CAUSE: Nyree Dawn Porter who lived at 118 Ravensbury Road, Earlsfield, south London, died of a stroke at St George’s Hospital, Tooting, south London.
Eric Portman
Born July 13, 1903
Died December 7, 1969
Brit stalwart. Eric Harrison Portman was born in Halifax, Yorkshire, the son of Matthew Portman, a wool merchant, and Alice Harrison. He went to Rishworth School in Yorkshire and then became an apprentice in his father’s firm. His spare time was spent with the Halifax Opera Society. In 1923 he became a professional actor and made his London début as Antipholus of Syracuse in The Comedy Of Errors, on September 1, 1924 at the Savoy Theatre. In February 1927 he joined the Old Vic playing a number of Shakespearean leads. He made his film début in The Girl From Maxim’s (1933) and his Broadway début in November 1937, as Rodolphe Boulanger in Madame Bovary. He also appeared in Maria Marten, Or The Murder In The Red Barn (1935) as Carlos, Hyde Park Corner (1935) as Edward Chester, Hearts Of Humanity (1936) as Jack Clinton, The Prince And The Pauper (1937) and Moonlight Sonata (1937) as Mario de la Costa. Portman had a good war appearing in patriotic fare such as Forty-Ninth Parallel (1941) as Lieutnant Hans Hirth, One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942) as Tom Earnshaw, Squadron Leader X (1943) as Erich Kohler, We Dive At Dawn (1943), Escape To Danger (1943) as Arthur Lawrence and Millions Like Us (1943) as Charlie Forbes. His post-war movies included Wanted For Murder (1946) as Victor James Colebrooke, alias Tom Maren, The Colditz Story (1955) as Colonel Richmond, The Deep Blue Sea (1955) as Miller, The Good Companions (1957) as Jess Oakroyd, Freud (1962) as Dr Theodore Meynert, The Bedford Incident (1965) as Commodore Wolfgang Schrepke and The Whisperers (1966) as Archie.
CAUSE: He died of a heart ailment at his home, Penpol, St Veet, Lostwithiel, Cornwall. He was 66. He left £14,377.
Dick Powell
Born November 14, 1904
Died January 2, 1963
Diverse actor. Born in Mountain View, Arkansas, Richard Ewing Powell began life working for a telephone company emptying coins from public phone boxes and singing in the evenings. He also was a singer and played the banjo with a band before making his film début in the Warner Bros flick Blessed Event (1932) as Bunny Harmon. He so impressed the studio that it signed him to a long contract and he spent around ten years playing the all-American boy before moving into tough guy roles in the Forties following his release from Warners at the start of the decade. The following decade saw him make yet another transition, this time to behind the cameras where he produced and directed. Like many of the cast and crew of The Conqueror (1956), which Powell produced and directed, he was stricken with cancer. His films included: Blessed Event (1932) as Bunny Harmon, Convention City (1933) as Jerry Ford, 42nd Street as Billy Lawler, Gold Diggers Of 1933 (1933), Footlight Parade (1933) as Scott Blair, Wonder Bar (1934) as Tommy, Dames (1934) as Jimmy Higgins, Twenty Million Sweethearts as Buddy Clayton, Thanks A Million (1935) as Eric Land, Broadway Gondolier (1935) as Richard Purcell, Page Miss Glory (1935) as Bingo Nelson, A Midsummer Night’s Dream as Lysander, Gold Diggers Of 1935 (1935) as Dick Curtis, Stage Struck (1936) as George Randall, Colleen (1936) as Donald Ames III, Hearts Divided (1936) as Captain Jerome Bonaparte, Gold Diggers Of 1937 (1936) as Rosmer Peck, On The Avenue (1937) as Gary Blake, Hollywood Hotel (1938) as Ronnie Bowers, Naughty But Nice (1939) as Professor Donald Hardwick, Model Wife (1941) as Fred Chambers, Riding High (1943) as Steve Baird, Happy Go Lucky (1943) as Pete Hamilton, Murder, My Sweet (1944) as Philip Marlowe, It Happened Tomorrow (1944) as Larry Stevens, Cornered (1945) as Gerard, Rogues’ Regiment (1948) as Whit Corbett, Pitfall (1948) as John Forbes, To The Ends Of The Earth (1948) as Commissioner Michael Barrows, The Reformer And The Redhead (1950) as Andrew Rockton Hale, Cry Danger (1951) as Rocky Mulloy and Susan Slept Here (1954) as Mark Christopher. In 1925 Powell married model Maude Maund but the marriage was over by 1927. On September 19, 1936, he married actress Joan Blondell. On July 1, 1938, their daughter, Ellen, was born. The Powells divorced on July 14, 1944. On August 19, 1945, he married actress June Allyson. Their son, Richard Keith, was born on December 24, 1950. The Powells separated but were reconciled before the divorce was finalised.
