CAUSE: Divine died aged 42 of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy with cardiomegaly in room 252 of the Regency Plaza Suites Hotel, 7940 Hollywood Boulevard, a day after learning he owed the taxman approximately $100,000. It took six officers of the coroner to lift Divine’s body into the paddy wagon for the journey to the morgue. On March 10 he was buried in Prospect Hill Cemetery, Towson, Maryland. For a man used to wearing extravagant clothing, he was soberly dressed in his coffin wearing a black Tommy Nutter suit, black polo neck shirt and Andrew Logan jewellery. Ironically, when he was a teenager Divine would host parties decorated with flowers stolen from that very cemetery.
FURTHER READING: Not Simply Divine – Bernard Jay (London: Virgin, 1993).
Troy Donahue
(MERLE JOHNSON, JR.)
Born January 27, 1936
Died September 2, 2001
Fifties teen heartthrob. Born in New York City, Donahue moved at 19 to Hollywood, where he was discovered by Warner Bros. It was the release of A Summer Place (1959) in which he played Sandra Dee’s young lover that made him for a time the studio’s top box office draw. During his heyday, Donahue split his time between the movies and television, appearing as Sandy Winfield II in ABC’s detective series Surfside Six (October 3, 1960–September 24, 1962). Merle Johnson, Jr. became Troy Donahue thanks to Henry Willson, the same film agent who renamed Roy Scherer, Jr. as Rock Hudson. “It was part of me 10 minutes after I got it. It feels so natural, I jump when people call me by my old name. Even my mother and sister call me Troy now,” he said. He went on to star in a series of teen romances including Parrish (1961), Rome Adventure (1962) and Palm Springs Weekend (1963). He took a bit part in 1974’s Godfather Part II, playing Merle Johnson. But with his career in decline, Donahue became a drug addict and alcoholic, and spent a summer homeless in New York’s Central Park. He stopped drinking in the early Eighties. “I realised that I was going to die, and I was dying – or worse than that, I might live the way I was living for the rest of my life,” Donahue said at the time. To many, Donahue is known only as part of a lyric in a song from Grease – ‘Look At Me I’m Sandra Dee’. Donahue was married four times: to the actress Suzanne Pleshette on January 4, 1964 but they divorced on September 8, 1964; another actress Valerie Allen (1966–1968); to secretary Alma Sharp on November 15, 1969; and to Vicky Taylor (1979–1981). At the time of his death he lived in Santa Monica with his fiancée, mezzo soprano Zheng Cao. However, there were rumours that Donahue was a homosexual, perhaps fuelled by the shortness of all his marriages. In 1984 he told People magazine, “I am not gay. Once in a while people get me confused with another blond, blue-eyed actor who was around at the same time, but it’s no big deal.” The actor Donahue was referring to was Tab Hunter.
CAUSE: Donahue died at St John’s Hospital and Medical Centre in Santa Monica after suffering a heart attack four days earlier. He was 65.
Robert Donat
Born March 18, 1905
Died June 9, 1958
The man who bested Clark Gable. Born in Withington, Manchester, to a Polish civil engineer father and an English mother, Friederich Robert Donat was sent to elocution lessons to cure a childhood stammer. He was still a teenager (16) when he made his acting début on stage in Birmingham and spent the rest of his career alternating between stage and the big screen. The (6)߰Donat made his movie début in That Night In London (1932) as Dick Warren and made only 19 more over the next 26 years. But oh, what films they were. Following his appearance as Thomas Culpepper in The Private Life Of Henry VIII (1933) he was offered work in America but made only one film there, playing Edmond Dantes in The Count Of Monte Cristo (1934). He turned down Captain Blood and The Adventures Of Robin Hood because his chronic asthma was exacerbated by the warm weather in Los Angeles. He also suffered from severe depression. (Both parts went to helping the career of Errol Flynn.) Back in England he returned to the stage and appeared in The 39 Steps (1935) as Richard Hannay, The Ghost Goes West (1935) as Murdoch Glourie/Donald Glourie, The Citadel (1938) as Dr Andrew Manson (for which he was nominated for Best Actor Oscar), The Young Mr Pitt (1942) as The Earl of Chatham, Captain Boycott (1947) as Charles Stewart Parnell, The Winslow Boy (1948) as Sir Robert Morton and Cure For Love (1950) as Sergeant Jack Hardacre, a film he also produced, directed and wrote. It was for his performance as kindly schoolteacher Mr Chipping in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), based on James Hilton’s novel, that Donat won the Best Actor Oscar, beating out Clark Gable’s Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind, Laurence Olivier’s Heathcliffe in Wuthering Heights, Mickey Rooney’s Babes In Arms and James Stewart’s Mr Smith Goes To Washington. Donat, a shy man by nature, didn’t attend the ceremony, which was held on February 29, 1940, to collect his award in person. He married twice. His first wife (in Wilmslow, Cheshire, in 1929) was Ella Annesley Voysey and they had two sons, John (b. September 19, 1933) and Brian (b. August 3, 1936), and a daughter, Joanna (b. May 19, 1931). In London on May 4, 1953, seven years after his divorce, he married actress (Dorothy) Renée Ascherson (b. 1920). They separated in 1956.
