Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries

by Paul Donnelley

  FURTHER READING: Rock Hudson: Public And Private – Mark Bego (New York: Signet, 1986); Idol Rock Hudson: The True Story Of An American Film Hero – Jerry Oppenheimer & Jack Vitek (New York: Villard Books, 1986); Rock Hudson: His Story – Rock Hudson and Sara Davidson (London: Bantam, 1987); My Husband Rock Hudson: The Real Story Of Rock Hudson’s Marriage To Phyllis Gates – Phyllis Gates And Bob Thomas (London: Angus & Robertson, 1987); The Trial Of Rock Hudson – John Parker (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1990).

  Glenn Hughes

  Born July 18, 1950

  Died March 4, 2002

  The Leatherman. Glenn Michael Hughes was born in the Bronx. In 1977, while working as a tollbooth collector at the Holland Tunnel in New Jersey, he answered for a dare an advertisement for “gay singers and dancers, very good-looking and with mustaches [sic]”. The advert was placed by a Moroccan-born music producer called Jacques Morali. From the response he put together Village People. To Morali’s amazement the group appealed to straight people and teenage girls as well as his targeted audience. Soon Village People were a world-wide phenomenon scoring massive international hits such as ‘Y.M.C.A.’ (number one in the UK, number two in the US), ‘In The Navy’, ‘Go West’ and ‘Can’t Stop The Music’. It was in the film of the same name that Hughes played himself in the fictionalised version of how the group came to be formed. The band split in 1985 but were reformed a few years later by Randy Jones, the cowboy, with most of the original line-up. Hughes left the band through ill-health in 1996 but continued to work with the group’s administration until the time of his death. He also sang on the band’s most recent two house music singles ‘Loveship 2001’ and ‘Gunbalanya’ under the name Village People alias The Amazing Veepers. The latter tune, which means “in the tribe,” was written in Australia with a group of Aborigines during a documentary filmed by the country’s public television network. Both singles were released on the group’s own label, Plenty Big Music. Hughes also kept in touch with fans answering emails. He never married.

  CAUSE: Hughes, who had been ill for several years, died of lung cancer in his Manhattan apartment. He was 51. Village People’s manager, Mitch Weiss, said that the cancer was in the final stages when it was detected in Hughes, and there was nothing medical experts could do. “It came as a surprise to everyone,” he said. In accordance with his wishes Hughes was buried in his leather stage outfit. The other Village People acted as pallbearers at Hughes’ funeral. Alexander Briley, the original and current GI, sang ‘Where Do I Go?’ from Hair during the ceremony, which Hughes had also requested. “Glenn had a talent for keeping things light and could make you laugh even on your worst day,” Hughes’ sister, Cindy, said at his funeral. “His quick wit, terrific dancing and fabulous voice were his trademarks.”