CAUSE: Powell died of cancer in West Los Angeles, California. He was 58. He was buried in the Columbarian of Honor at Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks, 1712 Glendale Avenue, Glendale, California 91209.
Michael Powell
Born September 30, 1905
Died February 19, 1990
British original. Born in Bekesbourne, near Canterbury, Kent, Michael Latham Powell was educated at King’s School, Canterbury, and joined the National Provincial Bank in 1922. He took three years before deciding the financial world wasn’t for him and entering the world of film-making in 1925. Powell worked for British International Pictures and in 1927 married an American dancer from whom he split after just three weeks, although their divorce didn’t become final until 1936. Powell’s film The Edge Of The World (1937) won Best Direction of Foreign Film award at the 1938 Venice Film Festival, which led to a contract with Sir Alexander Korda. It was thanks to Korda that Powell first teamed up with Emeric Pressburger on The Spy In Black (1939). It was to be the first of 21 films they collaborated on. Their film The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp (1943) came in for criticism from Prime Minister Churchill and the Ministry of Information for its portrayal of the military. In 1943 Powell married Frances Reidy (d. 1983) by whom he had two sons. That year he and Pressburger adopted the partnership title The Archers and in 1944 they were offered a contract by the Rank Organisation. Powell’s favourite of his own films was the fantastical A Matter Of Life And Death (1946). The Archers made films that were inventive, different … and expensive. Too expensive for Rank, and the two parted company until they were reunited to make The Battle Of The River Plate (1956). That year also saw the end of The Archers’ partnership. Powell’s later films included: Peeping Tom (1959), They’re A Weird Mob (1966) and Age Of Consent (1969). In the Eighties Powell moved to America to teach and work at Frances Ford Coppola’s Zoetrope Studio. In 1984 he married Thelma Schoonmaker, who survived him.
CAUSE: Powell died aged 84 at his home, 1 Lee Cottages, Avening, Gloucestershire, from cancer. He left £26,261.
William Powell
Born July 29, 1892
Died March 5, 1984
Light comic. Between 1922 and his retirement 33 years later, (6)߰William Horatio Powell appeared in almost 100 films. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, made his Broadway début when he was 20 and made his first film, Sherlock Holmes (1922) as Foreman Wells, when he was 30. During the silent era Powell usually played villains, before moving into comedies and light drama when the talkies arrived. He played detective Philo Vance in The Canary Murder Case (1929), The Greene Murder Case (1929), The Benson Murder Case (1930) and The Kennel Murder Case (1933) and was super sleuth Nick Charles in The Thin Man series, encompassing The Thin Man (1934), for which he was nominated for an Oscar, After The Thin Man (1936), Another Thin Man (1939), Shadow Of The Thin Man (1941), The Thin Man Goes Home (1945) and Song Of The Thin Man (1947). He was also lauded as Florenz Ziegfeld in The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and My Man Godfrey (1936) as Godfrey Parke, playing opposite his then wife Carole Lombard, which resulted in another Oscar nomination. Powell was engaged to Jean Harlow at the time of her untimely death. He was also nominated for an Academy Award for playing Clarence Day in Life With Father (1947). His last films were How To Marry A Millionaire (1953) as J.D. Hanley and Mister Roberts (1955) as Doc.
CAUSE: Powell died aged 91 in Palm Springs, California, of natural causes. He was cremated.
