CAUSE: She was diagnosed with cancer in August 2001. She died at her West Hollywood home. She was 57.
River Phoenix
(RIVER JUDE BOTTOM)
Born August 23, 1970
Died October 31, 1993
Tragic waste. River Phoenix seemed to have it all going for him: a successful career, a well-known family, money, dashing good looks, a beautiful girlfriend, adoration of countless females around the globe, but it wasn’t enough. The son of John and Arlyn Bottom, a new age couple with dubious beliefs, 5́ 11˝ River was one of five children, all of whom were saddled with strange names: Rainbow Joan of Arc (b. Crockett, Texas, March 31, 1973), Leaf Joaquin Raphael (b. San Juan, Puerto Rico, October 28, 1974), 5́ 4˝ Liberty Mariposa (b. Caracas, Venezuela, July 5, 1976) and 5́ 7˝ Summer Joy (b. Winter Park, Florid,a December 10, 1978 at 2.34am). River was born in a log cabin in Metolius near Madras, Oregon, but his family moved to Venezuela in 1972 to serve David Berg’s Children of God, a bizarre religious sect who believe in sex with children. In fact, River was sexually molested when he was eight years old. When his parents became disenchanted with the Children of God the family moved to Caracas where River and his sister Rainbow would sing songs to raise money from passers-by. The family returned to America where they settled in Gainesville, Florida. (Gainesville was where a lady called Gladys Eley lived out her final years. She was the mother of Marilyn Monroe.) For some time River was shrouded in mystery. His birthday was kept secret and, for more obvious reasons, his real name wasn’t revealed until after his death. He was named River after The River of Life in Herman Hesse’s Siddartha. He appeared in some adverts and his first TV appearance was playing a guitar on the NBC gameshow Fantasy. On September 19, 1982, he made his first appearance in the CBS show Seven Brides For Seven Brothers playing Guthrie McFadden. He made his film début in Explorers (1985), a film about children trying to build a spaceship. He beat off 4,000 contenders for the part of Wolfgang Muller, a bespectacled baby Einstein. He next appeared in the slow moving Stand By Me (1986) and The Mosquito Coast (1986) (playing Harrison Ford’s son) before taking on the title role in Jimmy Reardon (1988). It was a decision he was to regret. The film dealt with drinking, fast driving and indiscriminate sex. “Morally, I have problems with it. I’m more of the monogamous type. I can see that there could be a stage in my life where I’d be free with sex – and there’s nothing wrong with that. But the circumstance is so important, and how it’s portrayed.” He dated actress Martha Plimpton, Keith Carradine’s daughter, who played his girlfriend in The Mosquito Coast and Running On Empty (1988). His movie Little Nikita (1988) was so bad it was never released theatrically in Britain. In February 1989, he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as Danny Pope in Sidney Lumet’s Running On Empty. The film echoed aspects of Phoenix’s own life in that he played a prodigy whose parents were Sixties hippies. (He lost out to Kevin Kline in A Fish Called Wanda.) He again appeared with Harrison Ford (although they didn’t obviously appear in the same scenes) in Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade (1989) when he played the young Indy. The following year he appeared in the flop I Love You To Death (1990), a film which features a ‘Pizza Consultant’ on the credits. Dogfight (1991) was no more successful. His next film was one that shocked his fans. He played Mike Waters, a narcoleptic, homosexual hustler in Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho (1992). In America the movie won him the prestigious National Society of Film Critics’ Award for Best Actor. He was offered the part that eventually went to Matt Dillon on A Kiss Before Dying (1990), rejecting it eight times. Instead he chose Sneakers (1992), a spy film which starred Robert Redford and Dan Aykroyd. His penultimate film was Silent Tongue (1993), a strange Western, in which he played Richard Harris’ unbalanced son. His last film was Peter Bogdanovich’s The Thing Called Love (1993) during which he met actress Samantha Mathis who was to become his girlfriend. An announcement was made heralding River’s new film, John Boorman’s Broken Dreams. Before that could happen he began work on Dark Blood with Jonathan Pryce and Judy Davis. During filming he was hired to work with Tom Cruise on Interview With The Vampire (1994). With three weeks left to shoot on Dark Blood, River Phoenix died. Phoenix, who disliked flying and travelled everywhere by car or train, was paid around $400,000 per movie but was also a keen musician with his own band, Aleka’s Attic.
