Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries

by Paul Donnelley

  CAUSE: Redgrave died the day after his 77th birthday in a nursing home in Denham, Buckinghamshire, from Parkinson’s disease with Corin by his side. He was cremated at Mortlake Crematorium. He left £111,244.

  FURTHER READING: In My Mind’s Eye – Michael Redgrave (London: Coronet, 1984); Secret Dreams: A Biography Of Michael Redgrave – Alan Strachan (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004).

  Sir Carol Reed

  Born December 30, 1906

  Died April 25, 1976

  Dedicated technocrat. Born in Wandsworth, south London, the illegitimate son of actor-manager Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree (b. 2 Pembridge Villas, Kensington, London, January 28, 1852, d. 1 All Souls’ Place, Portland Place, London W1, July 2, 1917) and (Beatrice) May Pinney (b. Ramsgate, Kent, May 23, 1871) who had taken the name Reed by deed poll two years before her son’s birth. Upon leaving school Reed travelled to America, where he learned about chicken farming. Back in England he came under the wing of Dame Sybil Thorndike and then worked as Basil Dean’s assistant director on Autumn Crocus (1934) before making his own directorial début with Midshipman Easy (1935) and then Laburnum Grove (1936). His reputation was made with Bank Holiday (1938) and A Girl Must Live ( 1939). He also worked on Night Train To Munich (1940) and Kipps (1941). His apotheosis came in the late Forties with James Mason’s IRA man on the run in Odd Man Out (1947), Graham Greene’s The Fallen Idol (1948), for which both Greene and Reed were nominated for Oscars, and Greene’s thriller The Third Man (1949), for which Reed was again nominated for an Oscar. His output declined in the Fifties, his most prominent films being A Kid For Two Farthings (1955) and Our Man In Havana (1959). His most commercially successful feature came towards the end of the Sixties. Oliver! (1968) won Reed an Oscar for Best Director and picked up four other gongs, including Best Picture, and four other nominations. It also co-starred his rambunctious nephew, Oliver. The director would make only two more films subsequently. Considering his background, which he kept secret until his death (he listed neither parent in Who’s Who), it was not surprising that he rarely gave interviews and shunned publicity. He was married on two occasions. His first wife was beautiful blonde actress Diana Wynyard (b. Forest Hill, London, January 16, 1906, as Dorothy Isabel Cox, d. London, May 13, 1964) whom he married in 1943 and divorced four years later. In 1948 he married actress Penelope ‘Pempey’ Dudley Ward (b. 1919, d. 1982), the former daughter-in-law of Fay Compton. There was a son from this marriage, which ended only with his death. Penelope’s daughter by her first marriage to Anthony Pelissier, Tracy (b. 1942), married actor Edward Fox at Haywards Heath Registry Office, Sussex in October 1959. Reed also had an affair with novelist Daphne Du Maurier.

  CAUSE: He died in London, aged 69. He left £10,113.

  Donna Reed

  (DONNA BELLE MULLENGER)

  Born January 27, 1921

  Died January 14, 1986

  Steady wife or girlfriend. Born on a farm in Denison, Iowa, Donna Reed wanted to be a great secretary and nothing more, but then she was given a screen test by MGM and made her début in The Get-Away (1941) as Maria Theresa O’Reilly. Her career developed with her portraying reliable women, so it came as something of a shock when she won an Oscar for playing a prostitute, Alma, in From Here To Eternity (1953). In 1951 she joined Columbia hoping to escape from her stereotyped roles but to no avail. On September 24, 1958, The Donna Reed Show began on ABC and for the next eight years she played a wholesome reliable wife on television. In 1984 she joined the cast of Dallas as Miss Ellie to replace the ailing Barbara Bel Geddes, but was replaced after one season when Geddes became well enough to resume her role. Reed was married three times.

  CAUSE: She died in Beverly Hills, California, from pancreatic cancer. She was a little short of her 65th birthday. Her family blamed the illness on her disappointment at being sacked from Dallas. She had launched a lawsuit against the producers who paid her off with $1 million.

