CAUSE: Ivor Novello spent Christmas 1950 at his home Wyndways at Montego Bay in Jamaica but the holiday did not have the restorative powers that he had hoped. He returned to London in February 1951 and unwisely insisted on performing. He died aged 58 at 11 Aldwych, London at 2.15am of a coronary thrombosis. The funeral was held at Golders Green Crematorium at 1pm on March 12, 1951, and his ashes buried under a lilac tree. He left £146,245 2s. 4d, a substantial part going to the faithful Bobbie Andrews. A memorial service at St Martin-in-the-Fields on May 28, 1951 was relayed on loudspeakers to a crowd of several thousand. A scholarship in his memory was established at RADA and his name lives on in the eponymous awards presented annually since 1955.
FURTHER READING: The Life I Have Loved– Clara Novello Davies (London: Heinemann, 1940); Ivor The Story Of An Achievement– W. Macqueen Pope (London: W.H. Allen, 1952); Ivor Novello Man Of The Theatre– Peter Noble (London: The Falcon Press, 1951); The World Of Ivor Novello– Richard Rose (London: Leslie Frewin, 1974); Ivor– Sandy Wilson (London: Michael Joseph, 1975); Ivor Novello– James Harding (London: W.H. Allen, 1987).
Rudolf Nureyev
Born March 17, 1938
Died January 6, 1993
‘The Tartar Fury’. Born on a train travelling to Vladivostok, Nureyev became the greatest ballet dancer of the second half of the twentieth century. Ironically, Nureyev’s father was a soldier who hated the ballet. When he joined the Kirov Ballet School, Nureyev shared a room with eight other dancers. On June 16, 1961, the 5́ 8˝ actor defected to the West while in Paris. (Trivia fact: he cut his hair with toenail clippers.) In 1964, with Margot Fonteyn, he received the largest ever number of curtain calls – 64 – for a production of Swan Lake. American ballet guru George Balanchine described Nureyev as “the Brigitte Bardot of ballet”. Nureyev, who had a record collection numbering several thousand, appeared as the King in an American production of The King & I. When the show reached Miami Nureyev only just made his entrance on time and was visibly distracted during the scene. He kept saying “Matt – the phone!” to someone off stage as Mrs Anna (Liz Robertson) tried to explain why the English were not barbarians. Nureyev’s calls became ever more frantic and he began to mime the action of a telephone. He dashed through the scene at breakneck speed, surprising not only the audience but his fellow members of the cast into the bargain. After what seemed an interminable age (to Nureyev) the curtain fell and he raced into the wings. It later emerged that Nureyev had made a long-distance call to France before going on stage and had forgotten to replace the receiver. Each minute on stage was costing him a small fortune. An enigmatic figure, Nureyev had a habit of taking midnight walks alone. According to a recent biography, Nureyev, who was not averse to male company, had an affair with Bobby Kennedy. Nureyev made few films. They included A Leap By The Soul (pre-1960), Swan Lake (1965), Romeo & Juliet (1966), Don Quixote (1973), Valentino (1977), in which he shucked his clothes to play the great cinematic lover, and Exposed (1983).
CAUSE: Nureyev died of AIDS aged 54 in Paris.