CAUSE: River Phoenix was a fitting role model for young people. He read the Bible every day, was a strict vegan, didn’t smoke and abhorred drugs. It was all a façade. He began taking cocaine in 1989 and progressed onto other drugs. Paul Petersen was a child actor (Jeff Stone on The Donna Reed Show) who founded a therapy group for child actors and heard rumours of Phoenix’s drug taking in June 1992. He went to see the star but was assured that the rumours were wrong. “Oh no, you must have the wrong person. That wasn’t me. I don’t even eat meat.” In the six months before his death River’s boozing and drug taking increased. On October 30, 1993, he booked into the £400-a-night Suite 328 of the Niko Hotel in Hollywood. With him was his girlfriend Samantha Mathis, brother Leaf and sister Rain. The party began at 7pm and by 10.30 the floor of the suite was littered with empty beer bottles. Then the group adjourned to The Viper Room, a trendy Hollywood nightspot, part-owned by Johnny Depp and located at 8852 Sunset Boulevard. Phoenix had to be helped into the car that took them clubbing. At the Viper the group hooked up with blonde actress Christina Applegate, the slutty Kelly Bundy from Married … with Children. Depp was due to perform there and asked Phoenix if he wanted to jam with the band. Phoenix was barely able to stand let alone play music. A waiter was unable to understand Phoenix when he asked for bottle after bottle of a German liqueur called Jaegermeister. Twice Phoenix slipped under the table before throwing up. He was taken to the gents and cleaned up but by this time he had lost almost all control of his muscles, his arms and legs jerking spasmodically. Put back in his chair, Phoenix again slumped down where his friends left him. It was only when he began having spasms again that the group realised something might be seriously wrong. With a bouncer’s help, Samantha Mathis and Leaf helped him out of the club around 1am. He collapsed on the pavement and began having more seizures. Rain threw herself on her brother’s body in an attempt to stop the spasms. The doorman, Ed, yelled for someone to call 911 but Leaf said his brother “was fine. He’s fine.” An ambulance was eventually called and CPR was administered. The paramedics were told by someone that River was diabetic (he wasn’t) and his brother didn’t tell them what River had taken. River Phoenix died at 1.51am around forty minutes after being admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. An autopsy revealed Phoenix had died of “acute multiple drug intoxications” and that Valium, marijuana, cocaine, heroin and ephedrine had been found in his body. On November 18, a memorial service was held for Phoenix on the Paramount Lot. Attendees included: Richard Benjamin, Peter Bogdanovich, John Boorman, Christine Lahti, Sidney Poitier and Rob Reiner. Paul Petersen bitterly commented: “They were living the lie. Can’t possibly have River Phoenix in trouble with a drug problem. He doesn’t even eat meat. Well, he doesn’t eat anything now.” Aware of the ephemeral nature of Hollywood, River Phoenix once stated, “I could die tomorrow and the world would go on.”
Mary Pickford
(GLADYS LOUISE SMITH)
Born April 8, 1892
Died May 29, 1979
America’s Sweetheart. Born at 175 University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, (5)߰Mary Pickford began her career on the stage and then began making films for D.W. Griffith. Her early movies included: Mrs Jones Entertains (1908), Two Memories (1909), Her First Biscuits (1909), The Mexican Sweethearts (1909), Tender Hearts (1909), Sweet And Twenty (1909), They Would Elope (1909), Oh, Uncle! (1909), Getting Even (1909), In Old Kentucky (1909), Wanted, A Child (1909), To Save Her Soul (1909), All On Account Of The Milk (1910), His Last Dollar (1910), Love Among The Roses (1910), In the Season Of Buds (1910), Ramona (1910) as Ramona, In The Border States (1910), Wilful Peggy (1910), Muggsy Becomes A Hero (1910), Examina
