Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries

by Paul Donnelley

  CAUSE: He died of a heart attack in his sleep in Santa Monica, California, aged 56.

  Douglas Fairbanks, Jr, HON KBE, DSC

  (DOUGLAS ELTON FAIRBANKS)

  Born December 9, 1907

  Died May 7, 2000

  Anglophile actor. Unlike his father, 6́ 1˝ Douglas Jr was never really a swashbuckler, nor did he ever want to be one. “I never tried to emulate my father. Anyone trying to do that would be a second-rate carbon copy,” he once said. “I was determined to be my own man, although having the Fairbanks name did make it easier to get into an office to see someone.” He arrived in New York at 4.15am on December 9, 1907. As a youngster Fairbanks was rather plump and shy, which didn’t really endear him to his father. In 1919 his parents divorced. He made his film début in The Three Musketeers (1921), a movie that starred his father. Fairbanks fought his way up the Hollywood tree in bit parts and occasionally by writing scripts. He was cast as Stephen Harlow, Jr in Stephen Steps Out (1923), which his father disliked, but which led to a contract with Paramount in 1924. He used whatever money he was paid to support himself and his mother, who had invested her $500,000 divorce settlement unwisely. His films included: Wild Horse Mesa (1925) as Chess Weymer, Stella Dallas (1925) as Richard Grosvenor, Padlocked (1926) as Sonny Galloway, Man Bait (1926) as Jeff Sanford, Broken Hearts Of Hollywood (1926) as Hal Terwilliger, Women Love Diamonds (1927) as Jerry Croker-Kelley, Is Zat So? (1927) as G. Clifton Blackburn, Dead Man’s Curve as Vernon Keith, Modern Mothers (1928) as David Starke, A Woman Of Affairs (1928) as Geoffrey Merrick, The Jazz Age (1929) as Steve Maxwell and Our Modern Maidens as Gil Jordan. One of his co-stars in that film was Joan Crawford and, a month before filming began, they became engaged. They were married in St Malachy’s Roman Catholic Church in New York on June 3, 1929. Some believed that Joan married Fairbanks more for social cachet than for love. Certainly his mother disapproved, calling Crawford “a strange, moody girl, over-flamboyant in her dress, and alternating between gushing enthusiasm and gauche aloofness.” Fairbanks’ stepmother Mary Pickford was also not best impressed by her new stepdaughter-in-law. The marriage was brief (they divorced on May 12, 1933) but reasonably happy while it lasted. Fairbanks always spoke favourably of Crawford in later years. It was with his portrayal of gigolo Joe Massara in Little Caesar (1930) that he finally began to step out from under his father’s enormous shadow. Successful appearances in Outward Bound (1930) as Henry and The Dawn Patrol (1930) as Douglas Scott led Warner Bros to offer him a starring contract. In the early Thirties Fairbanks travelled to London where he appeared in Alexander Korda’s Catherine The Great (1934) as Grand Duke Peter. It was to be the start of a virtual lifelong love of Britain. He appeared on stage with Gertrude Lawrence and also in the gossip columns when they had a fling. He even formed a film production company in England but ran into financial difficulties and returned to Hollywood where David O. Selznick cast him as Rupert of Hentzau in The Prisoner Of Zenda (1937), generally regarded as his best film. He spent the late Thirties commuting between England and America, becoming acquainted socially with the royal family. On April 22, 1939, he married, as her second husband, Mary Lee Eppling. The union was to produce three daughters and was regarded as a happy marriage. When the dark clouds of war circled over Britain, Fairbanks remained loyal to his friends and appeared in a number of pro-British films, including Gunga Din (1939) as Sergeant Ballantine, The Sun Never Sets (1939) as John Randolph and Rulers Of The Sea (1939) as David ‘Davie’ Gillespie. He and Constance Bennett were among the first Hollywoodites to urge America to support Britain. Fairbanks joined the US Navy, reaching the rank of Lieutenant- Commander and in 1944 was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. He was also the first American officer to command a British flotilla during a commando operation. In 1949, in recognition of “furthering Anglo – American amity,” George VI awarded Fairbanks a knighthood but, as he retained his American citizenship, he was unable to style himself Sir Douglas unlike his fellow New Yorker Sir Yehudi Menuhin, later Baron Menuhin. Fairbanks’ most financially successful film was Sinbad The Sailor (1947) in which he played the lead. He and his wife moved permanently to London in 1950 and bought a house at 28 The Boltons, SW10. In 1952 the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh visited for dinner. In 1963 Fairbanks unwittingly became caught up in the sensational divorce trial of Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, the society beauty who became engaged in a series of scandals. Deb Of The Year 1930, Cole Porter put her in his song You’re The Top. On March 3, an infamous case involving the Duchess opened in an Edinburgh court room. The evidence presented to the court included pictures of her fellating a man whose head had been chopped off by the camera. The identity of the man was finally confirmed in August 2000 as Fairbanks. The actor’s identity was not revealed in court nor in Lord Denning’s subsequent report. The judge, Lord Wheatley, delivered his judgment on May 8, and took 40,000 words to attack the morals of the Duchess. It was also alleged that Fairbanks had a threesome with Profumo scandalites Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies, although he strongly denied that. In the film Scandal (1988) the Fairbanks character, played by Trevor Eve, is credited only as “The Matinee Idol”. When his arthritis was affected by the English damp in 1970, Fairbanks reluctantly retired to Florida. Following the death of Mary Lee Fairbanks, he married Vera Shelton on May 30, 1991. Two years earlier, he admitted: “I’ve led an enormously lucky life.”

