CAUSE: On June 21, 1969, Judy and Deans were at home – 4 Cadogan Lane, Chelsea – with Deans’ close friend Philip Roberge, watching the documentary about the House of Windsor, The Royal Family, when Judy and her husband had a row. She ran into the street shouting and after a time he went after her. Unable to find her he returned to the house and went to bed. At approximately 10.40am the next morning the telephone rang for Judy. Deans scoured the house and discovered the bathroom door was locked. He banged on it but received no reply. He climbed in through the bathroom window and found Judy dead, sitting on the toilet. Rigor mortis had already set in. She was only 47. The official cause of death was given as “Barbiturate Poisoning (quinalbarbitone), incautious self-overdosage, accidental.” Following Judy’s autopsy performed by Dr Gavin Thurston at Westminster Hospital, her corpse was taken back to America three days later. On June 27, her body lay in state at Campbell’s Funeral Home, Madison Avenue, New York and almost 22,000 fans paid homage to her. She was buried in Mausoleum Unit 9, Section HH, Crypt 31 of Ferncliff Cemetery and Mausoleum, Secor Road, Hartsdale, New York 10530. Marcella Rabwin originally discovered Judy and was later asked if she had any regrets about putting her on the road to stardom. Her answer was definite: “For having given the world that great talent? No.”
FURTHER READING: Weep No More My Lady: An Intimate Biography Of Judy Garland – Mickey Deans & Ann Pinchot (London: Mayflower, 1973); Little Girl Lost: The Life & Hard Times Of Judy Garland – Al DiOrio, Jr. (London: Robson Books, 1975); Judy Garland – Anne Edwards (London: Corgi Books, 1976); Heartbreaker – John Meyer (London: Star Books, 1987); Judy Garland – David Shipman (London: Fourth Estate, 1992); J udy Garland – Paul Donnelley (London: Life & Times, 2006).
Greer Garson
Born September 29, 1904
Died April 6, 1996
Statuesque performer. Born in London, Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson was educated at the University of London and set her heart on becoming a teacher. However, fate intervened and she went to work for an advertising agency performing in amdram on the side. In 1932 she decided to give full-time acting a shot and made her professional début in Birmingham followed two years later by her first appearance on the West End stage. Fortuitously, she was spotted by Louis B. Mayer, who offered her a contract with MGM. The studio was in dire need of someone to replace Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo and Greer Garson was it. On September 28, 1933, she married civil servant Edward Alec Abbot Snelson but they divorced on May 12, 1941. Two years earlier she had made her film début and won an Academy Award nomination in Goodbye, Mr Chips (1939) as Katherine Chipping. She became an overnight star. She followed that with Remember? (1939) as Linda Bronson, Pride And Prejudice (1940) as Elizabeth Bennet, When Ladies Meet (1941) as Claire Woodruff and Blossoms In The Dust (1941) as Edna Gladney, for which she received another Oscar nomination. It was her next film that is regarded as her finest work. In Mrs Miniver (1942) she played the indomitable Kay Miniver. Norma Shearer turned down the title role because she didn’t want to play a middle-aged woman with a 20-year-old son on screen. As history reveals, the part went to Greer Garson who was 15 months younger than Shearer. It won her an Oscar – and a husband, Richard Ney, who played her son in the film. The next year on July 24, 1943, they married. However, the marriage was not to last and on September 25, 1947, they divorced. On July 15, 1949, Garson married millionaire rancher Edward E. ‘Buddy’ Fogelson. They were together until his death in December 1987. Despite the oft-repeated rumours, Greer Garson did not ramble on for over an hour when accepting her Oscar. It was the longest speech in Oscar history, but lasted only five minutes. Her subsequent films included: Random Harvest (1942) as Paula, Madame Curie (1943) as Marie Curie, for which she received another Oscar nomination, Mrs Parkington (1944) as Susie Parkington, for which she received another Oscar nomination, The Valley Of Decision (1945) as Mary Rafferty, for which she received another Oscar nomination, Adventure (1945) as Emily Sears, Desire Me (1947) as Marise Aubert, Julia Misbehaves (1948) as Julia Packett, That Forsyte Woman (1949) as Irene Forsyte, The Miniver Story (1950), in which she – not terribly successfully – reprised her role as Kay Miniver, Scandal At Scourie (1953) as Mrs Patrick J. McChesney, Julius Caesar (1953) as Calpurnia, Her Twelve Men (1954) as teacher Jan Stewart (who attempts to educate 13 boys), Strange Lady In Town (1955) as Dr Julia Winslow Garth, Sunrise At Campobello (1960) as Eleanor Roosevelt and yet another Oscar nod and The Singing Nun (1965) as Mother Prioress. Greer Garson gave millions of dollars to the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, who built the Greer Garson Theater. There were three conditions attached to her generosity. The theatre had to be a working circular stage; the first production had to be A Midsummer Night’s Dream and, finally, it had to have an extra Ladies room. Not everyone was a fan however. “I gave up being serious about making pictures years ago, around the time I made a film with Greer Garson and she took 125 takes to say ‘No’,” quipped Robert Mitchum.
