CAUSE: Following the box-office success of Dr No, Fleming wrote On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1963) which was released as a film (the sixth Bond film) on December 18, 1969. His success (Fleming sold 30 million books during his lifetime – a figure that doubled in the two years after his death) bought homes including a Regency house at 16 Victoria Square, London and residences in Bekesbourne, near Sandwich in Kent and later Sevenhampton Place, Highworth, Sevenhampton, near Swindon in Wiltshire, as well as Goldeneye in Jamaica. But his health had been permanently damaged, not helped by his excessive drinking and smoking (70 a day). He died aged 56 from heart complications in the Kent and Canterbury Hospital at 1am on August 12, 1964. He was buried at Sevenhampton, Wiltshire. Fleming left £302,147 (gross) and £289,170 (net). On October 2, 1975 Caspar, his depressive son who became a drug addict and had attempted suicide several times, killed himself aged 23 with a drugs overdose. He left a note saying, “If not this time, it will be the next.” When Ann Fleming died six years later she left £926,456.
FURTHER READING: The Life Of Ian Fleming– John Pearson (London: Jonathan Cape, 1966); Peter Fleming A Biography– Duff Hart Davis (London: Jonathan Cape, 1974); The Complete James Bond Movie Encyclopaedia– Steven Jay Rubin (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1990); Ian Fleming– Andrew Lycett (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995).
Victor Fleming
Born February 23, 1883
Died January 6, 1949
Director extraordinaire. Born in Pasadena, California, 6́ 1˝ Fleming was responsible for some of the most memorable Hollywood films of all time. He began his working life as a mechanic before becoming a photographer. Fleming became involved in film-making aged 27. During World War I he worked in intelligence and was President Woodrow Wilson’s chief cameraman when he went to Europe. Among Fleming’s films were Woman’s Place (1921), Red Hot Romance (1922), Dark Secrets (1923), Law Of The Lawless (1923), To The Last Man (1923), Code Of The Sea (1924), Adventure (1925), Lord Jim (1925), The Way Of All Flesh (1927), The Virginian (1929), Renegades (1930), Around The World In 80 Minutes With Douglas Fairbanks (1931), Red Dust (1932), Bombshell (1933), Treasure Island (1934), Reckless (1935), Captains Courageous (1937), Test Pilot (1938), The Wizard Of Oz (1939), Gone With The Wind (1939), for which he won an Oscar, Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde (1941) and Joan Of Arc (1948). He married Joan Blair in 1931.
CAUSE: He died aged 65 in Arizona from a heart attack. He was buried in Hollywood Memorial Park, 6000 Santa Monica Boulevard, Hollywood, California 90038.
Errol Flynn
Born June 20, 1909
Died October 14, 1959
Hell-raiser. Born in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, the name of 6́ 2˝ Errol Leslie Thompson Flynn has become a synonym for a hard-living, heavy drinking, womanising roustabout. His biologist father bought the first live duck-billed platypuses to Europe, though Errol managed to kill two on the journey by feeding them tadpoles. Much of what we know about Flynn is in dispute because he was such a masterful storyteller. “The only thing you could be certain of about Errol,” recalled his good friend David Niven, “is that whatever it was, he would let you down.” Producer Jack L. Warner commented, “You know Flynn, he’s either got to be fighting or fucking.” The notoriously priapic actor claimed he lost his virginity to the family maid in Tasmania when he was 12 years old. He was expelled from Sydney Church of England Grammar School for stealing (or was he caught having sex with a female pupil on a pile of coal in the basement?). He travelled to New Guinea, where he worked as a slave trader. That ‘career’ ended when he was accused of murder but was acquitted when his plea of self-defence was accepted (or was it because the authorities couldn’t find the body?). Flynn began his acting career not in films but on stage in the uninspiring town of Northampton. He was eventually sacked from the company for throwing a director’s wife down a flight of stairs. On June 19, 1935, he married Lili Damita in Yuma, Arizona, and fathered a son, Sean (b. Los Angeles, May 31, 1941, disappeared in Vietnam, 1970). The couple was divorced on March 31, 1942, in Los Angeles. He became a Hollywood star after Jack Warner took a chance and cast him as Dr Peter Blood in the epic Captain Blood (1935). Flynn wanted to be a writer and had two novels Beam Ends and Showdown and several articles published. However, he failed to make headway in that direction, probably because he lacked the necessary dedication to apply himself to the writer’s craft, so