Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries

by Paul Donnelley

  FURTHER READING: Deadly Illusions: Who Killed Jean Harlow’s Husband? – Samuel Marx & Joyce Vanderveen (London: Century, 1991); Platinum Girl: The Life And Legends Of Jean Harlow – Eve Golden (New York: Abbeville Press, 1991); Bombshell: The Life And Death Of Jean Harlow – David Stenn (New York: Doubleday, 1993).

  Radie Harris

  Born October 24, 1904

  Died February 22, 2001

  Monoped gossip columnist. Born one of five children and a twin (she had a brother, Lawrence) in New York City, New York, Radie Harris was 14 years old when she was thrown from her horse in Maine and as a result of the injury had to have her left leg amputated below the knee. She became a journalist with the New York Morning Telegraph, later presented a radio show on CBS and wrote a column for the Hollywood Reporter called Broadway Ballyhoo. Unlike her rivals Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons, Harris’ columns were much gentler as she enjoyed the confidence of those she wrote about. She appeared in the film Stage Door Canteen (1943). She never married.

  CAUSE: Radie Harris died aged 96 in Englewood, New Jersey, from natural causes.

  FURTHER READING: Radie’s World – Radie Harris (London: W.H. Allen, 1975)

  Richard Harris

  Born October 1, 1930

  Died October 25, 2002

  Irish troublemaker. Born in Limerick in the Republic of Ireland, the fifth of eight children of a flour mill owner, Ivan Harris and his wife Mildred Harty (d. December 1959 of cancer), a staunchly Roman Catholic family, Richard St John Harris was educated by the Jesuits at Crescent School. He wanted to become a rugby international and played for Munster before a bout of tuberculosis when he was 19 wrecked his dreams. He was bedridden for two years during which time he read prodigiously and decided to become an actor. He travelled to London in 1953 to fulfil his ambition. He had just £21 in his pocket. He was accepted by LAMDA after RADA turned him down and then studied at Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop before making his London stage début in 1956. On February 9, 1957, at the Church of Notre Dame de Paris, Leicester Place, London he married the Honourable (Joan) Elizabeth Rees-Williams (b. 1 May, 1936, daughter of David, 1st Baron Ogmore). Their reception was held at the House of Lords. By Harris, she had three sons: the film director Damian (b. Queen Charlotte’s Hospital, London, August 2, 1958) and the actors Jared (b. London, August 24, 1961) and Jamie (b. London, May 15, 1963). Harris was present at the birth of Damian and fainted during the proceedings. They divorced on July 25, 1969 and she went on to marry (Sir) Rex Harrison on August 26, 1971 in Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York. They divorced on December 16, 1975. Harris quickly acquired a reputation for heavy drinking and fighting, so perhaps it is fitting that his first film was called Alive And Kicking (1958) which starred Sybil Thorndike and Stanley Holloway. In 1963 he played a miner in Lindsay Anderson’s This Sporting Life and was nominated for an Oscar for his performance. Harris used the money he made from the film to prevent the closure of his father’s mill. In 1967 he played King Arthur in Camelot despite the fact that the producers wanted Richard Burton who had created the role on stage. In the Eighties Harris bought the rights to the stage version for £1 million and toured the world for five years with the show, becoming a multi-millionaire in the process. In 1968 he had a smash hit with his version of the maudlin song ‘Macarthur Park’. He was nominated for another Oscar in 1990 for The Field for his performance as ‘Bull’ McCabe who is fighting to save his land. Harris created as many headlines off the screen as he did on. He and Marlon Brando had a well-publicised feud during the making of The Mutiny On The Bounty. “I called him a gross, misconceived, bloody animal. It was a legendary punch-up and it stuck with me.” Harris also had fights with Kirk Douglas and Charlton Heston during the filming of Sam Peckinpah’s Major Dundee (1964) – Heston called him “very much the professional Irishman and an occasional pain in the posterior”. On December 17, 1983, the IRA exploded a bomb outside Harrods which killed six people and injured 90. Harris praised the bombers and it was only when public revulsion reached a peak that he then came out with a pious