tion Day At School (1910), Sunshine Sue (1910), Science (1911), Love Heeds Not The Showers (1911), Her Darkest Hour (1911), For Her Brother’s Sake (1911), Back To The Soil (1911), When A Man Loves (1911), Their First Misunderstanding (1911), Just Like A Woman (1912), Home Folks (1912), Friends (1912), Caprice (1913) as Mercy Baxter, Fate (1913) and dozens more. She became one of America’s highest-paid actresses, once telling a producer, “I can’t afford to work for less than $10,000 a week.” She also negotiated her own contracts. She kept her persona, that of a little girl in ringlets, until she was nearly middle aged. Pickford was made an honorary US Army colonel during World War I. In 1919 she co-founded United Artists. Pickford became popular the world over. When one of her films played Scotland, the local cinema didn’t bother to mention the title. It simply advertised: “What happened to Mary – twice nightly.” Some uncertainty arose as to the validity of the divorce (March 2, 1920) from first husband Owen Moore when she married swashbuckling actor Douglas Fairbanks, Sr on March 27, 1920. The press wondered whether, in the event of Pickford becoming pregnant, the baby would be called Pickford, Moore or Fairbanks? On April 16, Leonard Fowler, Nevada’s Attorney-General, claimed there had been ‘collusion’ in the divorce and only a clever lawyer saved Pickford. Her marriage to Fairbanks was seen as a romantic ideal for all America. They were both firm believers in astrology and had their charts read every morning. However, the marriage was not to last and following their divorce, Mary remarried and gradually drifted away from films. By the time of her death she was still living in the 42-room Pickford-Fairbanks Hollywood mansion – Pickfair, 1143 Summit Drive, Beverly Hills – hidden away upstairs and hitting the bottle quite regularly every day. Her preferred method of communication, even with visitors to Pickfair, was by telephone. Eventually, actress-singer Pia Zadora and her then husband, Mehshulam Riklis, bought the house in 1990 and knocked it down to build a bigger house on the grounds. They, too, fell victim to the curse of Pickfair and subsequently divorced. On a visit to the Soviet Union in 1926 Pickford was followed by a film director posing as a news cameraman. He used all the footage and cut it into a film called The Kiss Of Mary Pickford. To this day no one knows how he contrived the kiss. Her later films included: Through The Back Door (1921) as Jeanne, Little Lord Fauntleroy (1921) as both Little Lord Fauntleroy and his mother, Rosita (1923) as Rosita, Little Annie Rooney (1925) as Little Annie Rooney, Sparrows (1926) as Molly, My Best Girl (1927) as Maggie Johnson, Coquette (1929) as Norma Besant, for which she won an Oscar and became the first recipient to cry when receiving the prize, The Taming Of The Shrew (1929) as Katherine, Kiki (1931) as Kiki and Secrets (1933) as Mary Carlton/Mary Marlow.
CAUSE: She died in Santa Monica Hospital, California, aged 87, of a cerebral haemorrhage. She was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks, 1712 Glendale Avenue, Glendale, California 91209.
FURTHER READING: Sweetheart: The Story Of Mary Pickford– Robert Windeler (London: W.H. Allen, 1973); Mary Pickford– Scott Eyman (London: Robson Books, 1992).
Walter Pidgeon
Born September 23, 1897
Died September 25, 1984
Canadian second lead. Born in East St John and educated at the University of New Brunswick and the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, pipe-smoking, 6́ 2˝ Pidgeon served in the Canadian Army during the First World War (having lied about his age to gain admittance) but was wounded in France. On his return to New York he worked in a bank, singing on the side, but decided to become an actor and began appearing in the theatre. In 1922 he married Edna Pickles but she died the following year giving birth to their daughter, Edna Verne. He travelled west in the mid-Twenties, making his film début in Mannequin (1926) playing Martin Innesbrook. With the advent of talkies Pidgeon’s resonant baritone ensured that his career would not be harmed. On December 12, 1931, he married Ruth Walker. In 1937 he was put under contract by MGM but the studio seemed unable to find suitable starring roles for him, so he usually ended up playing second fiddle in such films as Saratoga (1937), playing Hartley Madison opposite Jean Harlow and Clark Gable, and The Girl Of The Golden West (1938) as Sheriff Jack Rance opposite Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. He was loaned out to 20th Century Fox for his first starring role in How Green Was My Valley (1941) as Mr Gruffydd. Back at