Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries

by Paul Donnelley

  CAUSE: Maureen O’Sullivan died of a heart attack in Scottsdale, Arizona. She was 87 years old.

  Merle Oberon

  (ESTELLE MERLE O’BRIEN THOMPSON)

  Born February 19, 1911

  Died November 23, 1979

  ‘Princess Merle’. Many actors have dark secrets they try to hide. Some of these secrets are due to the stars’ sexuality being incompatible with their careers (e.g. Rock Hudson). Some try to hide their criminal past (e.g. Rory Calhoun). Some have a sexual secret of a different nature that they try to keep buried (e.g. the famously handsome, young heartthrob of the Nineties who used to be a male hustler and whose identity, if I revealed it, would give libel lawyers a heart attack). Some keep secret the fact they were ‘kept’ by an established star – witness the actor who had been a keen sportsman until an injury forced his retirement, around about the time that he met Rock Hudson. The latter took the young man under his wing, arranged for a nose job and acting lessons. In interviews the young man would praise Hudson’s altruism and his apartment would be covered with pictures of the two men together. However, when he first hit it big in the Sixties the young man began to distance himself from Hudson and today, with three mega successful TV series and a marriage to an international sex symbol behind him, the all-action hero denies he ever knew anyone called Rock Hudson. It could be argued that there is a good reason for most of the secrecy that permeates Hollywood, but can anyone say there is a good reason for keeping a mother hidden and introducing her to visitors as the maid? That is what 5́ 4˝ Merle Oberon did. She further claimed she had been born in Hobart, Tasmania, when she was really born on the border of the Khetwadi and Girgaum suburbs in Bombay, India. Like many hospitals on the subcontinent the maternity unit of St George’s was not of a particularly high standard. Baby Estelle was born with a congenital heart defect because of the botched delivery. Merle was baptised on March 16, 1911, and nicknamed ‘Queenie’ because of the visit of TM King George V and Queen Mary to Delhi and Bombay that year. Her British father died at the Somme in 1916 and her Ceylonese mother took jobs as a nurse in a hospital and then as live-in nurse to various families. In 1919 Merle and her mother moved to Calcutta which was then slightly more Westernised than the rest of the country but which was still subject to violence between Hindus and Muslims. Merle and her mother travelled to Europe in July 1929 and, when Merle arrived in London at the end of the summer, she landed a job as a dance hostess and supplemented her income by appearing in bit parts in films (her first was The Three Passions [1929]) not, as rumour has it, by selling her body. Several more minor roles followed before Merle was spotted by Sir Alexander Korda, who realised her potential and began to groom her for stardom. In the meantime, Merle had not been lazy on the romantic front, enjoying affairs with the black pianist Hutch, actor-director Miles Mander and Wadham College, Oxford-educated golfer Charles Sweeney (b. Scranton, Pennsylvania, October 3, 1909, d. Bal Harbor, March 11, 1993) who went on to become the first husband of Margaret, Duchess of Argyll at Brompton Oratory on February 21, 1933. Merle’s big cinematic break came playing Anne Boleyn in Korda’s The Private Life Of Henry VIII (1933). During the production Merle became unwell. She had been in pain during sex with her numerous lovers and was horrified to see blood in her