CAUSE: For the last five years of his life (6)߰Donat was a martyr to his asthma. It made him a virtual invalid. He died of a chronic asthma attack in London. His last film, The Inn Of The Sixth Happiness (1958), was released posthumously. His last words on screen were to Ingrid Bergman: “Stay here for a time. It will comfort me as I leave to know it. We shall never see each other again, I think. Farewell.” Donat left £25,236 11s 5d.
Brian Donlevy
(GROSSON BRIAN BORU DONLEVY)
Born February 9, 1899
Died April 5, 1972
Hollywood realist. Born in Portadown, County Armagh, Ireland, Donlevy went to America with his family aged two and was raised in Wisconsin. Aged 17 he ran away from home to join the army and ended up fighting Mexican bandit Pancho Villa. During World War I he was a pilot with the Lafayette Escadrille. He also spent a couple of years at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. In the Twenties he became New York’s best-known male model, the same decade he made his film début. When he played Knuckles Jacoby in Barbary Coast (1935) the costume department placed him in the black shirt Clark Gable had worn in Call Of The Wild (1935) in the hope it would bring Donlevy luck. It did more than that. It made his name and he wore it for years afterwards, being offered a contract by Fox (although his pompous attitude meant he was disliked as much on set as his character was off). His films included: 36 Hours To Kill (1936) as Frank Evers, Strike Me Pink (1936) as Vance, Human Cargo (1936) as Packy Campbell, In Old Chicago (1937) as Gil Warren, Sharpshooters (1938) as Steve Mitchell, Battle Of Broadway (1938) as Chesty Webb, Jesse James (1939) as Mr Barshee, Beau Geste (1939) as Sergeant Markoff, for which he was nominated for an Oscar, Destry Rides Again (1939) as Kent, Brigham Young – Frontiersman as Angus Duncan, Billy The Kid as Jim Sherwood, I Wanted Wings (1941) as Captain Mercer (it was filmed on a real military camp and Donlevy was saluted by real soldiers so often he took to wearing a sign that said ‘Actor’), Birth Of The Blues (1941) as Memphis, Two Yanks In Trinidad as Vince Barrows, Nightmare (1942) as Daniel Shane, Stand By For Action (1943) as Lieutenant Commander Martin J. Robertson, Our Hearts Were Growing Up (1946) as Tony Minnetti, The Virginian (1946) as Trampas, Canyon Passage (1946) as George Camrose, Song Of Scheherazade (1947) as Captain Gregorovitch, Killer McCoy (1947) as Jim Caighn, Kiss Of Death (1947) as Assistant District Attorney Louie DeAngelo, Command Decision (1948) as General Clifton Garnet, Impact (1949) as Walter Williams, Shakedown (1950) as Nick Palmer, Kansas Raiders (1950) as William Quantrill, Hoodlum Empire (1952) as Senator Bill Stephens, The Big Combo (1955) as McClure, Escape From Red Rock (1958) as Bronc Grierson, Juke Box Rhythm (1959) as George Manton, How To Stuff A Wild Bikini (1965) as B. D., Arizona Bushwhackers (1968) as Mayor Joe Smith and his last movie Pit Stop (1969) as Grant Willard. He readily accepted that Hollywood was all illusion so he made a list of what was needed to be done to prepare himself for a day on set: 1) Insert dentures; 2) Don hairpiece; 3) Strap on corset; 4) Lace up
‘elevator’ shoes. He married three times, firstly to Ziegfeld Follies girl Yvonne Grey on October 5, 1928 (they divorced in February 1936). In Tijuana, Mexico, on December 22, 1936, he married singer-actress Marjorie Lane and had one daughter, Judith Ann (b. February 20, 1943). They divorced in 1947. On February 25, 1966, he wed Lillian Lugosi, widow of Bela Lugosi. Away from the cameras Donlevy had two completely unrelated interests – writing poems and gold mining. Following his retirement in 1969 he moved to Palm Springs where he began composing short stories.