Tyrone Power
Born May 5, 1914
Died November 15, 1958
Pretty boy. Born at 2112 Fulton Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio, at 5.30pm on May 5, 1914, 5́ 8˝ Tyrone Edmund Power III came from a long line of thespians. As with so many actors, Power’s mother, Patia Reaume, was a dominating force in her son’s life. She also outlived him, dying in 1959 aged 77. Power’s father, F
rederick Tyrone Edmund II (b. London, May 2, 1869, d. Los Angeles, December 30, 1961), was sent to America (from Ireland) to learn about the citrus fruit business. He later became an actor when the first crop failed, going on to tour with Beerbohm Tree, the father of Sir Carol Reed. Both Tyrone Powers died of a heart attack on movie sets – father in 1931 and son in 1958. In 1929 Tyrone III joined Tyrone II in New York, where the latter was appearing in The Merchant Of Venice. TIII landed a walk-on part. The Powers travelled to Hollywood two years later, where TII was due to star in The Miracle Man (1932), but he died four days into the shoot. His son decided to stay in Tinseltown and was signed up by Darryl F. Zanuck at 20th Century Fox. After seeing Power’s first screen test Zanuck exclaimed: “My God, he looks like a chimp.” The problem was Power’s eyebrows or, rather, eyebrow. When that was shaved, however, he looked like a different man. With the public Power was an almost instantaneous hit, overtaking box-office giants such as Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy and appearing in films including Lloyds Of London (1936) as Jonathan Blake, In Old Chicago (1937) as Dion O’Leary, Alexander’s Ragtime Band (1937) as Roger Grant aka Alexander, Marie Antoinette (1938) as Count Axel de Fersen and Suez (1938) as Ferdinand de Lesseps. It was on the set of Suez that Power met actress Annabella who was to become his first wife. She had lost her virginity to Errol Flynn … who was also Power’s lover. They were married on St George’s Day 1939 at her home on St Pierre Road, Bel Air. Actor Don Ameche was best man and Pat Peterson (Mrs Charles Boyer) was maid of honour. Producer Darryl F. Zanuck had tried to prevent the wedding, believing it would harm his star’s box-office draw if he was married. He was wrong. Power subsequently made films for Fox that were even more successful, including the lead role in Jesse James (1939), The Rains Came (1939) as Major Rama Safti and The Mark Of Zorro (1940) as Don Diego Vega, a.k.a. Zorro, which was among his favourite of his own films, Blood And Sand (1941) as Juan Gallardo, A Yank In The RAF (1941) as Tim Baker and Son Of Fury (1942) as Benjamin Blake. On August 24, 1942, Power enrolled in the Marines. Following the war he resumed his career with The Razor’s Edge (1946) as Larry Darrell and had affairs with Judy Garland and Lana Turner, which led to the break-up of his marriage. On January 7, 1949, he and Annabella were divorced. The affair with the tempestuous Turner led nowhere and in Rome on June 27, 1949, he married MGM starlet Linda Christian (b. Tampico, Mexico, November 13, 1923, as Blanca Rosa Welter). They had two daughters: Romina Francesca (b. Rome, October 2, 1951) who twice represented Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest and finished seventh both times, and Taryn Stephanie (b. Hollywood, September 13, 1953). Thereafter his career began to slump and he moved to London where he appeared in the stage version of Mister Roberts, although it wasn’t a success. Returning to Hollywood, he appeared in mediocre movies and divorced Linda Christian. In 1952 his contract with 20th Century Fox wasn’t renewed. His comeback film was the hit The Eddie Duchin Story (1956). On May 7, 1958, Power married for the third time. The bride was Deborah Jean Minardos (née Smith), but they were together for just six months. As with many stars, numerous allegations have been levelled at Power, including his being a coprophiliac and bisexual. It is said that he had affairs with both Howard Hughes and Errol Flynn. Alice Faye once said: “I did consider marrying Tyrone Power. But I decided he was too fond of the boys for it to work out.” Fox publicist Harry Brand said: “When Ty died, he was 44 but looked over 50. His looks had coarsened due to the drinking that helped him ease the worries and fears about being exposed as queer … Rock Hudson, for example, had an easier time of it … being younger and not spending most of his adult life with marriages or kids he didn’t genuinely want.” Comedian Bob Monkhouse revealed in his best-selling autobiography that Power had attempted to seduce him in a bath in Birmingham at the opening of ATV.
CAUSE: He died of a heart attack in Madrid while making Solomon & Sheba (1959). He was 44 years old. Tyrone Power was a practising Roman Catholic but because of his two divorces was banned from having a Catholic ceremony at his burial in section 8 of Hollywood Memorial Park, 6000 Santa Monica Boulevard, Hollywood, California 90038. His only son, Tyrone IV, was born posthumously in Hollywood on January 22, 1959.