vagina. She went to a doctor who examined her and told her she had a rare carcinoma in one of her Fallopian tubes. During the operation it was discovered that both tubes were cancerous and had to be removed. Next Merle appeared in Korda’s extravagant period dramas such as The Private Life Of Don Juan (1934) as Antonita and The Scarlet Pimpernel as Lady Marguerite Blakeney opposite Leslie Howard, with whom she had an affair. Travelling to Hollywood she made The Dark Angel as Kitty Vane for Sam Goldwyn and had a fling with David Niven. To complete her happiness the role resulted in her only nomination for an Oscar. She was cast as Messalina in I, Claudius (1937) and shooting began back in England in February 1937. However, the film was beset by difficulties. Co-star Charles Laughton was often unwilling or unable to learn his lines and spent much of the time being shafted (in both the financial and sexual sense) by young hustlers. On March 16, Merle was involved in a car crash and knocked unconscious, bleeding heavily from a cut over her left eye and ear. Due to the combination of Merle’s injury and Charles Laughton’s masochistic self-loathing, the picture was abandoned. Korda had been wooing Merle with enthusiasm despite her affection for David Niven and he married her in Antibes, France, on June 3, 1939. The year was momentous for Merle and for the world. She co-starred with Laurence Olivier in Wuthering Heights (1939) as Cathy Linton to his Heathcliff, even though he was keen for Vivien Leigh to play the part. During the war she helped Korda with his intelligence work and appeared in the following movies: ’Til We Meet Again (1940) as Joan Ames, Lydia (1941) as Lydia MacMillen, Affectionately Yours (1941) as Sue Mayberry, That Uncertain Feeling (1941) as Jill Baker, First Comes Courage (1943) as Nicole Larsen, Forever And A Day (1943) as Marjorie, Dark Waters (1944) as Leslie Calvin, The Lodger (1944) as Kitty Langley and This Love Of Ours (1945) as Karin Touzac. She won praise for her portrayal of George Sand in A Song To Remember (1945) but by this time had fallen out of love with Korda and in love with cinematographer Lucien Ballard (b. Miami, Oklahoma, May 6, 1908, d. October 1, 1988) whom she married by proxy on June 26, 1945. Like Merle, he, too, was a half-caste and so understood as much of her difficulties as she would reveal to him. (That didn’t stop her having an affair with Turhan Bey, her co-star on A Night In Paradise [1946].) As Merle grew older her looks began to fade, and with them her career. She was never an especially gifted actress and relied on her exotic looks to get by. In August 1949 she and Ballard were divorced. Her screen appearances became fewer and she instead threw herself in to the social whirl in London, Europe and Hollywood, enjoying more than a few romances including one with a senior member of the royal family. On July 28, 1957, she married Bruno Pagliai in Rome and decided she wanted a family. Unfortunately, due to the operation she had had when she was 20, she was infertile. Instead the couple adopted two children – Bruno, Jr. and Francesca. They lived in Mexico until their 1973 divorce. That year Merle made a half-hearted comeback in a film called Interval about a woman desperately searching for her one true love. Merle found love in real life. On January 31, 1975, she married her Interval co-star Robert Wolders (b. Rotterdam, Holland, September 28, 1935), an actor who had the distinction of being “the only Dutchman to be cast as a Texas lawman” for his work on the TV Western Laredo. Her years with Wolders were brief but happy ones.

