (1965) as Ahmed Ben Faïd, The Mummy’s Shroud (1967) as Hasmid and The Assassination Bureau (1969).
CAUSE: He was killed aged 55 in a car crash while working in Turkey. Ironically, one of his hobbies was driving fast sports cars. Delgado was working on a film called Bell Of Tibet when the hired car he was in plunged into a ravine near Neveshir. Police said the crash was caused by the chauffeur taking a bend too quickly.
Dorothy Dell
(DOROTHY DELL GOFF)
Born January 30, 1915
Died June 8, 1934
Tragic starlet. Born Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Dorothy was an absolute stunner, becoming Miss New Orleans and then winning both the Miss America and Miss Universe titles in 1930. She landed a job with the Ziegfeld Follies in 1931 and then signed a contract with Paramount. She appeared in Wharf Angel (1934) as Toy with Victor McLaglen. She then played nightclub singer Bangles Carson in the Shirley Temple flick Little Miss Marker (1934). The childhood best friend of Dorothy Lamour, she was promoted as Paramount’s answer to Alice Faye. It was not to be.
CAUSE: In June 1934, blonde Dorothy and her boyfriend, a Beverly Hills doctor, attended a party in the Altadena Hills. On the way home their car went over an embankment, smashed into a telephone pole and hit a boulder. Dorothy died immediately, her lover a few hours later. Her final movie, Shoot The Works (1934), in which she played Lily Raquel, was released posthumously.
Cecil B. DeMille
Born August 12, 1881
Died January 21, 1959
Epic director. Born in Ashfield, Massachusetts, the man who made biblical cinematic epics was the son of a preacher. The 5́ 11˝ Cecil Blount DeMille followed in his brother William’s (b. 1878, d. Playa del Rey, March 4, 1955) footsteps by enrolling in the American Academy Of Dramatic Arts. He worked as an actor, stage manager and playwright before co-founding The Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company (later Paramount) in 1913 with Lasky and Samuel Goldfish (later Goldwyn). His first film (which he co-directed, wrote, produced and appeared in) was The Squaw Man (1914). DeMille became an expert at the art of self-publicity, often appearing in prologues to his films. He became known for his image of bald head, boots and megaphone. He wore boots on set in the early days to protect him from snake bites and kept them as an affectation ever after. “He wore baldness like an expensive hat, as though it were out of the question for him to have hair like other men,” said Gloria Swanson. He made Brewster’s Millions (1914), The Master Mind (1914), The Virginian (1914), Rose Of The Rancho (1914), After Five (1915), The Wild Goose Chase (1915), The Warrens Of Virginia (1915), Carmen (1915), Maria Rosa (1916), The Trail Of The Lonesome Pine (1916), Sweet Kitty Bellairs (1916), A Romance Of The Redwoods (1917), You Can’t Have Everything (1918), Old Wives For New (1918), Don’t Change Your Husband (1919), For Better, For Worse (1919), Male And Female (1919) which contained a scene of Gloria Swanson preparing for a bath, Why Change Your Wife? (1920), Saturday Night (1922) and Adam’s Rib (1923). Following a series of scandals a new morality invaded Hollywood and DeMille, ever quick to jump on a bandwagon, began making biblical films or movies with a message such as Manslaughter (1922). A move to MGM saw DeMille remake The Squaw Man (1931) but he quickly returned to Paramount, where he spent the rest of his career. He made two versions of The Ten Commandments 33 years apart (1923 and 1956) and when asked why he made so many biblical-themed films, he replied, “Why let 2,000 years of publicity go to waste?” DeMille was not one to suffer inaccuracies in his films. He spent $100,000 researching for his epic Cleopatra (1934). This even stretched to sending researchers to Egypt to check what colour the pyramids are. (They returned with the news that they are the same colour the man in the street thought they were – sandy brown.) That said, at one point in DeMille’s The Crusades (1935), the actor playing the king looks at his wristwatch. In 1937 DeMille was nominated for senator by the Republicans but declined the nomination. For a time he was Anthony Quinn’s father-in-law (the actor was married to Katherine DeMille from 1937 until 1941). When DeMille was given the honour of preserving his handprints in cement at Grauman’s Chinese Theater, he was too busy on set to leave, so the cement was brought to the shoot. DeMille had some peculiar habits. He had a collection of over 200 shrunken heads and he was a foot fetishist. Actress Paulette Goddard revealed, “I actually used my bare feet to get better roles out of him.” His later films included: North West Mounted Police (1940), Reap The Wild Wind (1942), Unconquered (1947), California’s Golden Beginning (1948), Samson And Delilah (1949) and The Greatest Show On Earth (1952), all of which he also produced except for the fourth in this list. He also had a small career as an actor – usually, though not always, playing himself. He was the narrator on Reap The Wild Wind (1942) and Unconquered (1947), the voice of God on The Ten Commandments (1956) and played himself in Sunset Blvd. (1950). He married Constance Adams on August 16, 1902, in Orange, New Jersey, and had a daughter Cecilia (b. Orange, New Jersey, October 5, 1908). They also adopted two sons, John (b. 1909 as John Gonzales) in 1914 and Richard (b. 1922) in 1940 (although he was with the family from babyhood) and a daughter Katherine (b. Canada, 1911, as Katherine Lester) in 1920. The most famous anecdote regarding DeMille is one oft told but worth repeating. It relates to one of his Biblical epics, when he had five cameras ready to capture the action from various angles. It would be a tremendous scene and all had to be done in one take. DeMille called action and the scene began. When he called “Cut” he contacted all the cameramen on radio microphones. “Number 1, did you get the shot?” “Yes, Mr DeMille.” “Number 2?” “Yes, Mr DeMille,” and so on. Then it was number five’s turn. “Well?” asked DeMille. “Ready when you are, Mr DeMille.”