CAUSE: In 1971 he was admitted to the Motion Picture County Hospital, Woodland Hills, California, for throat surgery. On March 10, 1972, he was readmitted and died there aged 73 of throat cancer, less than four weeks later.
Casey Donovan
(CALVIN CULVER)
Born November 2, 1943
Died August 10, 1987
Gay superstar. Born in East Bloomfield, New York, a former private school teacher, Donovan was the first male porn star to have his name above the title. He was anonymous in his early films until fan letters began arriving in sack loads from men wanting to know his identity, so he assumed the name of a character he played in a film. His movies included: Ginger (1971), Boys In The Sand (1971), Fun And Games (1973), The Opening Of Misty Beethoven (1976), L.A. Tool & Die (1981), Sleaze (1982), Hotshots (1983), Boys In The Sand II (1984) and Inevitable Love (1985).
CAUSE: He died of AIDS aged 43 in Inverness, Florida.
Françoise Dorléac
Born March 21, 1942
Died June 26, 1967
Dedicated actrice. Born in Paris, France, she was one of four daughters of minor French stage actor Maurice Dorléac. Françoise showed a determination to achieve something for herself. When she took ballet lessons, she practised so long that her toes bled. Her little sister was the actress Catherine Deneuve (b. October 22, 1943) but the two girls could not have been more different. Françoise threw herself into everything with a passion and determination, whereas Catherine was described by their mother as a “tender, fragile little girl”. Françoise made her stage début aged 10 and began modelling five years later, which led directly to her first film. She was spotted by a talent scout and landed a small part in Mensonges (1957). Back at school she dreamed of being a successful actress. Her first feature film was playing Madeleine in Les Loups Dans La Bergerie (1959) about some hoodlums who hide out in a borstal. Her appearance in Les Portes Claquent (1960) led to Catherine’s film début. The producers were looking for someone to play Françoise’s sister in the film and she recommended her real-life sibling. In 1961 she appeared in five films but just one, Arsène Lupin Contre Arsène Lupin (1962), over the next three years. It was her performance as mistress Nicole in François Truffaut’s La Peau Douce (1964) that first brought her international recognition. Françoise began spending hours perfecting her image. “I want to dress so that everybody tries to dress like me, and nobody can. I love it when you are completely dressed and you look naked. I wear chain belts to look fragile, like a slave. Every time I go out, even if it’s 6 o’clock in the morning, when nobody can see, it’s still important [to] keep a certain class, but look erotic.” Her first major American film was the espionage adventure Where The Spies Are (1965) in which she played Vikki opposite David Niven. She played Mrs Genghis Khan, Bortei, in Genghis Khan (1965) and was the bored, flirtatious Teresa in Roman Polanski’s Cul-De-Sac (1966). However, success didn’t make her happy. “I find that with each picture, I become more insecure, less confident about my ability to do good work.” She lived with her mum and dad until she was 23, when Madame Dorléac insisted she stand on her own two feet. Her mother found her a new home, which was across the street from the family house. She played Catherine’s twin, Solange Garnier, in Les Demoiselles De Rochefort (1967) before appearing in Billion Dollar Brain (1967) as double agent Anya. She never married.