  CAUSE: On November 14, 1978, she underwent a successful heart by-pass operation. However, it left horrible red scars that caused her great pain. Steroids injected into the scar tissue did not help. On Thanksgiving 1979 she suffered a stroke and was taken to Cedars of Lebanon Hospital where she died at 3pm the next day. She was 68. Merle was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks, 1712 Glendale Avenue, Glendale, California 91209.

  FURTHER READING: Merle: A Biography Of Merle Oberon– Charles Higham & Roy Moseley (London: New English Library, 1983).

  Warner Oland

  (JOHAN WARNER OLUND)

  Born October 3, 1880

  Died August 6, 1938

  Pseudo-Oriental. It is probably true to say that only in a country like America could a Swede become famous for playing a Chinaman. Yet that is what happened to 5˝11˝ Warner Oland. He brilliantly portrayed the enigmatic and inscrutable Charlie Chan in several movies. ‘Jack’ Oland didn’t wear make-up to play Chan. He simply combed his eyebrows up, his moustache down, grew a goatee and narrowed his eyes. It was not the first time he had played an Oriental. He had also played the villainous Doctor Fu Manchu in The Mysterious Dr Fu Manchu (1929), The Return Of Dr Fu Manchu (1930) and Daughter Of The Dragon (1931), the same year he first played Charlie Chan. He played Chan in Charlie Chan Carries On (1931), The Black Camel (1931), Charlie Chan’s Chance (1932), Charlie Chan’s Greatest Case (1933), Charlie Chan’s Courage (1934), Charlie Chan In London (1934), Charlie Chan In Paris (1935), Ch
arlie Chan In Shanghai (1935), Charlie Chan In Egypt (1935), Charlie Chan’s Secret (1936), Charlie Chan At The Race Track (1936), Charlie Chan At The Circus (1936), Charlie Chan On Broadway (1937), Charlie Chan At Monte Carlo (1937), Charlie Chan At The Opera (1937) and Charlie Chan At The Olympics (1937). He even travelled to China to learn more about Orientals and began to learn Chinese so he could accurately enunciate Charlie’s Chinese comments. Oland was born in the small village of Nyby, Bjurholm parish of Vasterbotten, Sweden, the son of a Swede, Jonas Olund, and a Russian, Maria Johanna Forsberg. On October 15, 1892, the family moved to Connecticut and he began to take an interest in drama. In the autumn of 1907 he was hired by Alla Nazimova to appear on Broadway. The following year he married Edith Shearn, an actress. His early films included: Sin (1915) as Pietro, Destruction (1915) as Mr Deleveau, The Eternal Question (1916) as Pierre Felix, Convict 993 (1918) as Dan Mallory, Mandarin’s Gold (1919) as Li Hsun, The Yellow Arm (1921), East Is West (1922) as Charley Yong, His Children’s Children (1923) as Dr Dahl, One Night In Rome (1924) as Mario Dorando, So This Is Marriage? (1924) as King David, Curlytop (1924) as Shanghai Dan, Riders Of The Purple Sage (1925) as Lew Walters/Judge Dyer, Don Q Son Of Zorro (1925) as Archduke Paul, Infatuation (1925) as Osman Pasha, Don Juan (1926) as Caesar Borgia, Twinkletoes (1926) as Roseleaf, Tell It To The Marines (1927) as Chinese bandit leader, What Happened to Father? (1927) as W. Bradberry, The Jazz Singer (1927) as the Cantor, Good Time Charley (1927) as Good Time Charley, Stand And Deliver (1928) as Chika, Chinatown Nights (1929) as Boston Charley and The Studio Murder Mystery (1929) as Rupert Borka.

  CAUSE: A consummate pro, Oland had one weakness – he was an alcoholic. It caused his wife to leave him in 1937. That year he was filming Charlie Chan At The Ringside when he upped and left the set never to return. Rumours circulated as to what had happened to him. In fact, in a bid to kick his drinking he had gone to Europe and then to Sweden where he stayed with his mother in Stockholm. There he contracted bronchial pneumonia and died aged 57. He was buried in Southborough Rural Cemetery, Southborough, Massachusetts.

  Edna May Oliver

  (EDNA MAY NUTTER)

  Born November 9, 1883

  Died November 9, 1942

  Equine-looking character actress. Born in Malden, Massachusetts, she was a staple on the stage and film when it came to playing bossy spinsters. Much of her best work was done before the invention of the Academy Award and she received her only nomination for her portrayal of Sarah McKlennar in Drums Along The Mohawk (1939). Among 5́ 7˝ Oliver’s other films were Wife In Name Only as Mrs Dornham, Manhattan as Mrs Trapes, Icebound (1924) as Hannah, Lovers In Quarantine (1925) as Amelia Pincent, Let’s Get Married (1926) as J.W. Smith, Half Shot At Sunrise (1930) as Mrs Marshall, Laugh And Get Rich as Sarah Austin, Fanny Foley Herself (1931) as Fanny Foley, Cracked Nuts (1931) as Aunt Van Varden, Cimarron (1931) as Mrs Tracy Wyatt, Ladies Of The Jury as Mrs Livingston Baldwin Crane, Penguin Pool Murder (1932) as Hildegarde Withers, Meet The Baron as Dean Primrose, Ann Vickers (1933) as Malvina Wormser, Only Yesterday (1933) as Leona, Little Women (1933) as Aunt March, Murder On The Blackboard (1934) reprising her role as Hildegarde Withers, We’re Rich Again (1934) as Maude, Murder On A Honeymoon (1935) once again as Hildegarde Withers, David Copperfield (1935) as Betsey Trotwood, A Tale Of Two Cities (1935) as Miss Pross, Romeo And Juliet (1936) as Nurse, My Dear Miss Aldrich (1937) as Mrs Atherton, Parnell (1937) as Aunt Ben Wood, Paradise For Three (1938) as Mrs Kunkel, Nurse Edith Cavell (1939) as Countess de Mavon, Pride And Prejudice (1940) as Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Lydia (1941) as Granny.