CAUSE: He died of a heart seizure at 5am in Hollywood, California, aged 77. He was buried on January 23, 1959, with the funeral taking place at St Stephen’s Episcopal Church, 6126 Yucca Street. He was laid to rest beside his brother (who once commented, “The trouble with Cecil is that he bites off more than he can chew – and then chews it”) in the Hollywood Memorial Park, 6000 Santa Monica Boulevard, Hollywood, California 90038.
FURTHER READING: Cecil B. DeMille – Charles Higham (New York: Da Capo Press, 1973).
Ted Demme
Born October 26, 1963
Died January 13, 2002
Jonathan’s nephew. Ted Demme was born in New York and began working as a production assistant at MTV. He co-directed the video for Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Streets Of Philadelphia’ but his first motion picture was Who’s The Man? (1993). He was best known for directing Blow (2001) which starred Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz and was the story of the real-life drug kingpin George Jung, who established the US cocaine market in the Seventies. Demme was married to Amanda Scheer and they had two children, a five-year-old daughter and a two-month-old son.
CAUSE: D
emme suffered a heart attack while playing in a celebrity basketball game at the private Crossroads School in Santa Monica. He was rushed by paramedics to the Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center in full cardiac arrest shortly after 5pm. Efforts to revive Demme failed and he was pronounced dead about 20 minutes later. He was 38.
Michael Denison, CBE
Born November 1, 1915
Died July 22, 1998
True Brit. Born in Doncaster, Yorkshire, John Michael Terence Wellesley Denison attended Harrow and Magdalen College, Oxford (BA in modern languages), before studying at the Webber-Douglas School. In August 1938 he made his first appearance on stage at Frinton-on-Sea playing Lord Fancourt Babberley in Charley’s Aunt. It was to be the start of a long and distinguished stage career. He made his first film Inspector Hornleigh On Holiday in 1939 and his second a year later, Tilly Of Bloomsbury, playing Dick Mainwaring. From 1939 until 1946 he served with the Royal Signals and Intelligence Corps. He resumed his career after the cessation of hostilities and went on to appear in Hungry Hill (1947) as Henry Broderick, My Brother Jonathan (1948) as Jonathan Dakers, The Glass Mountain (1949) as Richard Wilder, The Importance Of Being Earnest (1952) as Algernon Moncrieff, There Was A Young Lady (1953) as David Walsh and Shadowlands (1993) as ‘Harry’ Harrington, his last film and his first for over 30 years. On television he took the lead role in the drama Boyd, QC from 1956 for eight years. In 1939 he married the actress and authoress Dulcie Gray. He contributed a number of articles (most notably the one on Noël Coward) to The Dictionary Of National Biography.
CAUSE: He died of cancer aged 82 at his home, Shardeloes, in Amersham, Buckinghamshire.