  Howard Hughes

  Born September 24, 1905

  Died April 5, 1976

  Extremely eccentric. Born in Humble, Texas, Howard Robard Hughes, Jr was an aviator, founder of Trans World Airlines, billionaire, film producer, owner of RKO Pictures, bra inventor, lover of beautiful women (and handsome men) and much more, but it is for his numerous eccentricities that he is best known. The son of a man who invented a tool for drilling, Hughes was left a tremendous fortune on his father’s death on January 14, 1924. In an attempt to become his own man and escape from his father’s shadow, Hughes became a Hollywood producer. His first work of note was Hell’s Angels (1930), the film that propelled Jean Harlow to stardom. Other Hughes films included The Front Page (1931), Scarface (1932), The Outlaw (1943), The Big Steal (1949), Flying Leathernecks (1951), Underwater (1955) and The Conqueror (1956). Hughes was obsessed with women’s breasts, to the point of mania. He designed a special bra for Jane Russell to wear in The Outlaw. However, unbeknown to him, she found it uncomfortable and never wore it. He instructed chauffeurs who drove his starlets to the studios to go via a route that ensured there were few if any bumps on the road so their breasts wouldn’t bounce. He also took an obsessional interest in their private lives, insisting they did not date anyone and had them tailed to make sure they followed his orders. His name was romantically linked to actresses Carole Lombard, Bette Davis, Terry Moore (who claimed to have married him), Ginger Rogers, Ida Lupino, Marian Marsh and Jean Harlow. According to one biographer (Charles Higham), Hughes also had affairs with Cary Grant, Randolph Scott, Tyrone Power and Richard Cromwell, the gay first husband of Angela Lansbury, among others. Yet other biographers (notably Peter Harry Brown and Pat H. Broeske) disdain the rumours. Since all four men are dead, we will never know for sure. In December 1970 novelist and biographer Clifford Irving decided to write the authorised biography of reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes. Irving forged a correspondence between himself and Hughes and presented it to the publishing execs, demanding $750,000. On December 7, 1971, publishing house McGraw-Hill announced the book in a 550-word press release, saying it would be published on March 27, 1972. Rosemont Enterprises Inc., Hughes’ main company, denied the book was genuine. To cover himself, Irving explained that Hughes was so paranoid he had not even told his own men, an explanation that sated McGraw-Hill. Cheques were issued to an H.R. Hughes and deposited in an account at Credit Suisse, opened by Irving’s wife, Edith. At 6.45pm on January 7, 1972, from the ninth-floor suite of the Britannia Beach Hotel in Nassau, Hughes made his first public utterance in 15 years when he denounced the book as a fake in a phone link to journalists at the Sheraton Hotel in Los Angeles. Hughes also lied about himself to them, saying he regularly cut his nails and that he wasn’t terrified of catching germs. It was when the Swiss banks broke their traditional vow of secrecy to reveal that H.R. Hughes was a woman (Helga Rosencrantz Hughes) that the plot quickly began to unravel. Hughes informed the I.R.S. that he had not received a penny of the $750,000 advance and, as such, had no intention of paying tax on it. This caused the tax men to begin an investigation. Signatures on the back of cashed cheques were examined and re-examined. On January 28, 1972, Irving admitted that his wife was the mysterious H.R. Hughes and his lawyer, Martin Ackerman, promptly resigned. On February 7, Irving and his wife appeared before a grand jury in New York and took the Fifth Amendment. Then the I.R.S. demanded $500,000. During the hearings singer Baroness Nina van Pallandt revealed that she had travelled to Mexico with Irving during the time Irving had said he was interviewing Hughes; the writer had not left her side long enough to meet Hughes. Four days after the indictments, both Irvings pleaded guilty to all charges. On June 16, 1972, in the Southern District of New York, Judge John M. Cannella sentenced Edith Irving to two years in prison, all but two months of which were suspended. She was then tried in Zurich on March 8, 1973, and sentenced to a further two years’ imprisonment. She was released on parole on May 5, 1974. Irving was fined $10,000 and spent 17 months of a 30-month sentence in three Federal prisons, including two stays in solitary confinement. Upon his release on parole in early 1974, he was divorced and wrote the story of the hoax. In June 1975 Irving was declared bankrupt with assets of $410 and debts of $55 million. In his later years Hughes became extremely eccentric – keeping his own faeces and urine in jars, walking around with tissue boxes on his feet, letting his toenails grow to extreme length, hiding in seclusion in darkened rooms, surrounding himself with teetotal Mormons and sending men to catch flies by hand.

  CAUSE: Hughes died aged 70 on board an aeroplane bound for Texas. Higham also alleges that the cause of Hughes’ death may well have been AIDS, while Brown and Broeske examine the theory that he was murdered.

  FURTHER READING: Howard Hughes: Bashful Billionaire – Albert B. Gerber (London: New English Library, 1972); Hoax: The Inside Story Of The Howard Hughes–Clifford Irving Affair (London: Andre Deutsch, 1972); The Real Howard Hughes Story – Nelson C. Madden (New York: Manor Books, 1976); The Hughes Papers – Elaine Davenport & Paul Eddy with Mark Hurwitz (London: Sphere, 1977); ‘Project Octavio’ – Clifford Irving & Richard Suskind (London: Allison & Busby, 1977); Citizen Hughes – Michael Drosnin (London: Hutchinson, 1985); Howard H
ughes: The Secret Life – Charles Higham (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1993); Howard Hughes: The Untold Story – Peter Harry Brown and Pat H. Broeske (London: Little, Brown, 1996).

  Jeffrey Hunter

  (HENRY HERMAN MCKINNIES, JR)

  Born November 23, 1925

  Died May 27, 1969

  Pretty boy. Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Hunter served in the US Navy and on demob signed a contract with 20th Century Fox in 1950 and was cast in a variety of roles. He was often compared with and cast alongside Robert Wagner. Probably his most memorable appearance was as Jesus in MGM’s King Of Kings (1961). He was the original captain (Christopher Pike) in the pilot of the sci-fi TV series Star Trek. However, he was unavailable when shooting began on the series’ second pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before, on July 19, 1965. He married three times: in 1950 to actress Barbara Rush by whom he had a son, Christopher (b. 1952) and from whom he was divorced on March 29, 1955, in Los Angeles; to actress Dusty Bartlett in 1957 by whom he had another son, Todd (b. 1959) and from whom he was divorced in 1967; and actress Emily McLaughlin whom he married on February 4, 1969, four months before his death.

  CAUSE: Hunter died aged 43 in Van Nuys, California, as a result of brain surgery following a fall.