CAUSE: In the summer of 1967 she went on holiday in St Tropez with Catherine. Driving alone to Nice airport she lost control of her car, smacked into a concrete road sign and burned to death when the vehicle caught alight. She was just 25.
Diana Dors
(DIANA MARY FLUCK)
Born October 23, 1931
Died May 4, 1984
Britain’s answer to Marilyn Monroe. It is a cliché but none the less true that the life story of Diana Dors reads like a soap opera. Born in the Haven Nursing Home, Kent Road, Swindon, Wiltshire, her mother, Mary, decided that young Diana would have all the opportunities she never had. To get rid of her West Country accent Diana was given elocution lessons. She also attended dancing and piano lessons, although she quickly became bored with the latter and gave up, to the fury of her father. At school she was something of a practical joker and often played truant to go to the cinema. At the age of eight she wrote an essay about what she wanted to do when she grew up and revealed her plans to be a Hollywood star with a swimming pool and a cream-coloured telephone. During World War II she entertained the GIs and at the age of 12½ put peroxide streaks in her naturally brown hair. With her precocious figure she soon found herself leered after by many a Yank who, as many an Englishman complained, were “Over paid, oversexed and over here”. She attended dances with her mother, who had made a friend of the camp cook, with the result that a goodie bag of desirables went home with her after each do. Diana was also not averse to the company of local boys and for a time dated a 17-year-old called Desmond Morris, later to be famous in his own right. Expelled from school and on holiday in Weston-super-Mare Diana entered a beauty contest and came third. A picture of her appeared in the local paper and this got her a job as a model for the art school. It also led to her appearing on radio and in a number of stage productions. In September 1945, 5́ 5˝ Diana began attending the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). It was at LAMDA that Diana became a fully fledged blonde. To give her some income she also began showing her 36-24-35 figure nude for a camera club in London at a wage of a guinea an hour. At the end of her first year she passed all her exams with distinction and landed her first film role as the flashy Mildred in The Shop At Sly Corner (1947), which starred Oscar Homolka and Muriel Pavlow. Diana was paid £8 per day for her work and also changed her name. Imagining her name up in lights she wondered, “What on earth would I do if the letter ‘L’ went out?” She adopted her grandmother’s name, which was Dors, and so Diana Dors was born at Wharton Studios, Isleworth. When she told the director her age he wouldn’t believe her and the crew were convinced her magnificent embonpoint was the result of gaffer tape rather than nature’s gift. She made three films altogether in 1947 earning £10 a day as a jitterbugger in Holiday Camp and the same fee as a dance hall hostess in Dancing With Crime. When she went home she took her earnings with her (including the guineas she made posing nude for the camera club) and proudly displayed £150 in notes. Her father, never her greatest fan, was initially not impressed that his 15-year-old daughter was making more money than him. In 1948 she landed the role of Charlotte in David Lean’s Oliver Twist and was also offered a 10-year contract by Rank beginning at £10 a week. At LAMDA she was awarded the Alexander Korda Cup for the most promising student and her acceptance speech was written by her father, who by now was finally beginning to see the talent in his daughter that everyone else did. At the Rank School they put her in a number of films in bit parts including Good Time Girl (1949) as delinquent Lyla Lawrence, It’s Not Cricket (1949) as an aspiring secretary, The Calendar (1948) as the maid Hawkins and My Sister And I (1948) as a gofer. She appeared as Diana Hopkins in both Here Come The Huggetts (1948) and Vote For Huggett (1949). For the second film Diana attended her first and only press screening. The media were not enamoured with the film. It was while filming yet another ‘bad girl’ role, Ada Foster, in A Boy, A Girl And A Bike (1949) in Yorkshire that Diana lost her virginity to actor Gil Gynt, brother of the actress Greta Gynt who had presented her with the Alexander Korda Cup in her LAMDA days. (It was for Diana, as for so many, a disappointing experience.) Back in London Dia