John Derek
(DEREK DULLIVAN HARRIS)
Born August 12, 1926
Died May 22, 1998
Lucky blighter. To a whole generation of film-goers John Derek is known only as the man who married Bo Derek (b. Torrance, California, November 21, 1956, as Mary Catherine Collins), the beautiful, corn-braided, 5́ 4˝ blonde who first came to the public’s attention in 10 (1979) starring opposite Dudley Moore. However, there was much more to John Derek than his wife Bo. He was also the man who married beautiful blondes Ursula Andress and Linda Evans. Oh, and he also had something of an acting career. Born in Hollywood, California, the son of an actor-turned-architect, 5́10½˝ Derek began his movie career by being offered a contract by David O. Selznick as a teenager. His first job was acting in the film I’ll Be Seeing You (1944) as Lieutenant Bruce; bizarrely, he was listed as Dare Harris on the credits. A steady rather than an overly charismatic actor, he went on to appear in Knock On Any Door (1949) as street punk Nick Romano, All The King’s Men (1949) as Tom Stark, Rogues Of Sherwood Forest (1950) as Robin, Earl of Huntington, Mask Of The Avenger (1951) as Captain Renato Dimorna, Saturday’s Hero (1951) as Steve Novak, Thunderbirds (1952) as Gil Hackett, Scandal Sheet (1952) as Steve McCleary, Sea Of Lost Ships (1953) as Grad Matthews, Prince Of Pirates (1953) as Prince Roland, the title role in The Adventures Of Hajji Baba (1954), Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1956) in which he played Joshua, Fury At Showdown (1957) as Brock Mitchell, Omar Khayyam (1957) as Young Prince Malik, Exodus (1960) as Taha, Once Before I Die (1965) as Bailey and his last film Nightmare In The Sun (1965). Derek had many opportunities to appear in better films, but felt he was hamstrung by his studio. Consequently, he never let any of his wives become bound by studio contracts. He was also picked on by the press because of his pretty boy looks. One critic carped that if John Derek wore a wig he would look like Rita Hayworth. Derek saved his charisma for off-screen, capturing the hearts of some of the world’s most beautiful women. Following the divorce from his little-known first wife, Princess Pati Behrs Eristoff (they had a quadriplegic son, Russell, b. 1950, and a daughter Sean Catherine, b. October 16, 1953), he married Ursula Andress (b. Berne, Switzerland, March 19, 1936) in Las Vegas on February 2, 1957, and divorced her ten years later, following his affair with Linda Evans and Andress’ fling with Jean-Paul Belmondo. The 5́ 7˝ Evans (b. Hartford, Connecticut, November 18, 1942, as Linda Evanstad) became Mrs Derek only to be dumped for Bo, whom he married in 1974. He guided her career in a Svengali-like manner to see her become, for a time, the world’s number one sex symbol. He wrote, photographed, directed and she starred in (usually without her clothes on) the following films: Fantasies (1981), Tarzan, The Ape Man (1981) (he didn’t write this one), Bolero (1984) and Ghosts Can’t Do It (1991). In 1979 he directed and she produced a hardcore porn film.
CAUSE: After suffering from heart trouble for many years, he finally succumbed in Santa Maria, California, aged 71.
FURTHER READING: Cast Of Characters– Sean Catherine Derek (New York: Leisure Books, 1982).
Jerry Desmonde
(JAMES ROBERT SADLER)
Born July 20, 1908
Died February 11, 1967
Gentlemanly foil. Born in of all places, although you would never know it from his accent, Middlesbrough, he began his professional career on July 20, 1922, teaming up with the rest of his family to become one of The Four Sadlers. He didn’t intend to join the family act but his sister Elsie left the troupe when she eloped and Jerry put on a wig and her clothes and for two years was ‘Elsie’. In 1927 he toured America in a show called This Year Of Grace. He later became a stooge to Scottish comedian Dave Willis and worked with his wife, Peg, as Peg & Jerry for seven years before becoming straight man to Sid Field on stage and in two films – London Town (1946) and Cardboard Cavalier (1949) playing Lovelace. However, shortly after opening with Field in a 1949 production of Harvey, Desmonde was sacked. Field had dropped out of the show through ill-health and newspapers began asking if he would be as funny without Desmonde. Field refused to return to the show until his former stooge had been replaced. He also worked with Arthur Askey, Bob Hope and Nat Jackley. On television he was a regular panelist on What’s My Line? and also presented The 64,000 Question from 1956 until 1958. Yet he was probably best known for his work with Norman Wisdom in films such as Trouble In Store (1953) in which he played store boss Augustus Freeman, Man Of The Moment (1955) as Jackson, Up In The World (1956) as Major Willoughby, Just My Luck (1957), A Stitch In Time (1963) as Sir Hector and The Early Bird (1965) as Mr Hunter. His other films included: The Perfect Woman (1949), The Malta Story (1953), Alf’s Baby (1953) as Alf Donkin, The Angel Who Pawned Her Harp (1954) as Parker, Ramsbottom Rides Again (1956) as Blue Eagle, A King In New York (1957) as Prime Minister Voudel, Follow A Star (1959) as Vernon Carew, Carry On Regardless (1961) as Martin Paul, A Kind Of Loving (1962), Stolen Hours (1963), The Beauty Jungle (1964) and Gonks Go Beat (1965) as the Great Galaxian. He was as fastidious off-screen as on-, rarely being seen without highly polished shoes and a smartly pressed suit.
CAUSE: He died by his own hand aged 59 in London.