he returned his efforts to the big screen. During the Spanish Civil War Flynn journeyed to Spain with a shadowy figure, Dr Herman Erben. It is Flynn’s friendship with Erben, a card-carrying Nazi who was thrown out of Austria for dressing like his hero Adolf Hitler, that is one of the most controversial episodes of his life. According to a biography of Flynn by respected author Charles Higham, the actor was himself a Nazi spy during WWII. Another writer, William Donati, has examined all the thousands of documents on Flynn but has found nothing to substantiate Higham’s accusations. Still, the rumours refuse to die. The FBI kept Flynn under surveillance but were unable to prove he was a Nazi, or that he had any political affiliations or interest at all. Flynn did not fight for the Allies in World War II – not because of any misguided sense of loyalty to the Führer, but because, despite his seemingly indestructible physique, he was a very sick man. By the age of 28, the year his swashbuckling reputation was made with The Adventures Of Robin Hood (1938), Flynn was suffering from an enlarged heart, malaria, spots on the lungs and tuberculosis, all exacerbated by his drinking. He regularly collapsed on set. When he tried to enlist in the army he was registered 4F. Flynn kept himself amused with other pursuits instead of fighting, not all of them legal. In October 1942, the actor was charged and acquitted of raping two young girls, Peggy Satterlee and Betty Hansen at 345 St Pierre Road, Bel Air. They claimed Flynn kept his socks on during intercourse. At his trial, for which he could have been sentenced to up to 150 years in prison, Flynn hired Hollywood’s best-known troubleshooter, Jerry Giesler, to defend him. The legal eagle tore into the two girls, destroying their reputations in the process. In 1996 Betty Hansen spoke publicly for the first time about the case. “He was the first love in my life,” she commented. “He is the first and maybe the last.” Flynn had made preparations to fly abroad if the verdict had gone against him. He also lied on oath and was almost certainly guilty of the offence. The narrow escape at the trial did nothing to diminish Flynn’s appetite for very young girls. He spent his final years with teenager Beverly Aadland (b. September 17, 1942). Again according to Higham, Flynn was an active bisexual who had an affair with fellow actor Tyrone Power and, possibly, with billionaire Howard Hughes. One of the most enduring rumours about Flynn is that he was the very proud possessor of an enormous penis. This is another story that just doesn’t stand up when scrutinised. His close friend and biographer Earl Conrad and second wife Nora Eddington both confirm that he was of normal dimensions in the trouser department. Thrice-married, Flynn took refuge in drink and drugs. He even called his house Cirrhosis By the Sea. His marriage to cigar seller Nora Eddington (married by proxy in September 1944, divorced on July 7, 1949, following the birth of two daughters – Deirdre [b. Mexico City, January 10, 1945] and Rory [b. Los Angeles, March 12, 1947]) was wrecked because of his morphine addiction. He married actress Patrice Wymore on October 23, 1950, in the Lutheran Chapel in Nice. Their daughter, Arnella Roma, was born in the Italian capital on Christmas Day 1950. Flynn’s films included In The Wake Of The Bounty (1933) as Fletcher Christian, Murder At Monte Carlo (1934) as Dyter, Don’t Bet On Blondes (1935) as David Van Dusen, The Charge Of The Light Brigade as Major Geoffrey Vickers, The Perfect Specimen (1937) as Gerald Beresford Wicks, Another Dawn as Captain Denny Roark, The Prince And The Pauper (1937) as Miles Hendon, The Dawn Patrol (1938) as Captain Courtney, Dodge City (1939) as Wade Hatton, The Private Lives Of Elizabeth And Essex (1939) as the Earl of Essex (during which he feuded constantly with co-star Bette Davis), The Sea Hawk (1940) as Geoffrey Thorpe, Santa Fe Trail (1940) as Jeb Stuart, Virginia City (1940) as Kerry Bradford, Dive Bomber (1941) as Lieutenant D
oug Lee, They Died With Their Boots On (1941) as George Armstrong Custer, Edge Of Darkness (1942) as Gunnar Brogge, Gentleman Jim (1942) as champion boxer James J. Corbett, Objective, Burma! (1945) as Captain Nelson, Never Say Goodbye as Phil Gayley, Cry Wolf as Mark Caldwell, the lead in Adventures Of Don Juan (1948), That Forsyte Woman (1949) as Soames Forsyte, Rocky Mountain (1950) as Lafe Barstow, Montana (1950) as Morgan Lane, Kim (1950) as Mahbub Ali, Mara Maru (1952) as Gregory Mason, The Master Of Ballantrae (1953) as Jamie Durrisdeer, Istanbul (1957) as James Brennan and The Sun Also Rises (1957) as Mike Campbell. In the end what did for Errol Flynn was Errol Flynn, who lived every day as if it was his last.