piece of hypocrisy. He claimed that Daily Express gossip journalist Philip Geddes, a 24-year-old victim, “was a friend of mine”. Hardly. The previous time that the two men had met was in Langan’s Brasserie and Harris punched Geddes in the face. Two years previously, Harris had been told that he had hypoglycaemia and warned that unless he moderated his prodigious drinking, he would be dead within 18 months. On August 11, 1981, he went into the Jockey Club in Washington and ordered two bottles of Chateau Margaux 1947 at a cost of £325 each. He had decided to say goodbye to alcohol in style. In the Nineties he lived at the Savoy hotel and claimed that his friends were the winos who populated the Strand. In December 2001 a young woman in a mini-skirted Santa Claus outfit collecting for charity walked into Harris’ local, the Coal Hole on the Strand. He rushed over and she good-naturedly ruffled his hair and rubbed his stubble, “Hello, grandad, have you been a good boy this year?” They chatted for ten minutes and then she left saying, “I don’t know who that tramp was but he has just given me a donation of a thousand pounds.” The dyslexic Harris once said, “My life has been a rollercoaster of money, booze and high adventure. I drank, I screwed and I put the ‘Great’ into British films.” His films included Shake Hands With The Devil (1959) as Terence O’Brien, The Wreck Of The Mary Deare (1959) as Higgins, The Long And The Short And The Tall (1960) as Corporal Johnstone, A Terrible Beauty (1960) as Sean Reilly, The Guns Of Navarone as Squadron Leader Howard Barnsby RAAF, Mutiny On The Bounty as Seaman John Mills, Il Deserto Rosso (1964) as Corrado Zeller, The Heroes Of Telemark (1965) as Knut Straud, La Bibbia (1966) as Cain, Hawaii (1966) as Rafer Hoxworth, The Circle (1967), Caprice (1967) as Christopher White, Camelot (1967) as King Arthur, A Man Called Horse (1970) as John Morgan, Cromwell (1970) as Oliver Cromwell, The Molly Maguires (1970) as James McParlan/ McKenna, Bloomfield (1971) as Eitan which he also directed, Man In The Wilderness (1971) as Zachary Bass, The Deadly Trackers (1973) as Sheriff Sean Kilpatrick, 99 And 44/100 Per Cent Dead (1974) as Harry Crown, Juggernaut (1974) as Fallon, Ransom as Gerald Palmer, Robin And Marian (1976) as King Richard, Echoes Of A Summer (1976) as Eugene Striden, The Return Of A Man Called Horse (1976) as Lord John Morgan a.k.a. Shunkawakan which he also produced, The Cassandra Crossing as Dr Jonathan Chamberlain, Gulliver’s Travels (1977) as Gulliver, Orca (1977) as Captain Nolan, Golden Rendezvous (1977) as John Carter, The Wild Geese (1978) as Captain Rafer Janders, Ravagers (1979) as Falk, The Last Word (1979) as Danny Travis, A Game For Vultures (1979) as David Swansey, Tarzan, The Ape Man (1981) as Parker, Your Ticket Is No Longer Valid (1981) as Jason, Triumphs Of A Man Called Horse (1982) as John Morgan, Martin’s Day (1984) as Martin Steckert, Highpoint (1984) as Lewis Kinney, Strike Commando 2 (1989), King Of The Wind (1989) as King George II, Mack The Knife (1990) as Peachum, Patriot Games (1992) as Paddy O’Neil, Unforgiven (1992) as English Bob, Silent Tongue (1993) as Prescott Roe, Wrestling Ernest Hemingway (1993) as Frank, Savage Hearts (1995) as Sir Roger Foxley, Cry, The Beloved Country (1995) as James Jarvis, Trojan Eddie (1996) as John Power, Smilla’s Sense Of Snow (1997) as Andreas Tork, This Is The Sea (1998) as Old Man Jacobs, Sibirskij Tsiryulnik (1998) as Douglas McCraken, To Walk With Lions (1999) as George Adamson, Grizzly Falls (1999) as Old Harry, The Royal Way (2000), Gladiator (2000) as Marcus Aurelius, The Pearl (2001), My Kingdom (2001) as Sandeman, Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone (2001) as Professor Albus Dumbledore for which he received another Oscar nomination, The Count Of Monte Cristo (2002) as Abbé Faria, Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets (2002) as Albus Dumbledore, San Giovanni – L’Apocalisse (2002) as St John/ Teophilus and Kaena: The Prophecy (2003) as Opaz. He was also Maigret in the television series of 1988. Following his divorce from his first wife Harris was married to the tall, glamorous, Jewish model-actress Ann Turkel (b. Scarsdale, New York 1947) from June 1974 (in Beverly Hills) until 1981.

  CAUSE: Harris died in London’s University College Hospital of Hodgkin’s disease. As he lay dyi
ng his ex-wife Ann Turkel waved her hands over his body and prayed for him to be healed.