Brad Dexter
(BORIS MILANOVICH)
Born April 9, 1917
Died December 12, 2002
Frank’s pal. Born in Goldfield, Nevada, the son of Serbian emigres, Dexter grew up speaking Serbo-Croat. He became a lifelong friend of Karl Malden, another Serb, after they met in the air force during the Second World War. They also appeared in stage and film versions of Winged Victory (1944), a drama about airmen designed to bolster wartime morale in which Dexter played the role of Jack Browning. After the war, Dexter, who had been a talented amateur boxer, studied acting at the Pasadena Playhouse and changed his name to Barry Mitchell. His earliest films included Heldorado (1946) as Alex Baxter and Sinbad The Sailor (1947) as Muallin with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr, but his big break came with The Asphalt Jungle in 1950. He played Bob Brannom and it was the start of a career that often saw him portraying thugs and villains. He played jewel thief and murderer Victor Rawlins in 99 River Street (1953) and gangster Gil Clayton in Violent Saturday (1955). He was the flamboyant real-life hoodlum Bugsy Siegel in The George Raft Story (1961). “I love playing heavies,” he said. “It’s the best-written character.” In January 1953, he married singer Peggy Lee in the garden of he
r hilltop home in Los Angeles but by September they were divorced. Dexter said afterwards, “I doubt if I’ll ever get married again. I can’t put up with ‘What are you doing?’ and ‘Where have you been?’” He was comforted by Marilyn Monroe, whom he had met on the set of The Asphalt Jungle. Dexter insisted that he and the 20th century’s leading sex symbol were just friends, though it was not only showbiz reporters who speculated on the relationship: her husband Joe DiMaggio threw a fit when he first found Dexter in his home. Dexter often worked on television westerns and played Beero, the Belden foreman in Last Train From Gun Hill (1959). It was following this that John Sturges signed him to play the most famous unknown in Hollywood. Yul Brynner was the only star name in The Magnificent Seven although Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Robert Vaughn and Charles Bronson would all become household names. That fate was not for Brad Dexter who played Harry Luck in the movie. Years later James Coburn struggled to complete the line-up, stumbling over “what’s-his-name … the guy that nobody can remember”. Dexter and Charles Bronson were reunited on the flying drama X-15 (1961), in which Dexter played Major Anthony Rinaldi and Frank Sinatra produced. It was the beginning of a long working relationship. Dexter and Sinatra appeared together in the war films None But The Brave (1965), which Sinatra directed, and Von Ryan’s Express (1965), and Ol’ Blue Eyes appointed Dexter as vice-president of Sinatra Enterprises. On May 10, 1964, during the filming of None But The Brave on the island of Kauai in Hawaii, Sinatra went swimming during a break in filming. With him was Ruth Koch, the wife of the film’s executive producer Howard Koch. Suddenly those on the beach realised that an undertow had pulled the couple away from the shore and they were drowning in the rough water. Dexter raced into the ocean and kept the heads of the nearly unconscious pair above water until lifeguards arrived. The incident became worldwide news. Afterwards, Dexter refused to talk to the press about the incident, describing Sinatra as “one of my closest friends”. Years later, when interviewed by Kitty Kelley for her biography of Sinatra, His Way (1986), Dexter revealed that he had not spoken to Sinatra for years. “I realise now that my rescue efforts probably severed the friendship there and then,” he said. “He never thanked me, then or later. I didn’t see the love–hate relationship all that clearly at the time, but it certainly became obvious later on.” Dexter produced The Naked Runner (1967), a secret agent melodrama with Sinatra as star, but the two men fell out over Sinatra’s relationship with the 30 years younger Mia Farrow. Dexter’s other films included Macao (1952) as Vincent Halloran, Between Heaven And Hell (1956) as Lieutenant Joe Johnson, Run Silent Run Deep (1958) as Lieutenant Gerald Cartwright, Vice Raid (1959) as Vince Malone, Twenty Plus Two (1961) as Leroy Dane, Taras Bulba (1962) as Shilo, Kings Of The Sun (1963) as Ah Haleb, Johnny Cool (1963) as Lennart Crandall, Invitation To A Gunfighter (1964) as Kenarsie, Blindfold (1965) as Detective Harrigan, Bus Riley’s Back In Town (1965) as Slocum, Jory (1972) as Jack, Shampoo (1975) as Senator East, The Private Files Of J. Edgar Hoover (1977) as Alvin ‘Creepy’ Karpis, House Calls (1978) as Quinn, Winter Kills (1979) as Captain Heller One and Tajna Manastirske Rakije (1989) as Veljko Pantovich. Dexter married secondly the Star-Kist tuna heiress Mary Bogdonovich and they were together until her death in 1992. In 1994 he married June Deyer.
Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries Page 61