CAUSE: Flynn died in Vancouver, Canada, aged 50, from a heart attack. Other contributory factors included myocardial infarction, coronary thrombosis, coronary arteriosclerosis, fatty degeneration of the liver, portal cirrhosis of the liver and diverticulosis of the colon. He was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks, 1712 South Glendale Avenue, Glendale, California 91209. A rumour persists that he was interred with half a dozen bottles of whisky. His final resting place remained unmarked until 1979.
FURTHER READING: Errol Flynn: The Untold Story – Charles Higham (New York: Doubleday, 1980); Errol Flynn: The Spy Who Never Was – Tony Thomas (New York: Citadel Press, 1990).
Henry Fonda
Born May 16, 1905
Died August 12, 1982
Founder of a dynasty. Born in Grand Island, Nebraska, Henry Jaynes Fonda was encouraged to act by Do Brando, mother of Marlon, and one of the founders of the Omaha Community Playhouse. She cast him in a 1925 production of You And I. Shy at first, Fonda soon took to acting: “I discovered the magic of the theatre that I had never known anything about before. I liked the feeling of being up there … I lost most of my shyness and began to relax.” As well as acting, Fonda designed and painted sets to survive until he became a star on Broadway as Dan Harrow in The Farmer Takes A Wife in 1935. He was spotted by a film producer and reprised his role in the movie version. On Christmas Day 1931 he married actress Margaret Sullavan in Baltimore’s Kernan Hotel. In less than five months they separated and Fonda went back to sharing a New York flat with James Stewart. Said Fonda, “Christ, I suppose they’ll call Jimmy and me fags after we’re gone just because we lived together. Hell, if we hadn’t shared the food and rent, we would never have made it.” The one taboo subject between the two of them was politics. Fonda was a Democrat while Stewart was a fervent Republican. Fonda said Ronald Reagan (Stewart’s close friend) made him “physically ill” and that he “couldn’t stomach any of the Republicans, most of all Richard Nixon.” On September 16, 1936, with director Josh Logan as best man, Fonda married socialite divorcée Frances Seymour Brokaw (b. 1908) in New York’s Christ Church. Their daughter Jane was born on December 21, 1937, in New York City, while son Peter Henry arrived on February 23, 1940, also in the Big Apple. In December 1949, Fonda announced a separation; five months later, on April 14, 1950, his wife, committed to a sanatorium with a mental illness, killed herself. She was 42. Neither Jane nor Peter were told the truth about their mother’s death for many years. On December 28, 1950, Fonda married Susan Blanchard (b. 1928), stepdaughter of Oscar Hammerstein, II, and 23 years younger than him. The ceremony took place in Hammerstein’s New York home. In November 1953 the couple adopted Amy, an eight-month-old girl from Connecticut. In May 1956 the Fondas divorced. Marriage number four was on March 10, 1957, to Afdera Franchetti. They met in 1955 at a party for Dino De Laurentiis-Carlo Ponti’s film War And Peace. Afdera was the daughter of a 6́ 6˝ Venetian nobleman who named his children after the exotic places he had visited. His eldest daughter was named Simba (‘lion’ in Swahili), next was Lorian (named after the place elephants go to die) and the brother was named Nanook or Nanucki after a conquest of the North Pole. Afdera was a volcano. Their courtship was conducted primarily in secret because Fonda was not yet divorced and Afdera was engaged to someone else. They did go to Roman nightclubs, but mostly they spoke on a transatlantic phone. He proposed in late summer 1956 and they became engaged at Christmas of the same year. They married in the drawing room of