CAUSE: Greer Garson died aged 91 in Dallas, Texas, from heart failure.
Janet Gaynor
(LAURA GAINOR)
Born October 6, 1906
Died September 14, 1984
Mary Martin’s husband. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she was raised in Chicago from the age of eight and, after working in a shoe shop for $18 a week, joined Fox when she was 19. She appeared, usually uncredited, in numerous films, until she was noticed in F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise (1927). It was her performance in that film and in Frank Borzage’s Seventh Heaven (1927) as Diane and Street Angel (1928) as Angela that won her the very first Best Actress Academy Award. It was also the first and only time a statuette was awarded for multiple films. Seventh Heaven was her first teaming with screen lover Charles Farrell. For twelve films and seven years they were Fox’s leading screen lovers. Away from the screen was a different matter. Of the two Gaynor was, by far, the more masculine. In 1930 she ran away to Honolulu, fed up with the roles she was allocated. She went on strike for seven months before agreeing to return, by which time Fox had merged with 20th Century and her services were less in demand. She retired from the screen in 1939. To disguise Tyrone Power’s homosexuality, Fox arranged ‘dates’ with, among others, the (5)߰Gaynor. A lesbian, she nonetheless wed three times. She married San Francisco lawyer Lydell Peck on September 11, 1929, and was divorced on April 11, 1934. She eloped to Yuma, Arizona, with designer Gilbert Adrian (b. Naugatuck, Connecticut, March 3, 1983, as Adrian Adolph Greenberg, d. September 1959, of a stroke) on August 14, 1939, to shake off her “particular corridor and know the other side of life”. Their son, Robin Gaynor Adrian, was born on July 6, 1940. On Christmas Eve, 1964, she married Paul Gregory, a friend of Charles Laughton and 15 years her junior. Her films included: Two Girls Wanted (1927) as Marianna Wright, Four Devils (1928) as Marion, Sunny Side Up (1929) as Molly Carr, Lucky Star (1929) as Mary Tucker, High Society Blues (1930) as Eleanor Divine, Delicious (1931) as Heather Gordon, Daddy Long Legs (1931) as Judy Abbott, State Fair as Margy Frake, Carolina as Joanna Tate, The Farmer Takes A Wife (1935) as Molly Larkins, Ladies In Love (1936) as Martha Kerenye, Small Town Girl (1936) as Katherine Brannan, A Star Is Born (1937) as Esther Blodgett/Vicki Lester for which she was nominated for an Oscar, Three Loves Has Nancy (1938) as Nancy Briggs and Bernardine (1957) as Mrs Wilson.
CAUSE: She was badly hurt in a San Francisco car crash with her husband and lover Mary Martin on September 5, 1982. She suffered eleven broken ribs, a broken pelvis and collarbone and assorted internal injuries. Following two major operations at San Francisco General Hospital, she was released in January 1983. However, she never fully recovered from the accident and died in Desert Hospital, Palm Springs, California, from pneumonia aged 77. She was buried in Section 8, Lot 193 of Hollywood Memorial Park, 6000 Santa Monica Boulevard, Hollywood, California 90038.