FURTHER READING: The Secret Life Of Tyrone Power – Hector Arce (New York: Bantam Books, 1979); Tyrone Power: The Last Idol – Fred Lawrence Guiles (London: Granada, 1982).
Otto Preminger
Born December 5, 1906
Died April 23, 1986
Rude director. Born in Vienna, the son of a lawyer who became Attorney-General of the Austria-Hungary Empire, Otto Ludwig Preminger followed in his father’s legal briefs and studied to become a lawyer but deviated from the law to direct Die Große Liebe (1932). Four years later, he was in Hollywood but his egocentric manner didn’t make him many friends and Darryl F. Zanuck sacked him from Kidnapped (1938). It looked like Preminger’s career was going nowhere until Zanuck was called up for war service. Preminger used the opportunity to direct Margin For Error (1943) and Laura (1944), which earned him an Oscar nomination and established his power base at Fox. Thereafter, he left 20th Century Fox and freelanced. His film The Moon Is Blue (1953) caused controversy by utilising the words ‘virgin’ and ‘pregnant’, previously unheard on the legitimate screen. He directed Marilyn Monroe (whom he described as “a vacuum with nipples”) in River Of No Return (1954), an all-black version of Bizet’s opera Carmen Jones (1954) and a film about drugs The Man With The Golden Arm (1955). His film, Saint Joan (1957), was supposed to launch the career of Jean Seberg, but it flopped. He later commented: “Barbra Streisand’s mother once scolded me for not picking her daughter to star in my film Saint Joan. I chose another unknown, Jean Seberg. So I told the lady: ‘Look at Jean Seberg’s career. You should thank me for not picking your Barbra.’” His later films included: Bonjour Tristesse (1958), Porgy And Bess (1959), Anatomy Of A Murder (1959), Exodus (1960) (which caused Jewish comedian Mort Sahl to beg “Otto, let my people go”), Advise And Consent (1962), The Cardinal (1963) for which he was nominated for an Oscar, Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) and Rosebud (1975). Michael Caine commented on Preminger: “O.P. is only happy if everybody else is miserable. Still, if you can keep his paranoia from beating you down, you can learn a lot from the guy.” Perhaps as an in-joke to his icy temperament, Preminger was cast as Mr Freeze in Batman. His Caped Crusader co-star Adam West was no big fan either, opining: “The man insisted on enhancing his reputation as one of the meanest bastards who ever walked a sound stage. Otto was crude. Though most men have been guilty of looking on women as sex objects … Otto was the only man I ever met who did that on his good days. The rest of them he treated them like dirt. He would swear at them, insult them, comment on their weight, the size of their nose (if it was too big) or their breasts (if they were too small), say anything that might hurt them.”
CAUSE: Preminger died of cancer in New York. He was 79.
Elvis Presley
Born January 8, 1935
Died August 16, 1977
‘The King Of Rock’n’Roll’. Born in Tupelo, Mississippi, Elvis Aron Presley was a twin. His brother Jesse Garon Presley died at birth. His great-great-great-grandmother was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian named Morning White Dove. His mother walked him to school everyday until he was 15 and once remarked, “I can’t understand all the fuss over Elvis. I think I have a better voice than he does.” His father, Vernon, added, “I never knew a guitar player worth a damn.” His grandmother, Minnie Mae, outlived both Elvis and his parents. A former truck driver, Elvis was the biggest music sensation of the Fifties. He was described early on as a white boy with a black voice. Under the influence of the shady Colonel Tom Parker, Presley took America by storm. “I don’t like them to call me ‘Elvis the Pelvis’,” he complained. “It is the most childish expression I have heard from an adult.” He was not always the impressive stage presence he later became. On September 25, 1954, Presley made his début at the Grand Ole Opry and was sacked after just one performance. Talent office manager Jim Denny told him,