O
Edmond O’Brien
Born September 10, 1915
Died May 9, 1985
Character ham. Born in New York, O’Brien’s career began aged ten when he performed magic tricks for his local neighbourhood and then became interested in amdram. Dropping out of Fordham University, he worked as a bank clerk and appeared in plays, after which he had the luck to be taken on by Orson Welles to join his Mercury Players in 1937. The following year, he made his film début as a prisoner in Prison Break (1938). He worked steadily in both leading and supporting roles until his appearance (he was rather heavy) forced him to accept supports only. His films included: The Hunchback Of Notre Dame (1939) as Pierre Gringoire, Obliging Young Lady (1941) as ‘Red’ Reddy, A Girl, A Guy, And A Gob (1941) as Stephen Herrick, Winged Victory (1944) as Irving Miller, The Killers (1946) as Jim Reardon, Fighter Squadron (1948) as Major Ed Hardin, Another Part Of The Forest (1948) as Ben Hubbard, For The Love Of Mary (1948) as Lieutenant Tom Farrington, White Heat (1949) as Vic Pardo/Hank Fallon, Between Midnight And Dawn (1950) as Dan Purvis, 711 Ocean Drive (1950) as Mal Granger, Backfire (1950) as Steve Connolly, D.O.A. (1950) as Frank Bigelow, a dying man looking for his murderer, Warpath (1951) as John Vickers, Denver And Rio Grande (1952) as Jim Vesser, The Greatest Show On Earth (1952), China Venture (1953) as Captain Matt Reardon, Julius Caesar (1953) as Casca, The Barefoot Contessa (1954) as press agent Oscar Muldoon, for which he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, Pete Kelly’s Blues (1955) as Fran McCarg, The Girl Can’t Help It (1956) as Marty Murdock, 1984 (1956) as Winston Smith, D-Day The Sixth Of June (1956) as Colonel Alex Timmer, Stopover Tokyo (1957) as George Underwood, Up Periscope (1959) as Stevenson, The Longest Day (1962) as General Raymond D. Barton, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) as Dutton Peabody, Birdman Of Alcatraz (1962) as Tom Gaddis, Seven Days In May (1964) as Senator Raymond Clark, for which he was nominated for a second Oscar, Sylvia (1965) as Oscar Stewart, The Wild Bunch (1969) as Sykes, Dream No Evil (1970) as Timothy Macdonald, 99 And 44/100 Per Cent Dead (1974) as Uncle Frank Kelly and Lucky Luciano (1974) as Commissioner Harry J. Anslinger. On February 19, 1941, O’Brien and actress Nancy Kelly (b. Lowell, Massachusetts, March 25, 1921) eloped to Yuma, Arizona. In June 1941 they separated and divorced on February 2, 1942. Six and a half years later, on September 26, 1948, he married actress Olga San Juan (b. Brooklyn, New York, March 16, 1927) in Santa Barbara. They had two daughters: actress Maria (b. 1950) and Bridget (b. 1951) and a son, Brendan (b. May 9, 1962). The couple was divorced in 1976.
CAUSE: Edmond O’Brien died of Alzheimer’s disease aged 69 in Inglewood, California. He was buried in Grave 50, Tier 54, Section F of Holy Cross Cemetery & Mausoleum, 5835 West Slauson Avenue, Culver City. California 90230.
Pat O’Brien
(WILLIAM JOSEPH PATRICK O’BRIEN)
Born November 11, 1899
Died October 15, 1983
Responsible character. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Pat O’Brien began in vaudeville as a dancer and then moved to the legitimate theatre with appearances on Broadway. He made his film début playing a detective in Compliments Of The Season (1930) but it was as the cynical journalist Hildebrand Johnson in The Front Page (1931) that he first made his mark. He appeared in several films before joining Warner Bros in 1933, where he stayed for seven years. He was probably best known for playing opposite his real-life close friend James Cagney in films such as Here Comes The Navy (1934) as Biff Martin, Devil Dogs Of The Air (1935) as Lieutenant William Brannigan, The Irish In Us (1935) as Patrick O’Hara, Ceiling Zero (1935) as Jake Lee, Boy Meets Girl (1938) as J. Carlyle Benson, Angels With Dirty Faces (1938) as The Reverend Jerry Connolly, The Fighting 69th (1940) as Father Duffy and Torrid Zone (1940) as Steve Case. O’Brien, unlike Cagney, enjoyed his time at Warner Bros and, in later years, was called upon to repeat his cry of encouragement in Knute Rockne, All American (1940) in which he played Knute Rockne to “win one for the Gipper,” Ronald Reagan. After leaving Warner Bros, O’Brien worked for various studios and was working up until two years before his death (he played Delmas in Ragtime [1981]). Unusually for Hollywood, and indeed for most of the rest of the world too, O’Brien was married to the same woman for 53 years. He married actress Eloise Taylor on January 23, 1931, and they had one daughter and adopted a son and two more daughters.
CAUSE: Pat O’Brien died aged 83 in Santa Monica, California, from a heart attack. He was buried in Grave 62, Tier 56, Section F of Holy Cross Cemetery & Mausoleum, 5835 West Slauson Avenue, Culver City, California 90230.
Heather O’Rourke
Born December 27, 1975
Died February 1, 1988
Film moppet. Born in San Diego, California, Heather O’Rourke captured the imagination of the public for her role as Carol Anne Freeling, famous for the cries, “They’re heere” and “They’re baaack” in the horror trilogy Poltergeist (1982), Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986) and Poltergeist III (1988). She also had a recur
ring role as Heather Pfister on the television sitcom Happy Days from 1982 until 1983. Three years earlier, she had been sitting having lunch at MGM with her mother when Steven Spielberg asked if he could talk to her. No, she replied, she didn’t talk to strangers. With her mother’s permission Spielberg chatted to her and cast her in Poltergeist.