  CAUSE: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr died of respiratory problems in Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, aged 92. He was buried next to his father.

  FURTHER READING: The Salad Days – Douglas Fairbanks, Jr (London: Collins, 1988); A Hell Of A War – Douglas Fairbanks, Jr (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1993).

  Chris Farley

  Born February 15, 1964

  Died December 18, 1997

  John Belushi for the Nineties. Born in Madison, Wisconsin, supersized (21-stone) Christopher Crosby Farley attended Marquette University where he studied theatre and communications. He made just ten films after achieving fame Stateside on Saturday Night Live. Farley confessed his hero was former Saturday Night Live star John Belushi: “[I] dreamed of being John Belushi. That’s why I went the [comedy troupe] Second City, Saturday Night Live route. I wanted to follow him.” Sadly, he did – all the way. Farley, who had been to rehab at least a dozen times, was a glutton with both food and drugs. “I have a tendency toward the pleasures of the flesh. It’s a battle for me, as far as weight and things like that.” His films included Wayne’s World (1992), Coneheads (1993) as Ronnie, Wayne’s World 2 (1993) as Milton, Airheads (1994) as Wilson, Black Sheep (1996) as Mike Donnelly and Beverly Hills Ninja (1997) as Haru.

  CAUSE: Farley, who lived on the 60th floor of the John Hancock Building, Michigan Avenue, Chicago, liked to party with prostitutes, believing his gross size put off ordinary women. On December 17, 1997, a friend hired a hooker called Heidi for him at a cost of $2,000. She escorted the corpulent star to a party at 11am where people were doing drugs. After leaving the party Heidi took Farley to her home where they smoked crack and snorted heroin. Farley told her he was unable to sleep and had been up for four days solid. They moved to the bedroom but Farley discovered he was impotent. They left and went to his home where at 11pm she demanded payment. Farley claimed his friend was to pay her and then tried to have sex with her but again was impotent. Heidi hung around for four hours waiting for the stoned and by now drunk Farley to get an erection but without success. She decided to leave but as she did Farley collapsed in front of her breathing heavily. He wheezed, “Don’t leave me.” So, as any good citizen would, she left … but not before taking a picture of him! Around two the next afternoon Farley’s brother, John, discovered him lying where he had fallen. He called the emergency services but Farley was pronounced dead at the scene. He was 33, as was John Belushi when he died. The coroner declared, “Chris Farley died of opiate (morphine) and cocaine intoxication and his death was determined to be accidental.” Prozac, morphine, marijuana and the antihistamine fexofenadine were a
lso found in his system although the coroner ruled they did not contribute to his death. His mammoth weight, which caused a narrowing of three coronary arteries, did. On December 19, his corpse was taken to the McKeon Funeral Home, 634 West 37th Street, Chicago, before being shipped to Madison, Wisconsin, where a private funeral took place on December 23, at Our Lady Queen of Peace Roman Catholic Church. Over 500 people attended, including Tom Arnold (who was Farley’s sponsor at Alcoholics Anonymous), Dan Aykroyd (who sported a leather jacket over his suit, as he had done at John Belushi’s funeral), John Goodman, Chris Rock, Adam Sandler and George Wendt. He was interred in Resurrection Cemetery, Madison.