MGM he was cast opposite Greer Garson in Mrs Miniver (1942) as Clem Miniver, for which he was nominated for an Oscar. He appeared opposite Garson in several films including Madame Curie (1943) as Pierre Curie, which also won him an Oscar nomination. That year he also became an American citizen. In 1956 he retired from film-making, preferring to concentrate on stage work. Five years later, he was back in harness and worked until his stroke-induced retirement in 1977. His films included: Clothes Make The Woman (1928) as Victor Trent, Turn Back The Hours (1928) as Philip Drake, Her Private Life (1929) as Ned Thayer, Kiss Me Again (1931) as Paul de St Cyr, Fatal Lady (1936) as David Roberts, My Dear Miss Aldrich (1937) as Ken Morley, As Good As Married (1937) as Fraser James, Too Hot To Handle (1938) as Bill Dennis, Listen, Darling (1938) as Richard Thurlow, Stronger Than Desire (1939) as Tyler Flagg, Nick Carter – Master Detective (1939) as Nick Carter/Robert Chalmers, Flight Command (1940) as Squadron Commander Bill Gary, Blossoms In The Dust (1941) as Sam Gladney, White Cargo (1942) as Harry Witzel, Mrs Parkington (1944) as Major August Parkington, Holiday In Mexico (1946) as Jeffrey Evans, If Winter Comes (1947) as Mark Sabre, Julia Misbehaves (1948) as William Sylvester Packett, That Forsyte Woman (1949) as Young Joslyn Forsyte, The Miniver Story (1950) as Clem Miniver, Quo Vadis? (1951) as the narrator, Calling Bulldog Drummond (1951) as Major Hugh ‘Bulldog’ Drummond, Million Dollar Mermaid (1952) as Frederick Kellerman, Dream Wife (1953) as Walter McBride, Deep In My Heart (1954) as J.J. Shubert, Forbidden Planet (1956) as Dr Edward Morbius, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea (1961) as Admiral Harriman Nelson, Funny Girl (1968) as Florenz Ziegfeld, Won Ton Ton, The Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976) as Grayson’s butler and Sextette (1978) as the Chairman, which was also Mae West’s last film. Oddly, Pidgeon had a superb memory for faces but a lousy one for names, with the result that he called everyone, apart from close friends, Joe.
CAUSE: He died aged 87 years and 2 days of a stroke in Santa Monica, California. His body was donated to UCLA Medical School for medical research.
ZaSu Pitts
Born January 3, 1898
Died June 7, 1963
Comedic ingénue. Born in Parsons, Kansas, ZaSu Pitts’ unusual first name came from amalgamating the Christian names of her maternal aunts Eliza and Susan. The family moved to Santa Cruz, California, where ZaSu became star-struck, hoping for a career in movies herself. Her chance arrived in 1917 when Mary Pickford was filming Rebecca Of Sunnybrook Farm and spotted ZaSu, whom she employed as Becky in her next film, The Little Princess (1917). Over the course of her career ZaSu would appear in over 200 films, progressing from the innocent naïf to a fine comedienne. Probably her best roles were in the Erich von Stroheim-directed Greed (1925) as Trina Sieppe and The Wedding March (1928) as Cecilia Schweiser. Movie writer and historian Herman Weinberg believed ZaSu gave “two of the most beautiful performances ever given by an actress in the annals of the screen.” Her high-pitched voice made her unsuitable for sound dramas but she worked well in humorous roles. She played Mrs Baumer in All Quiet On The Western Front (1930) but preview audiences laughed when she appeared on screen so her part was reshot with Beryl Mercer replacing her. For the rest of her career ZaSu played a succession of nervous ninnies, although Erich von Stroheim remarked: “One looks at ZaSu Pitts and sees pathos, even tragedy, and a wistfulness that craves for something she had never had or hopes to have. Yet she is one of the happiest and most contented women I have ever known.” ZaSu was married twice. On July 23, 1920, she married sportsman Thomas S. Gallery, by whom she had a daughter, Ann (b. 1923). In 1923 they adopted the son of ZaSu’s late friend, Barbara La Marr. The couple separated in 1926 and was divorced on April 26, 1932. On October 8, 1933, ZaSu married estate agent John Edward Woodall, who surv
ived her.
CAUSE: She died of cancer in Hollywood, California. She was 65 years old. ZaSu was buried in Grave 1 of Lot 195, in the Grotto section of Holy Cross Cemetery, 5835 West Slauson Avenue, Culver City, California 90230.