  Kim Hunter

  (JANET COLE)

  Born November 12, 1922

  Died September 11, 2002

  Expressive actress. Born in Detroit, Michigan, she was the only daughter (there was a son, born in 1913) of Donald Cole, who died when she was three, and Grace Mabel Lind, who remarried Bliss Stebbins, a retired Miami businessman. A lonely child, she was educated at Miami Beach High School and developed a strong fantasy life acting in front of mirrors. She made her first stage appearance in Miami in November 1939 playing Penny in Penny Wise with a small theatre group. She moved to New York to study at the Actors’ Studio. Performances at the Pasadena Playhouse, near Hollywood, brought her to the attention of David O. Selznick and he signed her to a seven-year contract. Selznick suggested she change her name to Kim and an RKO secretary suggested the last name of Hunter. She appeared in The Seventh Victim (1943) as Mary Gibson, a young woman who goes to New York to rescue her sister from a group of devil-worshippers. She was also in Tender Comrade (1943) as Doris Dumbrowski, When Strangers Marry (1944) as Millie Baxter, A Canterbury Tale (1944) as Johnson’s girl and You Came Along (1945) as Frances Hotchkiss. She was cast as June opposite David Niven in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s fantasy war tale A Matter Of Life And Death (1946), after being recommended by Alfred Hitchcock who was influenced by his 14-year-old daughter, Patricia. June was the WAC who talked to an English pilot trapped in a burning aeroplane as it hurtles towards the ground. The pilot is then tried, apparently for the crime of being English, but is later acquitted because of June’s love for him. Film critic Leslie Halliwell described the film as deserving “full marks for its sheer arrogance, wit, style and film flair”. She appeared as Stella Kowalski, the abused wife of a brutish husband, in A Streetcar Named Desire at the Ethel Barrymore Theater, New York, from December 3, 1947. Four years later, she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for reprising the role on film. The movie brought Method acting to a wide audience for the first time. Director Elia Kazan kept the Broadway cast except for Blanche Du Bois who was played on screen by Vivien Leigh. Because of the era it was difficult to bring Tennessee Williams’ play to the screen with its homosexuality, rape and nymphomania. Homosexuality was absent from the film version and Blanche’s nymphomania was toned down but the rape scene was included although it was more suggestive than graphic. The film also won Oscars for Best Actress (Leigh), Best Supporting Actor (Karl Malden) and Best B&W Art Direction/Set Decoration (Richard Day and George James Hopkins). Marlon Brando lost out the Best Actor statuette to Humphrey Bogart for The African Queen. During filming when 5́ 3˝ Km Hunter went for a sleep in her trailer, Brando would shake it violently yelling, “Earthquake! Earthquake!” Although it looked as if Hunter would have her pick of parts, it was not to be. In 1949 she had been a sponsor of a World Peace Conference in New York and the Red-hunting followers of Joseph McCarthy picked up on this and blacklisted her after she was named as a fellow traveller in a rabidly anti-communist magazine called Red Channels. During that decade Hunter was offered very few roles. Her films during that period were: Deadline – U.S.A. (1952) as Nora Hutcheson, Storm Center (1956) as Martha Lockridge, The Young Stranger (1957) as Helen Ditmar, Bermuda Affair (1958) as Fran West and Money, Women And Guns (1959) as Mary Kingman. She said, “For a long while, I wouldn’t talk about it at all. I do now, because there’s a whole new generation that doesn’t remember. And the more one knows, the more one can see, and not allow history to repeat itself.” It wasn’t until the late Sixties that Kim Hunter’s career was completely back on track. Her portrayal of the kindly Dr Zira in Planet Of The Apes (1968) won her many plaudits despite her face and entire body being covered in the chimpanzee suit. Her expressive eyes and movements connected with the audience. She reprised her role in Beneath The Planet Of The Apes (1970) and Escape From The Planet Of The Apes (1971) although she confessed to being pleased when Zira was killed off in the third in the series. She also appeared in The Swimmer (1968) as Betty Graham opposite Burt Lancaster as Ned Merrill, a man who decided to swim home via the pools of his friends (even though Lancaster suffered from mild hydrophobia), Dark August (1976) as Adrianna Putnam, The Kindred (1986) as Amanda Hollins opposite a deranged Rod Steiger, Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil (1997) as Betty Harty, Abilene (1999) as Emmeline, Out Of The Cold (1999) as Elsa Lindepu and Here’s To Life! (2000) as Nelly Ormond. She was also regularly featured in television movies including: Dial Hot Line (premièred March 8, 1970) as Mrs Edith Carruthers, In Search Of America (premièred March 23, 1971) as Cora Chandler, Columbo: Suitable For Framing (premièred November 17, 1971) as Edna Matthews, The Magician (premièred March 17, 1973) as Nora Cougan, Unwed Father (premièred February 27, 1974) as Judy Simmons, Born Innocent (premièred September 10, 1974) as Mrs Parker (a film that caused a sensation because of the scene – later cut – when Linda Blair, playing a juvenile delinquent, was raped with a broom handle), Bad Ronald (premièred October 23, 1974) as Elaine Wilby, Ellery Queen: Too Many Suspects (premièred March 23, 1975) as Marion McKell, The Dark Side Of Innocence (premièred May 20, 1976) as Kathleen Hancock, The Golden Gate Murders (premièred October 3, 1979) as Sister Superior, F.D.R.: The Last Year (premièred May 15, 1980) as Lucy Rutherford, Skokie (premièred November 17, 1981) as Bertha Feldman, Drop-Out Mother (1988) as Leona, Bloodlines: Murder In The Family (1993) as Vera Woodman, Triumph Over Disaster: The Hurricane Andrew Story (1993) as Elsa Rael and Blue Moon (1999) as Sheila Keating. Kim Hunter was married twice. Her first husband was Marine Captain William A. Baldwin from February 11, 1944 until 1946 and by whom she had a daughter, Kathryn, who became a judge in Connecticut. She was married to the actor Robert Emmett from December 20, 1951 until his death in 2000. They had one son, Sean.