  Frances Farmer

  Born September 19, 1913

  Died August 1, 1970

  Rebel with a cause. Born in Seattle, Washington, the daughter of a lawyer, Frances Elena Farmer is remembered now as the mentally disturbed star who was locked up by her mother. Her story is much sadder than that brief outline indicates. After graduating from Washington State University, the beautiful blonde signed a seven-year contract with Paramount in 1936. On February 8 of that year she eloped to Yuma, Arizona, with The High Chaparral star Leif Erickson. That year she also made what was probably her best film, Come And Get It, but soon tired of what she saw as the phoniness of Hollywood and went east to Broadway where she was a hit in the play Golden Boy. She had an affair with playwright Clifford Odets who wrote Golden Boy but it was not to last and she went back to her husband. They fought constantly. In 1942 she appeared opposite Tyrone Power in Son Of Fury. But it was to be a year of highs and lows – tremendous lows. She and Erickson were divorced on June 12. On October 19 she was arrested after she smacked a policeman who stopped her for driving through a blackout area with her lights on. Three months later, on January 14, 1943, she was again arrested after hitting a hairdresser on the set. She was put under psychiatric care. Six days later, a judge ordered that she should receive electroshock treatment as a ‘cure’ for her eccentric behaviour. At 3.25pm on May 22, 1945, Farmer was sent to Washington State Asylum 35 miles south of Seattle, where she would stay until March 25, 1950. During her 3,040-day incarceration she was raped on numerous occasions by warders, given ice water baths, strapped into a straitjacket and nibbled at by rats. Exactly a year after she was let out of the asylum, she was released from the jurisdiction of the hospital but the information was kept from her by her neurotic mother until 1953. In July 1953 her mother was discharged as her legal guardian and Frances landed a job as a dogsbody in a hotel. Her Paramount contract had been worth $200,000 a year. This job paid 75¢ an hour. She married again, this time to Seattle engineer Alfred Lobley on July 27, 1953, even though she confessed she didn’t really love him. Frances had by now become an alcoholic. She found a job as a typist in Eureka, California. She divorced her husband on March 7, 1958. Thirteen days later, she married Leland Mikesell in Las Vegas; they were divorced in 1963. Frances made another film and reinvented herself as a folk singer, appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show. It was later revealed that her ‘mental illness’ was actually caused by a case of hypoglycemia and could have been treated with proper diagnosis and diet. She became a forgotten figure until her posthumously published autobiography, Will There Really Be A Morning?, was made into the movie Frances (1982) starring Jessica Lange.

  CAUSE: She died of cancer of the aesophagus in Indianapolis, Indiana, aged 56. She was alone at the time.

  FURTHER READING: Will There Really Be A Morning? – Frances Farmer (London: Fontana, 1984).

  Charles Farrell

  Born August 6, 1901

  Died August 27, 1988

  The first. Born in Dublin, Ireland, Charles Farrell was a dependable supporting actor. He appeared in more than 50 films including: The Man At Six (1931) as George Wollmer, Money For Nothing (1932) as Digger, Boys Will Be Boys (1935) as Louis Brown, The Rebel Son (1938) as Tovkatch, Jailbirds (1940) as Spike Nelson, I Became A Criminal (1947) as Curley, a barman in The Sheriff Of Fractured Jaw (1958), a policeman in Oh! What A Lovely War (1969), the landlord in The Vampire Lovers (1970), the slave seller in Countess Dracula (1971) and the chauffeur in The Abominable Dr Phibes (1971). A homosexual, he was one of “The Five Queens,” so called by Beryl Formby, in the film Bell-Bottom George (1943) in which he played Jim. The other “Queens” were Charles Hawtrey, Peter Murray Hill, Reginald Purdell and Manning Whiley.

  CAUSE: He died in London aged 87.