na rented a flat just off the King’s Road for the bargain sum of £5 a week. In 1948 she fell pregnant and had an abortion, which cost her £10. When she was 19 she suddenly found herself unemployed when the Rank Charm School closed and all contracts were terminated. Her latest film, Diamond City (1949) in which she played Dora, had not been a success. In May 1951, while filming Lady Godiva Rides Again (1951), she met a handsome charmer called Dennis Hamilton (b. Brymbro, North Wales, October 23, 1924, as Dennis Hamlington Gittins). On July 2, 1951, having known each other just five weeks, they went to Kensington Registry Office to be married. Diana, 19, claimed to be 22 but had a letter from her parents giving their permission for the marriage to go ahead. The ceremony didn’t actually take place that day, though the next day they were married. Hamilton had rung the press and a veritable posse of journalists and paparazzi turned up to see the happy couple. Meanwhile, the registrar had received a phone call telling him the letter from Mr & Mrs Fluck was a forgery but Hamilton was not a man to be turned away lightly. The wedding went ahead after he threatened to knock the registrar’s teeth out. They moved into a house in Beauchamp Place, Knightsbridge, and Diana landed a job as Ruby Bruce on The Last Page (1952), which paid her £450. When no more work arrived they moved to Dunsfold in Surrey, unable to afford the luxury of SW3. Hamilton then approached the newspapers with a story that Diana had turned down a £400-a-week Hollywood salary to stay in the country she loved. The scam garnered press coverage but no work. Another abortion followed. One day Hamilton bought Diana a Rolls-Royce and she began arriving at jobs in the car, prompting people to speculate that she must be doing well. How little they knew. In 1952 she also appeared in two flop stage plays. She turned to variety and her first appearance at the notorious Glasgow Empire was met by complete silence. Once she was off stage she moaned to the stage manager that she was terrible. “Och no, at least they didn’t throw things,” were his consoling words. In 1953 she made the prison drama The Weak And The Wicked (1953) playing Betty Brown. She also had an affair with comedian Bob Monkhouse and when Dennis Hamilton found out he threatened to slit Monkhouse’s eyeballs with a cutthroat razor. Monkhouse only escaped by kneeing Hamilton where it hurts. The Weak And The Wicked was a hit but it was Diana’s next prison film that would finally transform her from a primarily B-picture actress to a fully fledged star. Yield To The Night (1956) starred Diana as Mary Hilton, a woman condemned to death for the murder of her ex-boyfriend’s girlfriend. Despite the oft-repeated rumour, the film wasn’t based on the story of 28-year-old Ruth Ellis. The latter was executed on July 13, 1955, for the murder of her racing driver boyfriend David Blakely, 25, outside the Magdala Tavern, South Hill Park, Hampstead, on April 10, 1955. The story for the film, written by Joan Henry, was conceived in 1953, two years before the Blakely murder. In 1956 Diana was voted Variety Club Show Business Personality Of The Year and Yield To The Night was chosen as the year’s Royal Command Film Performance. On June 23, 1956, Diana arrived in New York aboard the Queen Elizabeth II to begin her American odyssey. Flying out to Los Angeles she began filming I Married A Woman (1956) for RKO, for which she was paid £35,000. Although mega bucks were offered, Diana quickly tired of the superficiality that typified and typifies Tinseltown. On August 19, they threw a party at their new home, Hillside House on Coldwater Canyon, and one photographer, Stewart Sawyer, seeing an eye for a picture pushed Diana into the swimming pool. Dennis Hamilton beat him up but the next day the newspapers were full of Hamilton’s bad behaviour, not the snapper’s. During the filming of her next movie, The Unholy Wife (1957) in which she played Phyllis Hochen, Diana began an affair with her co-star Rod Steiger. The film flopped and Diana returned to England without a husband. However, Hamilton was not one to give up the easy life that easily and he talked Diana into giving him another chance. Diana appeared on This Is Your Life on April 1, 1957, and the final guest was Hollywood photographer Stewart Sawyer. It was all Diana could do at the end of the show to stop Hamilton beating Sawyer up again. The final split with Hamilton came when he pulled a shotgun on her and made her sign everything over to him. On