  CAUSE: She died in Los Angeles, California, on her 59th birthday, of an intestinal disorder. She was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks, 1712 Glendale Avenue, Glendale, California 91209.

  Laurence Olivier, Baron Olivier of Brighton

  Born May 22, 1907

  Died July 11, 1989

  The greatest actor of all time, probably. Born at 26 Wathen Road, Dorking, Laurence Kerr Olivier was the son of the Reverend Gerald Kerr Olivier (b. April 30, 1869, d. West Sussex, March 30, 1939) and Agnes Louise Crookenden (b. at Kidbrooke, December 1, 1871, d. March 27, 1920). Dame Ellen Terry, one of the greatest Victorian actresses, saw him play Brutus at the age of ten and commented, “The boy is already a great actor.” He made his Stratford-upon-Avon Shakespearean début aged 15 in The Taming Of The Shrew– he played Katherine. When he made his professional stage début in 1925 at the Brighton Hippodrome in The Ghost Train, Olivier was warned by everyone from the box-office manager to the stage manager that there was a tricky doorsill to be overcome on the set. Olivier eventually grew weary of their tiresome warnings and … tripped head over heels, landing at the feet of Ruby Miller, the star of the show. In October 1925, the 5́ 10˝ Olivier joined a modest repertory company run by Lena Ashwell. The company often played in unusual venues. If they appeared at a school, it was usually on boards over the swimming pool. Most members were asked to perform more than one role in each production. One performance of Julius Caesar was performed before a group of schoolboys. It saw Olivier cast as both Antony and Flavius. During one scene a fellow Roman’s trousers fell about his ankles from underneath his smart Roman tunic. The audience laughed, as did Olivier, who was summoned to Lena Ashwell’s office the next day and summarily sacked. Despite this unpromising start he went on to wow audiences with his stage performances in Shakespearean roles on both sides of the Atlantic. On July 25, 1930, at All Saints Church, Margaret Street, London, Olivier married lesbian actress Jill Esmond (b. London, January 26, 1908, d. Wimbledon, London, July 28, 1990), by whom he had one son, Simon Tarquin (b. London, August 21, 1936). On their wedding night she turned her back on him and it was years before the match was consummated. They eventually divorced on January 29, 1940, after which Esmond lived an exclusively gay life. Olivier made his film début in Too Many Crooks (1930). He starred in Friends And Lovers (1931) as Lieutenant Nichols and Westward Passage (1932) as Nicholas Allen for RKO before being cast opposite Garbo in Queen Christina (1933) only to be replaced by John Gilbert. He returned to Blighty to appear in Alexander Korda’s Moscow Nights (1935) as Captain Ignatoff. The following year he starred in Fire Over England (1937) as Michael Ingolby, in which he starred opposite his future wife Vivien Leigh. He opened in a production of Hamlet at the Old Vic on January 5, 1937; at one point during a performance he swung the poisoned sword rather too enthusiastically and ended up almost impaling one of the governors of the theatre. Olivier was mortified as the audience giggled none too quietly. The man who had almost been stabbed was too shocked to retrieve the offending weapon, as were those sitting near him. Eventually, it came down to la grande dame of the Old Vic Lilian Baylis herself, who shouted, “Oh, come on, dears – won’t someone give him back his sword so we can get on with the play and go home?” Back in Hollywood he appeared as Heathcliffe in Wuthering Heights (1939), for which he received his first Oscar nomination. At Ranch San Ysidro, Santa Barbara, California, on August 31, 1940, he married Vivien Leigh and that year consolidated his cinematic success with Pride And Prejudice (1940) as Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy, Rebecca (1940) as George Fortescu Maximillian de Winter, for which he was again nominated for an Oscar, and 21 Days (1940) as Larry Durrant. He appeared as Lord Horatio Nelson opposite Leigh’s Lady Hamilton in That Hamilton Woman (1941). Many regard Olivier’s Henry V (1944) as his masterpiece. He starred as King Henry V and was nominated for an Oscar