CAUSE: On February 1, 1988, she began to suffer stomach ache and was taken to the Children’s Hospital of San Diego. She died of pulmonary and cardiac arrest on the operating table, presumably the result of a hereditary weakness of the heart. She was 12 years old. She was buried in Westwood Village Memorial Park, 1218 Glendon Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90024.
Maureen O’Sullivan
Born May 17, 1911
Died June 23, 1998
Tarzan’s Jane who became Frank Sinatra’s mother-in-law. Born above a draper’s shop in Boyle, County Roscommon, Ireland, Maureen Paula O’Sullivan went to the same Catholic school as Vivien Leigh: Convent of the Sacred Heart, Roehampton, and from the age of nine wanted to be a pilot. Back in Dublin she met director Frank Borzage at a horse show and he invited her to Hollywood to test for him; she duly arrived with her mother in 1930. She played Eileen O’Brien in Borzage’s Song O’ My Heart (1930). On March 25, 1932, she opened in Tarzan The Ape Man (1932) as Jane Parker opposite Johnny Weissmuller. She was to reprise the role of Jane in Tarzan And His Mate (1934), Tarzan Escapes (1936), Tarzan Finds A Son! (1939), Tarzan’s Secret Treasure (1941) and Tarzan’s New York Adventure (1942). Years later, Esther Williams would ask O’Sullivan if she had suffered the same ‘harassment’ from Weissmuller, who was determined to show her (Williams) his rather magnificent equipment. O’Sullivan said she had. “What did you do?” asked Williams. “I let him show me,” came the reply. O’Sullivan also faced problems from the simians on set: “Cheetah bit me whenever he could. The apes were all queers, eager to wrap their paws around Johnny Weissmuller’s thighs. They were jealous of me, and I loathed them.” Before her retirement in 1942 to raise a family and look after her husband who had been discharged from the navy with typhoid, 5́ 3˝ O’Sullivan also appeared in, among other features, Strange Interlude (1932) as Madeline Arnold, Payment Deferred (1932) as Winnie Marble, Fast Companions (1932) as Sally, Tugboat Annie (1933) as Pat Severn, Stage Mother (1933) as Shirley Lorraine, The Thin Man (1934) as Dorothy Wynant, The Barretts Of Wimpole Street (1934) as Henrietta Barrett, Woman Wanted (1935) as Ann, Cardinal Richelieu (1935) as Lenore, Anna Karenina (1935) as Kitty, David Copperfield (1935) as Dora, My Dear Miss Aldrich (1937) as Martha Aldrich, Between Two Women (1937) as Claire Donahue, A Day At The Races (1937) as Judy Standish, A Yank At Oxford (1938) as Molly Beaumont, Spring Madness (1938) as Alexandra Benson, Let Us Live! (1939) as Mary Roberts, Pride And Prejudice (1940) as Jane Bennet, Sporting Blood (1940) as Linda Lockwood and Maisie Was A Lady (1941) as Abigail Rawlston. On September 12, 1936, she had married John Villiers Farrow (b. Sydney, Australia, February 10, 1904, d. Beverly Hills, California, January 28, 1963, of a heart attack) at St Monica’s Church, Santa Monica, and by him had seven children: Michael Damien (b. May 30, 1939, k. October 29, 1958, in a plane crash while taking flying lessons), Patrick Joseph (b. November 27, 1942), Maria de Lourdes (b. Beverly Hills, February 9, 1945), John Charles (b. September 6, 1946), Prudence (b. January 21, 1948), Stephanie Margarita (b. June 4, 1949) and Theresa Magdalena (b. July 22, 1951). Maria de Lourdes became famous as actress Mia Farrow and lost her virginity to Frank Sinatra in the process while Stephanie and Theresa, as Tisa, also became actresses. Prudence Farrow inspired John Lennon to write the song ‘Dear Prudence’. Although O’Sullivan adored Farrow he was not faithful to her. When she made her comeback she appeared in, among other films, Bonzo Goes To College (1952) as Marion Drew, The Steel Cage (1954) and Duffy Of San Quentin (1954) both as Gladys Duffy, Wild Heritage (1958) as Emma Breslin, Never Too Late (1965) as Edith Lambert, Too Scared To Scream (1985) as Mother, Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) as Elizabeth Alvorg, Hannah And Her Sisters (1986) as Norma and Good Ole Boy: A Delta Boyhood (1988) as Aunt Sue. She also ran Wediquette International, a bridal consulting service. On August 22, 1983, O’Sullivan married James Cushing in Loudonville, New York.
Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries Page 134