“Listen, son, you ain’t going nowhere. You oughtta go back to driving a truck.” To add insult to injury a suitcase of Elvis’ clothes was left behind at a garage and the future King of Rock’n’Roll cried all the way home. Presley’s recording of ‘That’s Alright, Mama’ was rejected by a black radio station in Tennessee, with the line: “This boy is a country rooster crowin’ who shouldn’t be allowed to sing after the sun comes up in the morning.” The song was also turned down by a white radio station – one of its DJs complained: “If I play this they’ll run me out of town. I gotta play pure and simple white country music.” Two years later, the East German magazine Youth World weighed in with its own opinion: “This is a weapon of the American psychological war aimed at infecting part of the population with a new philosophical outlook of inhumanity … in order to prepare for war.” The same year comedian Jackie Gleason stated, “He can’t last. I tell you flatly, he can’t last.” Ed Sullivan refused to put Presley on his show, asserting: “Nothing in this great, free continent is going to make me put that boy on my programme.” Just seven days later, Sullivan paid $17,000 for the privilege of changing his mind. Music critic Jack Payne of the Daily Mail said in 1956, “Any form of singing is alien to Elvis.” Critic D.W. Brogan wrote in the Manchester Guardian in 1956, “Who will sing ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ ten years from now?” Comedian Steve Allen commented, “The fact that someone with so little ability became the most popular singer in history says something significant about our cultural standards.” Bing Crosby damned the young pretender with the line, “He never contributed a damn thing to music.” Gossip columnist Hedda Hopper was no fan either: “He may be the kingpin, but in Hollywood he is a square in a peg.” She added, “I consider him a menace to young girls” and “He is the most obscene, vulgar influence on America today.” The Chairman of the Board, Frank Sinatra, was positively vitriolic in his criticism: “His kind of music is deplorable, a rancid-smelling aphrodisiac … It fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in people.” What did they know. In the 1957 Billboard charts Elvis spent 24 weeks at number one. His songs ‘Jailhouse Rock’, ‘It’s Now Or Never’ and ‘Surrender’ were three of the first four records ever to début at number one. (Today, records regularly go straight in at number one, but readers should be aware in the first 30 years of the hit parade this happened just 15 times. Compare this to 1998 when 27 songs went straight to the top.) By 1999 he had spent an incredible 1,155 weeks on the British charts, 73 of them at the top of the pile. Unlike his music, Elvis’ film career was less than satisfactory. He made his début in the American civil war drama Love Me Tender (1956) as Clint Reno and went on to appear in Loving You (1957) as Jimmy Tompkins a.k.a. Deke Rivers (Elvis’ beloved mother, Gladys, appears as an extra towards the end of the film. After her death on August 14, 1958, he refused to watch the film) and Jailhouse Rock (1957) as Vince Everett (another film Elvis didn’t like to watch because his co-star Judy Tyler died in a car crash shortly before the film was released). (Continuity blip: in the film Elvis is seen in the warden’s office wearing the number 6239 on his prison garb. Later on, he has been ‘promoted’ to 6240.) He went on to star in King Creole (1958) as high school dropout Danny Fisher, G.I. Blues (1960) as Tulsa McLean, which features the song ‘Wooden Heart’ sung to a puppet, Flaming Star (1960) as Pacer Burton, a half-breed, and directed by Don Siegel, Wild In The Country (1961) as Glenn Tyler, in the last serious film he made, Blue Hawaii (1961) as Chad Gates (one of the year’s five most popular films; Elvis had been signed to a five-year contract with Hal Wallis), Follow That Dream (1962) as Toby Kwimper, Kid Galahad (1962) as Walter Gulick, Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962) as Ross Carpenter, It Happened At The World’s Fair (1963) as Mike Edwards, Fun In Acapulco (1963) as Mike Windgren, Kissin’ Cousins (1964) as Josh Morgan & Jodie Tatum, Viva Las Vegas (1964) as Lucky Jackson, Roustabout (1964) as Charlie Rogers, Girl Happy (1965) as Rusty Wells, Tickle Me (1965) as Lonnie Beale, Harum Scarum (1965) as Johnny Tyronne in a cheap and dreadful flick, Frankie And Johnny (1966) as Johnny, Paradise, Hawaiian Style (1966) as Rick Richards, Spinout (1966) as Mike McCoy, Double Trouble (1967) as Guy Lambert, Easy Come, Easy Go (1967) as Ted Jackson, Clambake (1967) as Scott Hayward, Stay Away, Joe (1968) as Joe Lightcloud, Speedway (1968) as Steve Grayson, Live A Little, Love A Little (1968) as Greg Nolan, Charro! (1969) as Jess Wade (one of the worst films Elvis ever made; some distributors refused to take it), The Trouble With Girls (1969) as Walter Hale and Change Of Habit (1969) as Dr John Carpenter.
Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries Page 142