Boxing Day of that year Diana threw a party and met a young comedian called Dickie Dawson (b. Gosport, Hampshire, November 20, 1932). They began dating and in early 1959 Diana flew to America. It was while she was there on January 31, that Dennis Hamilton died in London of tertiary syphilis. On April 12, 1959, Diana and Dickie Dawson were married in New York. At 9.55pm on February 4, 1960, Mark Richard Dawson was born weighing 6lb 15oz in the London Clinic. Another son, Gary, followed on June 27, 1962 at the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, Los Angeles. He weighed 10lb 2oz. Over this period Diana appeared in Tread Softly Stranger (1958) as Calco, Passport To Shame (1958) as Vicki, On The Double (1961) as Sergeant Bridget Stanhope, Scent Of Mystery (1960) as Winifred Jordan (the film was the world’s first feature film in ‘smell-o-vision’), King Of The Roaring 20s – The Story Of Arnold Rothstein as Madge, Mrs. Gibbon’s Boys as Myra and West 11 (1963) as Georgia. Diana began an affair with Darryl Stewart and when Dawson found out he petitioned for divorce. Darryl dumped her soon afterwards. Back in England Diana was dropped by her agent and found work difficult to come by. She took anything that was offered – gay clubs, working men’s venues, anything to pay the bills. In 1967 the Inland Revenue sent Diana a bill for £48,413. Instead of fretting she bought the house that would be hers for the rest of her life, Orchard Manor, Shrubs Hill Lane, Sunningdale, Berkshire. Hammerhead (1968) enabled her to furnish the house as she liked. On October 10, 1968, she set out for work on a television series called The Inquisitors. Its two stars were Tony Selby and a RADA-educated actor called Alan Lake (b. Stoke-on-Trent, November 24, 1940). When he heard who his new co-star was to be, Lake complained, “Oh no, not Madame Tits and Lips!” However, within days they were very much in love and he proposed. On November 23, 1968, they were married at Caxton Hall, Westminster. A son, Jason David, was born in London on September 11, 1969, weighing 7lb 14oz. On October 16, 1970, Alan Lake was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment for his part in a pub brawl on July 13. (Also jailed, for three years, was pop star Leapy Lee.) Just over three weeks later, on November 5, Diana appeared in the first episode of the Yorkshire Television sitcom Queenie’s Castle as Queenie Shepherd. Lake was released on October 16, 1971, after exactly a year behind bars. Diana’s only film that year was Hannie Caulder (1971), which was filmed in Spain. On February 20, 1972, Lake broke his back in a riding accident and was thought by some medical staff to be beyond help. Around this time Diana appeared in Every Afternoon (1972) as Margaretha, The Amazing Mr Blunden (1972) as the Housekeeper Mrs Wickens, The Amorous Milkman (1972) as Rita, Theatre Of Blood (1973) as Maisie Psaltry and Steptoe And Son Ride Again (1973). Out of hospital, Alan Lake began drinking very heavily. The Lakes’ housekeeper suggested he visit her local church and soon he was a proselytising Roman Catholic and Diana was one of his first converts. In 1975 Diana fell pregnant and was advised by doctors to have an abortion but knowing the Catholic Church’s abhorrence of abortion she decided to go ahead. She miscarried later that year. The sadness sent Alan Lake back onto the booze. Diana subsequently appeared in some dreadful films, many verging on soft porn, to pay the bills, including Rosie (1975), Adventures Of A Taxi Driver (1976) as Mrs North, Adventures Of A Private Eye (1977) as Mrs Horne and Confessions From The David Galaxy Affair (1979) as Jenny Stride. She also appeared as Mrs Bott in the LWT series Just William. In she published her first book, For Adults Only, and then worked on its sequel Behind Closed Dors. Both became bestsellers. In December the Inland Revenue again pounced, sending Diana a demand for £12,000. In October 1981 Diana’s autobiography, Dors By Diana, was published. The following year she became an agony aunt for the Daily Star. In October 1982 she featured on This Is Your Life for a second time. In May of the following year she went on a television diet on TV-am but in February 1984 she was fired from the breakfast station over irregularities. The next month she began work on her last film, Steaming (1985) playing Violet, set in a ladies’ steam room.<
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Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries Page 63