  FURTHER READING: Richard Harris A Sporting Life – Michael Feeney Callan (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1990); Richard Harris Actor By Accident – Gus Smith (London: Robert Hale, 1990).

  Sir Rex Harrison

  Born March 5, 1908

  Died June 2, 1990

  Urbanity personified. Born in Derry House, Tarbock Road, Huyton, Merseyside, the son of a stockbroker, Reginald Carey Harrison became ‘Rex’ when he was ten years old. A weedy child, he joined the Liverpool Repertory Theatre when he was just 16 and began touring with Charley’s Aunt in 1927. He made his film début three years later in School For Scandal (1930). He signed a contract with Sir Alexander Korda at London Films but continued to appear on the stage. In January 1934 he married fashion model Noel Marjorie Collette Thomas (d. 1991) who preferred to be known by her third given name and they had one son Noel (b. London, January 29, 1935) who became an actor, pop star and Olympic skier. The couple was divorced in 1942. Prior to a two-year stint in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, he appeared in School For Husbands (1937) as Leonard Drummond, Over The Moon (1937) as Dr Freddie Jarvis, Storm In A Teacup (1937) as journalist Frank Burdon, Sidewalks Of London (1938) as Harley Prentiss, Night Train To Munich (1940) as Gus Bennett and Major Barbara (1941) as Adolphus Cusins. He married for the second time at Caxton Hall Register Office on January 25, 1943; his wife this time was the actress Lilli Palmer and they had a son Carey (b. London, February 19, 1944). After demob Harrison appeared in The Rake’s Progress (1945) as playboy Vivian Kenway and Blithe Spirit (1945) as Charles Condomine before signing a seven-year contract in Hollywood at 20th Century Fox. He appeared in Anna And The King Of Siam (1946) playing King Mongkut to Irene Dunne’s Mrs Anna, The Ghost And Mrs Muir (1947) playing the spirit of sea salt Captain Daniel Gregg and Unfaithfully Yours (1948) as the egomaniacal conductor Sir Alfred De Carter. His contract with Fox was ended by mutual consent following his involvement in a scandal over the suicide of actress Carole Landis, with whom he was having an affair. For some time Harrison preferred the theatre, occasionally appearing before the cameras in films such as The Long Dark Hall (1951) as Arthur Groome, King Richard And The Crusaders (1954) as Saladin, The Constant Husband (1955) as Charles Hathaway, The Reluctant Debutante (1958) as Jimmy Broadbent and Midnight Lace (1960) as Anthony Preston. He met actress Kay Kendall and began an affair with her only to discover she was dying of leukaemia. He divorced Lilli Palmer in February 1957 so he could marry his new lover with the understanding they would remarry after Kendall’s death. He and Kendall were married at Universalist Church of the Divine Paternity, Central Park West & 76th Street, New York on June 23, 1957. They were together when she died at the London Clinic on September 6, 1959, aged 33. Harrison and Palmer never remarried and on March 21, 1962, he married actress Rachel Roberts (b. Llanelli, Wales, September 20, 1927, d. Los Angeles, California, November 26, 1980) at Genoa Town Hall. He appeared in the epic that bankrupted 20th Century Fox, Cleopatra (1963), playing Julius Caesar (and winning an Oscar nomination) but it was the following year that he created his most famous cinematic role, that of Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady (1964). He had first played the part on stage in 1956, but his cinematic turn made him an international star. He won his only Oscar for the part. Actress Cathleen Nesbitt, still working as a nonagenarian, played the role of Rex Harrison’s mother in the American touring production of My Fair Lady. Her legs would no longer carry her to and from her dressing room, so thoughtful stage-hands placed a chair at the side of the stage for her to sit on between her entrances. This resulted in her seeing parts of the show that she had previously missed, as she had been in her dressing room when they were being performed. She was not impressed. She complained to the producer about the ‘new’ songs he had put into the play: “Something about the rain in Spain …” When the show reached San Francisco the audience gave her a standing ovation on her first entrance. The old dear became confused and, thinking the show was over, took a bow and left the stage. In the late Sixties and Seventies Harrison appeared in The Agony And The Ecstasy (1965) as Pope Julius II, Doctor Dolittle (1967) as Dr John Dolittle, Staircase (1969) as Charles Dyer, Shalimar (1978) as Shalimar, The Fifth Musketeer (1979) as Colbert and Ashanti (1979) as Brian Walker. Harrison would have played Ebeneezer Scrooge in Scrooge (1970) but a last minute contractual problem meant the role went to Albert Finney. On February 20, 1971, he was divorced for the fourth time. Not single for long, on August 26 of the same year he married the Honourable Elizabeth Harris (b. May 1, 1936, the daughter of 1st Baron Ogmore of Bridgend and former wife of Richard Harris) at Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York. They were divorced on December 16, 1975. He married for the sixth and final time in New York on December 17, 1978, to Mercia Tinker (b. 1938). His last film was A Time To Die (1983) in which he played Van Osten. Generally regarded as a deeply unpleasant man with a fearsome temper (he also had only one eye [the right] and wore a wig), when he was awarded a knighthood in the summer of 1989 one of his friends commented, “What has Rex ever done for England, except live abroad on his illegal income tax and call everybody a cunt?” Even the ceremony didn’t please him. “The Queen wasn’t properly briefed. She didn’t seem to know who I was. Mind you, you’d have to be a complete cunt not to get it right.” Noël Coward once said to him, “If you weren’t the best light comedian in the country, all you’d be fit for is selling cars in Great Portland Street.”