Kurt Gerron
(KURT GERSO)
Born May 11, 1897
Died October 28, 1944
Rotund German star. Born in Berlin to Jewish pa
rents Kurt Gerron studied to become a doctor before switching to the stage in 1920. That year he also began to make movies. His films included: Spuk Auf Schloß Kitay (1920), Die Apotheke Des Teufels (1921), Vorderhaus Und Hinterhaus (1925), Im Weißen Rößl (1926), Die Goldene Schmetterling (1926), Die Tragödie Eines Verlorenen (1926), Feme (1927), Glanz Und Elend Der Kurtisanen (1927), Einbruch (1927), Casanovas Erbe (1927), Die Marquise Von Pompadour (1930) as Ludwig XV and Trapeze (1931) as Grimby. In Berlin on August 28, 1928 he starred in the original version of Kurt Weill’s and Bertolt Brecht’s Die Dreigroschenoper playing Tiger Brown. In 1930 he became the director of a Berlin theatre and directed Der Rote Faden which starred Marlene Dietrich. He also appeared with Dietrich in Der Blaue Engel (1930) as Kiepert, the magician. He directed a few shorts and five features for the German film company UFA. He was working on the film Kind, Ich Freu Mich Auf Dein Kommen (1933) when the Nazis came to power. He left Germany and travelled around Europe before settling in Holland where he worked as a director. In 1940 the Germans invaded and Gerron was forced to appear in the propaganda film Der Ewidge Jude (1940). In 1943 he was sent to a concentration camp where he organised a theatre group. In 1944 he was moved to Theresienstadt concentration camp where he directed the propaganda documentary Der Fuhrer Schenkt Den Juden Eine Stadt (1944). He was soon deported to another camp.
CAUSE: He and his wife died in the gas chambers at Auschwitz three months before its liberation. In 2003 a documentary about Gerron entitled Prisoner Of Paradise was nominated for an Oscar.
Brian Gibson
Born September 22, 1944
Died January 4, 2004
Distinguished director. Brian Gibson was born the son of a carpenter and a shop assistant. He was educated at Southend High School before winning a state scholarship to St Catherine’s College, Cambridge, where he studied medicine. He then took a second degree studying History of Science at Darwin College. His first professional gig was working on BBC’s Horizon before changing tack to produce drama documentaries. With Dennis Potter, Gibson collaborated on Where Adam Stood (based on Father And Son, the 1907 memoir by Edmund Gosse). This was followed by Potter’s Blue Remembered Hills (1979) starring Helen Mirren and Colin Welland in an award-winning film about primitive childhood behaviour which required actors to play children pretending to be adults. Gibson received a BAFTA award for Joey, the story of Joey Deacon, a brain-damaged child who, later in life, found a handicapped friend to unlock his latent intellect. Joey was the subject of a Blue Peter appeal. His film The Billion Dollar Bubble (1976) gave James Woods an early success in his career. The low-budget films led to Gibson’s first feature film, Breaking Glass (1980), which he wrote himself in four days. He discovered the punk singer Hazel O’Connor while researching the film. The success of Breaking Glass took him to Hollywood but he was often very choosy over his material. During his 12 years in Hollywood, he gave one tenth of his income each year to charity, for the education of disadvantaged children. This continued on his return to Britain. He produced many films for HBO, including The Josephine Baker Story (1991), which starred his first wife Lynn Whitfield, and won an Emmy for Best Director. Murderers Among Us (1989) – the tale of Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal – was nominated for several Golden Globe and Emmy awards. His mainstream work included Poltergeist II (1986) and What’s Love Got To Do With It? (1993), the story of Ike and Tina Turner, which won Oscar nominations for its stars Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne. Gibson’s last Hollywood film was The Juror (1996) with Demi Moore and Alec Baldwin and a $44 million budget. Back in Britain he directed the cult film Still Crazy (1998) starring Billy Connolly, Stephen Rea and Jimmy Nail. In 1990 he married Lynn Whitfield (b. Baton Rouge, Louisiana, May 6, 1953 as Lynn Butler-Smith), by whom he had a daughter, Grace. After their 1992 divorce he married the artist Paula Guarderas, with whom he had another daughter, Raphaela.