  CAUSE: Kim Hunter died aged 79 in New York from a heart attack.

  John Huston

  (JOHN MARCELLUS HUSTON)

  Born August 5, 1906

  Died August 28, 1987

  Hell-raising director and actor. Born in Nevada, Missouri, Huston worked as a boxer, an officer in the Mexican cavalry and a magazine editor before turning his hand to script writing. He was the Oscar-winning son and father of Oscar winners. He was the son of Walter Huston who won an Academy Award for The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (1948) (which John directed) and father of Anjelica Huston who won her Oscar for Prizzi’s Honor (1985) (which, needless to say, John also directed). John’s own trophy came for The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre. His first time as director was The Maltese Falcon (1941) and it brought instant fame. Huston was also a celebrated actor but was as well known for his womanising (five marriages) and hard drinking. In 1960 he was hired at a salary of $300,000 to direct what turned out to be the last film of Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable. Filming of The Misfits (1
961) was due to begin in the autumn of 1959 but Marilyn’s commitment to Let’s Make Love and Clark Gable’s to It Happened In Naples delayed shooting. The new start date was March 3, 1960, but an actors’ strike delayed by five weeks the filming of Let’s Make Love which, in turn, delayed The Misfits. Finally, shooting began at 9am on July 18, 1960, and shut down a week later because John Huston’s gambling caused a cash flow problem. On August 25, filming shut down because Huston had bled the company financially dry. Three days later, Marilyn entered Westside Hospital in Los Angeles. Frank Taylor announced filming would be suspended for a week. It gave Huston time to find new finance. One scene half an hour or so into the film called for Rosalyn (Monroe) to eat eggs that Gay (Gable) had prepared for her. Before Huston had the shot he wanted, Marilyn had chomped her way through two dozen eggs. In one scene 32 minutes into the film, Rosalyn is lying naked in bed when Gay comes into the room and kisses her. As she sits up, her bare breast is revealed. Director Huston cut the scene in the final edit. After numerous problems the film wrapped on November 4, 1960. It had cost $3,955,000 — the most expensive black-and-white film then made — and gone 40 days over schedule. Not everything Huston turned his hand to was for adults, or a success. Columbia Studios paid $9 million for the rights to the musical Annie (1982) to be directed by Huston. But the film, set in 1933, features a visit by the characters to Radio City Music Hall to see Camille, which wasn’t made until 1936. Also, Camille would not have been shown at the Radio City Music Hall, but at the Capitol Theater on Broadway. Huston’s other directorial films included Key Largo (1948), The Asphalt Jungle (1950) the first time he worked with Marilyn Monroe and for which he was nominated for an Oscar, The Red Badge Of Courage (1951), The African Queen (1951) which was only the third American film to be made on location in Africa and for which he was nominated for an Oscar, Moulin Rouge (1952) which he also wrote and produced and for which he was nominated for an Oscar, Beat The Devil (1954) which he also wrote and produced, Moby Dick (1956) which he also wrote and produced, Heaven Knows, Mr Allison (1957) which he also wrote and for which he was nominated for an Oscar, Freud (1962) in which he also acted, The List Of Adrian Messenger (1963), The Night Of The Iguana (1964) which he also wrote, Casino Royale (1967) in which he also acted, Reflections In A Golden Eye (1967) which he also produced, The Life And Times Of Judge Roy Bean (1972), The Man Who Would Be King (1975) which he also wrote and for which he was nominated for an Oscar and Under The Volcano (1984). On September 25, 1933, Huston ran over and killed a pedestrian on Sunset Boulevard. MGM chief Louis B. Mayer paid out $400,000 to hush up the incident and Huston left for England for an indefinite period.