for his performance, as well as producing and directing the film and co-writing the screenplay. Four years later, he turned his attention to Hamlet (1948), which he starred in, directed and produced, and won Oscars for Best Film (the first wholly British movie to win the prize), Best Actor and a nomination as Best Director. Olivier cast Eileen Herlie to play his mother Gertrude – in fact, she was 13 years younger than him. He was relatively quiet on the cinema front after that. He played George Hurstwood in Carrie (1952) and Captain MacHeath in The Beggar’s Opera (1953). He was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of Richard III (
1954), a style later lampooned by Peter Sellers. On April 12, 1955, a John Gielgud-produced version of Twelfth Night opened at Stratford starring Olivier and Vivien Leigh. The critics absolutely hated it. One of the kinder reviewers was Olivier’s friend Kenneth Tynan, who called Leigh’s Viola “dazzlingly monotonous”. Gielgud was horrified. “Good Heavens. After this no one will ever work with me again except Edith [Evans] at a pinch,” he moaned. The following year Olivier appeared with Marilyn Monroe in the movie version of Terence Rattigan’s The Prince And The Showgirl (1956). On April 10, 1957, he opened at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in John Osborne’s The Entertainer. Olivier was fêted for his portrayal of Archie Rice (based on Max Miller) and when the film version was made in 1959 Olivier was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar. (It was his second favourite role, after Macbeth.) On the home front, Olivier’s marriage to Vivien Leigh was crumbling and they divorced on December 2, 1960. That year he played Marcus Licinius Crassus in Spartacus (1960). In Wilton, Connecticut, on March 17, 1961, he married actress Joan Plowright (b. Grigg, near Scunthorpe, October 28, 1929) and had three children by her: Richard Kerr (b. Whitehaven Nursing Home, Wilbury Road, Hove, December 3, 1961), Tamsin Agnes Margaret (b. January 10, 1963) and Julie-Kate (b. Brighton, July 27, 1966, as Julianne Rose Henrietta Katherine). In 1980 the Oliviers separated, though they never divorced. In 1965 Olivier picked up another Best Actor nomination for the title role in Othello. In the last 20 years of his life Olivier gave some marvellous performances; he also starred in some films such as The Jazz Singer (1979) that were less satisfactory vehicles for his talent. His films during this period included Uncle Vanya (1963) as Astrov, Khartoum (1966) as the Mahdi, The Shoes Of The Fisherman (1968) as Premier Piotr Ilyich Kamenev, Battle Of Britain (1969) as Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, Oh! What A Lovely War (1969) as Field Marshal Sir John French, Nicholas And Alexandra (1971) as Count Witte, Lady Caroline Lamb (1972) as the Duke of Wellington (the film starred his former lover Sarah Miles), Sleuth (1972) as Andrew Wyke, for which he was nominated for an Oscar, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976) as Professor Moriarty, Marathon Man (1976) as Dr Szell, for which he was nominated for yet another Oscar (when Dustin Hoffman, an apostle of the ‘Method’ school of acting, stayed up all night to portray a character who hadn’t slept, Olivier asked: “Why don’t you just act?”), A Bridge Too Far (1977) as Doctor Spaander, The Boys From Brazil (1978) as Ezra Lieberman, for which he received his final Oscar nod, The Betsy as Loren Hardeman, Dracula as Professor Abraham Van Helsing, Clash Of The Titans (1981) as Zeus, Inchon (1982) as General Douglas MacArthur, The Bounty (1984) as Admiral Hood and Wild Geese II (1985) as Rudolf Hess. He became the first theatrical Lord elevated to a Baron in 1970, having been knighted in 1947. He wrote about his homosexual experiences (including an affair with Danny Kaye) in his autobiography but his wife, Joan Plowright, made him remove them to avoid embarrassment to his family. He believed sex damaged the memory and once abstained to learn the part of Iago – the feat took him four days. Despite his success he considered acting not quite the occupation of an adult. “It is a masochistic form of exhibitionism, doing silly things well enough to be effective.”