CAUSE: Brian Gibson died from Ewing’s sarcoma (bone cancer). He was 59.
Sir John Gielgud
Born April 14, 1904
Died May 21, 2000
Silken-voiced patrician actor. Arthur John Gielgud was born in 7 Gledhow Gardens, South Kensington, London, the third child and second son (of two) of four children to stockbroker Frank Gielgud and great-nephew of the actress Ellen Terry. He was educated at Westminster School (spending his free afternoons watching ballet) and then went to Lady Benson’s School and RADA, winning scholarships to both. His first stage appearance came when he was 17 on November 7, 1921, at the Old Vic playing the Herald in Henry V. Shakespeare soon became Gielgud’s forte and his Hamlet was regarded as the finest of the twentieth century. However, Gielgud was nothing if not versatile and his first job after leaving RADA in December 1923 was playing Charles Wykeham in the farce Charley’s Aunt. In May 1924 he played Romeo for the first time. He made his film début that year in Who Is The Man? (1924) as Daniel but it wasn’t until late in life that he began appearing regularly on screen. Gielgud was never out of work, moving with ease between productions. In January 1928 he made his Broadway début at the Majestic Theater playing Grand Duke Alexander in Alfred Neumann’s The Patriot. The show closed after only a dozen performances. A number of London assignments were equally unsuccessful but he at least had the consolation of seeing his name in lights in June 1928 at the Globe Theatre for the farce Holding Out The Apple. In September 1929 he joined the Old Vic company. His second film, The Clue Of The New Pin (1929) in which he played Rex Trasmere, was also released that year. On July 7, 1930, at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, he played John Worthing in The Importance Of Being Earnest for the first time before rejoining the Old Vic company. Gielgud became a star on February 2, 1933, following his performance in the lead role of Richard Of Bordeaux at the New Theatre. The play ran for a year. In November 1934 he began the first of 155 performances in Hamlet. Gielgud’s 1935 production of Romeo & Juliet for the Oxford University Drama Society is rightly acclaimed. Among the cast were Dame Peggy Ashcroft, Dame Edith Evans, Christopher Hassall as Romeo and Sir Terence Rattigan. After a triumphant first night Gielgud stood on the stage taking the plaudits. When the cheering had died down, he said that Ashcroft and Evans were “the like of whom I shall never meet again!” He had appeared in Insult (1932) as Henri Dubois, The Good Companions (1933) as Inigo Jollifant and Secret Agent (1936) as Edgar Brodie/Richard Ashenden. During the Second World War Gielgud toured extensively entertaining troops abroad while managing to maintain a presence on the West End stage. He played Benjamin Disraeli in The Prime Minister (1941), narrated An Airman’s Letter To His Mother (1941) and was the voice of the ghost in Hamlet (1948). It would be his last film for five years. From the mid-Fifties he began to appear with regularity on television and in films. As well as being celebrated for being one of the best actors of the twentieth century Gielgud was also famous for his verbal blunders, lovingly known as Gielgudies. He saw an under par performance from an ill Richard Burton in Hamlet and told him “I’ll come back when you’re better … in health, of course.” Early in his career Gielgud was the guest of an old and distinguished but very boring playwright when a man passed their table without stopping. “Thank goodness, he didn’t stop. He’s more boring than Eddie Knoblock,” Gielgud commented. His dining companion at the time was Eddie Knoblock. Having graduated from RADA Peter Sallis was cast by Gielgud as the gardener in Richard II. Gielgud then turned to cast two other roles before turning back to Sallis saying, “We’ve got two men playing Bushy and Bagot, very beautiful. You’ll make a good contrast.” One day after a performance Gielgud approached a man to whom he said, “How pleased I am to meet you. I was at school with your son.” The man was puzzled. “I have no son. We were at school together.” Casting The Laughing Woman, a play about a sculptor and his mistress, Gielgud was chatting to Emlyn Williams: “Bronnie is insisting on Stephen Haggard for the part. He’s splendid but much too well bred. It calls for an actor who would convey someone savage, uncouth – Emlyn, you should be playing it.” Dudley Moore’s first appearance on Broadway was