  Charles Farrell

  Born August 9, 1901

  Died May 6, 1990

  The second. Born in Onset Bay on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, 6́ 2˝ Charles David Farrell was educated at Boston University and went onto the stage. He made his film début as an extra in The Cheat (1923) and was a regular if unspectacular support until 1927 when he appeared in the Oscar-nominated Seventh Heaven with Janet Gaynor. For seven years the pair were the Hollywood romantic pair of screen lovers. They appeared in Street Angel (1928), Lucky Star (1928) and Sunny Side Up (1929). His stardom faded as quickly as it came and his career was all but over by the mid-Thirties. He retired from the big screen in 1941. He founded the Palm Springs Racquet Club and made a fortune. On January 7, 1959, Farrell sold the Racquet Club to businessmen William W. Beacom and Robert S. Morton for $1.2 million but stayed on as chairman and managing director. It was sold again in 1964. Film historian Carlos Clarens said of him, “Charles Farrell was a closeted movie star, married to a closeted movie star. He was anti-Semitic, and didn’t like that more clubs in Hollywood were letting Jews in, so he and his pal Ralph Bellamy went to Palm Springs and started the Racquet Club – which was restricted … No, he never came out.” William Gargan once called Farrell a fairy in the Club bar and Farrell knocked him out with one punch. (It was at the Racquet Club that Marilyn Monroe’s patron and mentor Johnny Hyde died of a heart attack on December 17, 1950.) In the Fifties Farrell spent seven years as mayor of Palm Springs and simultaneously appeared in the television sitcom My Little Margie (June 16, 1952–August 24, 1955) as Vernon Albright. He intensely disliked his co-star Gale Storm and the feeling was mutual. On St Valentine’s Day 1931 he married the 5́ 4˝ actor Virginia Valli (b. Chicago, Illinois, June 10, 1895 as Virginia McSweeney, d. Palm Springs, California, September 24, 1968, aged 73 following a stroke two years earlier). Of them, Bette Davis commented, “It was very different then. One wasn’t always sure what to judge on. But if a woman wore pants a lot, we suspected … I worked with Charlie Farrell, and I never guessed he was reputed to be … gay. Of course he would flirt with any ladies on the set, it was expected and normal … The one we suspected was his wife. And it was because she wore pants quite often and she just adored golf!”

  CAUSE: He died in Palm Springs, California, aged 88 of a heart attack. He had been increasingly reclusive in his last years, spending his days in a dressing gown watching television. He was buried alongside his wife in Section 10–3, Lot F of Welwood Murray Cemetery, Palm Springs, Riverside County, California.

  Glenda Farrell

  Born June 30, 1904

  Died May 1, 1971

  Perky blonde. Born in Enid, Oklahoma, Farrell learned her trade in rep before graduating to Broadway in 1928. She was spotted by Warner Bros in Lucky Boy (1929) and signed to a contract. She specialised in playing good-time girls such as Olga Strassoff, a gangster’s moll, in Little Caesar (1930) and the prostitute Marie Woods in I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang (1932) and her tough looks meant she could not play romantic leads. She was teamed with Joan Blondell in Havana Widows (1933) and played hard-bitten journalist Florence Dempsey in The Mystery Of The Wax Museum (1933). Farrell played supporting roles in A films and leads in Bs. In 1936 she began starring in the Torchy Blane reporter series commencing with Smart Blonde. The original character (created by Frederick Nebel) was a man but it had a sex change to accommodate Farrell. She played in seven of the nine films. A fast-talker Farrell was once said to have delivered a 400-word speech in just 40 seconds. Her career stalled at the end of the Thirties as the brassy blonde fell from favour. She
moved back to the theatre and television where she won a Best Supporting Emmy for the Ben Casey episode A Cardinal Act Of Mercy. She was married twice. Her first husband (in 1921) was Thomas A. Richards (b. January 8, 1899, d. Los Angeles, California, January 4, 1946) and they had a son, Thomas, Jr (b. Hollywood, California, October 7, 1921, d. Woodland Hills, California, May 9, 2004). An attempt to forge a vaudeville act was unsuccessful and the couple was divorced in 1929. Their son changed his surname to Farrell following his parents’ divorce. On January 19, 1941, she married Dr Henry Ross in Passaic, New Jersey. They remained married until her death.