Dana Plato
Born November 7, 1964
Died May 8, 1999
Diff’rent stroke. Beautiful Dana Michelle Plato was born in Maywood, California, the illegitimate daughter of 16-year-old Linda Strain who already had an 18-month-old baby. The new baby was adopted by Dean and Florine Plato of California in June 1965. Growing to 5˝ 2˝ the blue-green-eyed blonde became an actress who started her career aged six in TV ads. Her first film was the TV movie Beyond The Bermuda Triangle (1975), where she played Wendy. She appeared in Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) as Sandra, Return To Boggy Creek (1978) as Evie Jo and California Suite (1978) as Jenny before her big break came in April 1979 when she landed the role of Kimberley Drummond in the hit sitcom Diff’rent Strokes. She was paid $22,000 (£13,600) per week and worked in films when the show was not in production. She was Daisy Dallenger in Schoolboy Father (1980) and Cara Ames in High School U.S.A. (1983). She owned two homes in the San Fernando Valley and two boats docked in Marina del Rey. After falling pregnant, she left the series in 1984 and married Lanny Lambert in April of that year. Their son, Tyler Edward, was born three months later on July 2. Dana subsequently found acting work hard to come by. Her estranged father sued her for support, her marriage broke up (she was divorced in March 1990), she gave her son to her husband and was swindled out of her money by unscrupulous accountants. In 1989 she was cast as Diana Masters in Prime Suspect (1989) and posed for the June 1989 edition of Playboy in the hope that it would boost her career but the only offer of work she received was “for a triple X-rated hardcore adult film”. Following the death of her adoptive mother in January 1988 Dana had moved in with her grandmother in Las Vegas. The older woman soon threw her out and Dana moved in with a warehouse worker boyfriend, his best friend and 11 cats and went through a series of jobs ending up working in a dry cleaners for $5.75 (£3) per hour. She was fired from that job following a dispute with a fellow employee. On February 28, 1991, she applied for a job clearing up the rubbish and cleaning toilets in the building where she lived. Plato didn’t get it and, in desperation, she donned a black hat, coat and sunglasses and held up a video store with a starting pistol and stole $164. After Plato left, the shop assistant, Heather Dailey, rang the police at 10.25am and told them, “I’ve just been robbed by the girl who played Kimberley on Diff’rent Strokes.” Plato was arrested because she went back to the shop 15 minutes later to collect the glasses she had left there. She was taken to Clark County Detention Center and held for five days. She was only allowed to leave after singer Wayne Newton posted the $13,000 bail because, he said, he knew “the trauma of being a child star”. After pleading guilty to a charge of attempted robbery, she was put on probation for five years and ordered to perform 400 hours of community service. In January 1992 Plato was again arrested for forging a prescription for 400 Valium tablets. She was charged with four counts of obtaining a controlled substance by fraud and four counts of burglary with intent to commit a crime. Plato, in jail for 31 days before she made bail, threw herself on the mercy of the court. The judge showed leniency, giving her a suspended sentence and another five years’ probation. That same year, Plato confessed to a tabloid that she was an alcoholic. From 1992 until 1994 she lived with David Schwartz, a Phoenix entrepreneur, who owned a swingers’ club. Schwartz later said of their relationship: “Dana and I lived at the club for two years with three other women. Dana was more into women than men.” He added, “We did a porno film called Different, Different Strokes. It involved sex scenes with Dana and a smaller black guy who resembled Gary Coleman. Most of the film was lesbian scenes with Dana but the film was confiscated by police when the club was raided.” With dreams of stardom fading fast, Dana became a prostitute and was beaten up by several of her johns. She appeared in The Sounds Of Silence (1992), Night Trap (1992) as Kelli Medd and JD in Bikini Beach Race (1992), also known as The Sex Puppets. In October 1994 she underwent breast augmentation surgery and landed two more films: Millennium Day (1995) and Compelling Evidence (1995) playing a character called Dana Fields. In October 1996 she appeared as Jill Martin in a film called Different Strokes (Kiss in the UK). She appeared nude in several scenes and was also seen participating in lesbian activities; off-camera she had a lesbian affair with Jennifer Wejbe. She dated several men in the last years of her life, keeping them all secret from each other. In January 1999 she met Robert Menchacha in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and they became engaged. On May 7, 1999, she appeared on Howard Stern’s radio show and denied she was on drugs. (In 1998 she had to cancel a photographic shoot for Celebrity Sleuth magazine five times because she was so strung out on drugs.) She broke down when callers to the Stern show criticised her. Twenty-four hours later, she was dead.
Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries Page 140