in Beyond The Fringe. Gielgud gave him a letter of recommendation for Lilli Palmer. It read, “Darling Lilli, This will introduce to you the brilliant young pianist from Beyond The Fringe Stanley Moon …” When Clement Attlee was Prime Minister Sir John Gielgud had dinner with him in a hotel at Stratford-upon-Avon. Sir John sat next to Attlee’s daughter. Discussing houses, Gielgud remarked, “I have a very convenient home in Westminster (it was at 16 Cowley Street, SW1) and where do you live?” A startled Miss Attlee replied, “Number ten Downing Street.” The two knighted Johns of the theatre, Gielgud and Mills, starred in a provincial tour of Charles Wood’s play Veterans. Booked to appear in Brighton the audience was shocked by the many four-letter words in the script. It was too much for one man. He shouted out that the two respected actors ought to be ashamed of themselves for appearing in such a dreadful play. He took his wife’s hand and led her from their seats. One woman was not quick enough. “Get out of my fucking way!” he shouted at Mary Haley Bell, a.k.a. Lady Mills. Gielgud was once instructing members of the cast to wear jockstraps under their leotards. One of the bit part actors piped up. “Does that apply to those of us who only have small parts, Sir John?” Gielgud was knighted in the June 2, 1953, Coronation Honours List, six years after his rival Laurence Olivier. Later that year, on October 21, Gielgud was arrested in a Chelsea public lavatory and charged with importuning. At home in Cowley Street that night Gielgud contemplated suicide. He turned up at the magistrate’s court the next morning and pleaded guilty but lied to the court, telling the bench he was a self-employed clerk who earned £1,000 a year. The magistrate, E.R. Guest, fined him £10 and told him to visit a doctor. Gielgud appeared in, among other films, Julius Caesar (1953) as Cassius, Richard III (1954) as George, Duke of Clarence, Around The World In 80 Days (1956) as Foster, The Barretts Of Wimpole Street (1957) as Edward Moulton-Barrett, Saint Joan (1957) as Warwick, North West Frontier (1959), Becket (1964) as King Louis VII, for which he was nominated a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, The Charge Of The Light Brigade (1968) as Lord Raglan (Gielgud was required to deliver his lines while sitting on a horse. The idea was the horse would move and then Gielgud would deliver his words. On ten occasions, he spoke his lines perfectly but the trusty steed failed to budge even an inch. Said the director, Tony Richardson, “No, John. I want you advance the horse five paces and then say your lines.” Gielgud replied, “I know that but does the horse?”), The Shoes Of The Fisherman (1968) as the Elder Pope, Oh! What A Lovely War (1969) as Count Leopold Von Berchtold, Julius Caesar (1970) as Julius Caesar, Lost Horizon (1973) as Chang, Gold (1974) as Farrell, Murder On The Orient Express (1974) as Beddoes, Galileo (1975) as the old Cardinal, a doctor in Joseph Andrews (1977), Murder By Decree (1979) as Lord Salisbury, the Prime Minister who covers up the royal family’s involvement in the Jack the Ripper outrages, The Elephant Man (1980) as Carr Gomm, Caligula (1980) as Nerva, Chariots Of Fire (1981) as the Master of Trinity College, Sphinx (1981) as Abdu Hamdi, Arthur (1981) as Hobson for which he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, delivering such memorable lines as “I’ll alert the media” when Arthur Bach (Dudley Moore) announces he is going to have a bath and “One normally has to go to a bowling alley to meet a woman of your stature,” to prostitute Linda Marolla (Liza Minnelli)), Gandhi as Lord Irwin, The Wicked Lady as Hogarth, Arthur 2: On The Rocks (1988) as Hobson, Prospero’s Books (1991) as Prospero, Haunted (1995) as Doctor Doyle, Shine (1996) as Cecil Parkes, The Tichborne Claimant (1998) as Cockburn and Elizabeth (1998) as Pope Paul IV. Gielgud was unmarried but lived with his long-term boyfriend, Martin Hensler (d. February, 1999 of cancer), for 40 years.
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