Fonda’s East 74th Street townhouse in Manhattan. The ceremony was performed by a New York State Supreme Court judge, and a sulky 16-year-old Peter Fonda was his father’s best man. When the wedding pictures were developed, Afdera was revealed to have big black marks under her eyes from crying and her brother’s fists. (He disapproved of the match because Fonda was non-Catholic and thrice-married, so he took it out on his sister.) She took a pair of scissors and cut out all the eyes in the photos. The honeymoon was delayed because Fonda had to finish 12 Angry Men (1957). The couple eventually went on their honeymoon in July and took Jane Fonda with them. Afdera was only five years older than Jane and although Afdera liked her new stepdaughter the feeling was not reciprocated. (Peter and Afdera were cold towards each other.) They flew to a draughty chalet in Canada. Fonda had a cold and Mrs F. was still feeling the effects of her brother’s beating. They visited Pamplona, Venice and Cap Ferrat. Problems quickly appeared as Fonda realised he did not fit into his wife’s social milieu. Eventually, Afdera left him for another man. She attended John F. Kennedy’s inaugural ball alone and never went back to her husband. They were divorced in 1961. Mrs F. claimed that in the years they were married she never went into the kitchen and never wrote a cheque. On December 3, 1965, Fonda married for the fifth and final time. His new wife was Shirlee Mae Adams and the ceremony took place on Mineola, Long Island. Throughout his life, Fonda found it difficult to show his feelings and admitted, “I was ashamed that a guy with a solid background like mine kept screwing up his personal life.” His private life may have been a mess but his professional one was a soaraway success. His films include Spendthrift (1936) as Townsend Middleton, The Trail Of The Lonesome Pine (1936) as Dave Tolliver (cartoonist Al Capp based Li’l Abner on Fonda’s Tolliver), the lead in Slim (1937), You Only Live Once (1937) as Eddie Taylor, That Certain Woman (1937) as Jack Merrick, I Met My Love Again (1938) as Ives Towner, Jezebel (1938) as Preston Dillard, Blockade (1938) as Marco, Drums Along The Mohawk (1939) as Gilbert Martin, Jesse James (1939) as Frank James, the lead in Young Mr Lincoln (1939), The Story Of Alexander Graham Bell (1939) as Bell’s assistant Thomas Watson, The Grapes Of Wrath (1940) as Tom Joad, Lillian Russell (1940) as Alexander Moore, The Return Of Frank James (1940) as Frank James, the lead in Chad Hanna (1940), Wild Geese Calling (1941) as John Murdock, Rings On Her Fingers (1942) as John Wheeler, The Magnificent Dope (1942) as Tad Page, Tales Of Manhattan (1942) as George, The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) as Gil Carter, My Darling Clementine (1946) as Wyatt Earp, Daisy Kenyon (1947) as Peter Lapham, Fort Apache (1948) as Lieutenant-Colonel Owen Thursday, Mister Roberts (1955) as Doug Roberts, War And Peace (1956) as Pierre Bezukhov, Stage Struck (1958) as Lewis Easton, The Longest Day (1962) as Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr, How The West Was Won (1962) as Jethro Stuart, Sex And The Single Girl (1964) as Frank Broderick, Battle Of The Bulge (1965) as Lieutenant Colonel Kiley, A Big Hand For A Little Lady (1966) as Meredith, The Boston Strangler (1968) as John S. Bottomley, Once Upon A Time In The West (1968), and The Swarm (1978) as Dr Krim, but towards the end of his life he became better known as the father of Jane, rather than as a star in his own right. However, it is wise never to write off the elderly: Fonda won a Best Actor Oscar for On Golden Pond (1981) with his portrayal of Norman Thayer, Jr.
Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries Page 71