  CAUSE: He died in New York of pancreatic cancer aged 82. On his death bed he told younger son, Carey, to drop dead and informed his elder son, Noel, “There was something I always wanted to tell you. I could never stand the sound of your fucking guitar.”

  FURTHER READING: Love Honour & Dismay – Elizabeth Harrison (London: Star Books, 1978); Rex Harrison – Allen Eyles (London: W.H. Allen, 1985); Rex Harrison: The First Biography – Roy Moseley with Philip & Martin Masheter (London: New English Library, 1987); Rex Harrison: A Biography – Nicholas Wapshott (London: Chatto & Windus, 1991); The Last Of The High Comedians – The Incomparable Rex: A Memoir Of Rex Harrison In The 1980s – Patrick Garland (London: Macmillan, 1998).

  Phil Hartman

  Born September 24, 1948

  Died May 28, 1998

  ‘The Sultan Of Smarm’. Born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, Philip Edward Hartmann was little known in Britain but well known in America for his appearances on numerous television shows such as Saturday Night Live often impersonating President Bill Clinton. He also appeared in several films including The Gong Show Movie (1980), Weekend Pass (1984) as Joe Chicago, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1985) playing a reporter, Three Amigos! (1986) as Sam, Jumpin’ Jack Flash (1986) as Fred, Blind Date (1987) as Ted Davis, Fletch Lives (1989), So I Married An Axe Murderer (1993) as John Johnson, Loaded Weapon 1 (1993), Coneheads (1993) as Marlax, Sgt. Bilko (1996) as Major Thorn and Small Soldier s (1998) as Phil Fimple. He was wed five times. He married Lisa Jarvis, Carlyle Blackwell, Gretchen Lewis, Lisa Strain (in 1982) and finally Brynn in 1987. He once commented, “I’m 49 years old and I’m cautious of the fact that very few people in comedy have careers after age 50. I think there’s a notion in our society, and it may be valid, that people aren’t as funny when they get older. It’s a stigma still attached to the rebelliousness of youth. I do believe that sooner or later I’ll get those great roles like Gary Sinise’s part in Forrest Gump or Tommy Lee Jones as Two Face in Batman Forever.”

  CAUSE: He was murdered, aged 49, by his wife who shot him as he lay sleeping in bed at home in Encino. His widow then committed suicide.

  William Hartnell

  Born January 8, 1908

  Died April 23, 1975

  Forever Dr Who. Born illegitimately in South Pancras, London, Billy Hartnell never knew his father and his mother, Lucy (b. January 1884) was never to marry. He appeared in over 75 films including The Unwritten Law (1929), School For Scandal (1930), Too Dangerous To Live (1939), Flying Fortress (1942) as a tax
i driver, The Goose Steps Out (1942) as a German officer, Brighton Rock (1947) as Dallow, The Pickwick Papers (1952), Private’s Progress (1956) as Sergeant Sutton, Yangtse Incident (1957) as Leading Seaman Frank, Carry On Sergeant (1958) as Sergeant Grimshaw and This Sporting Life (1963) as Johnson. He also appeared regularly on television, including The Army Game, and was the first Dr Who. He left the show in 1966 after three years because he believed it unsuitable for children and because he was suffering from multiple sclerosis. On May 9, 1929, at Chelsea Register Office, he married Amy Heather Miriam Armstrong McIntyre (b. April 27, 1907, d. December 1984).