  Oliver Reed

  Born February 13, 1938

  Died May 2, 1999

  Hell-raiser extraordinaire. Born in Wimbledon, the middle of three sons (David, b. 1936, and the sports commentator Simon, b. Sutton, Surrey, August 5, 1947) and nephew of film director Sir Carol Reed, Robert Oliver Reed made his film début in The League Of Gentlemen (1959) playing a flamboyant homosexual. In April 1964 Reed’s career almost came to an end in a London nightclub. He was in the gents of The Crazy Elephant in Jermyn Street when he was bottled by two men he had upset. The cuts on his face needed 38 stitches. Although he was England’s biggest film star in the Sixties, when many other big names made the move across the Atlantic, the agnostic and dyslexic Reed never became an international star because he refused to live in America. He was in love with his house, the 63-bedroomed Broome Hall, which he had bought for £85,000. He appeared in, among others, The Bulldog Breed (1960), The Rebel (1961), The Pirates Of Blood River (1962) as Brocaire, The Crimson Blade (1963) as Captain Tom Sylvester, Paranoiac (1963) as Simon Ashby, The Brigand Of Kandahar (1965) as Ali Khan, The Jokers (1966) as David Tremayne, I’ll Never Forget What’s ’Is Name (1967) as Andrew Quint, Oliver! (1968) as the villainous Bill Sikes and Women In Love (1969) as Gerald Crich, in which he wrestled naked with an equally unclothed Alan Bates. Both men were reticent to perform in the scene, worrying about how they would ‘measure up’ to each other. One night they went to a pub and got drunk and then went to the toilets together, where they cautiously eyed each other up. Upon seeing that they were of virtually equal dimensions, they agreed to do the scene. Reed’s other films included The Assassination Bureau (1969) as Ivan Dragomiloff, the title role in Hannibal Brooks (1969), Take A Girl Like You (1970) as Patrick Standish, The Devils (1971) as Urbain Grandier, Blue Blood (1973) as Tom, Days Of Fury (1973) as Palizyn, The Three Musketeers (1973) as Athos, And Then There Were None (1974) as Hugh Lombard, The Four Musketeers (1974) as Athos, Lisztomania (1975), Tommy (1975) as Frank Hobbs, Royal Flash (1975) as Otto von Bismarck, Ransom (1977) as Nick McCormick, Tomorrow Never Comes (1978) as Jim Wilson, The Big Sleep (1978) as Eddie Mars, Venom (1982) as Dave, Fanny Hill (1983) as Mr Widdlecome, The House Of Usher (1988) as Roderick Usher, The Return Of The Musketeers (1989) as Athos, Funny Bones (1995) as Dolly Hopkins and Gladiator (2000) as Proximo. Reed became legendary in show business folklore for his drinking. On January 27, 1991, he was booked to appear on the Channel 4 chat show After Dark, an open-ended discussion that went out late on Saturday nights and ended when the participants or producer got fed up and went home. The subject under discussion was feminism and before and during the show Reed had imbibed too deeply and too often. He took umbrage at the views expressed by feminist lesbian Kate Millett. Reed grabbed Millett and planted an unwanted smacker on her cheek before walking off the set. Ollie Reed was married twice. His first wife, on January 1, 1961, at Kensington Registry Office, was model Kate Byrne. She was only 19 and forged her father’s signature on the wedding licence. They had one son, Mark. He had a daughter, Sarah, by Jacquie Daryl and on September 7, 1985, he married Josephine Burge, whom he had begun dating when she was just 16. They remained devoted to each other until his death.

  CAUSE: He died aged 61 from a heart attack in Valletta, Malta, after a lengthy drinking session. He was buried in Churchtown, County Cork, Eire, 50 yards from his local pub. Very few celebrities attended the service. Film director Michael Winner cried even though he hadn’t shed tears at either his mother or father’s interments.

  FURTHER READING: Reed All About Me – Oliver Reed (London: W.H. Allen, 1979).

  Robert Reed

  (JOHN ROBERT RIETZ)

  Born October 19, 1932

  Died May 12, 1992

  All-American father. Here’s the story of a handsome fellow, trying to come to terms with his sexuality; he played the doting father but that for him wasn’t reality. To millions of Americans Robert Reed was the perfect dad. His role as architect Michael Paul Brady in the television series The Brady Bunch and subsequent spin-off films saw him idolised. Yet Reed wasn’t ha
ppy with the show and had numerous arguments with its creator, Sherwood Schwartz. The disagreements would usually end with Reed storming off and drowning his sorrows in a local bar. He later admitted: “I should have tried to get out of the show, rather than inflict my views on [the cast].” Born in Highland Park, Illinois, he moved to Muskogee, Oklahoma, when he was six and became interested in drama at secondary school. By the age of 17 he was working for his local radio station. He attended Northwestern University and RADA. Shortly before coming to London, he married Marilyn Rosenberg and had a daughter, Karen (b. 1957). The marriage ended in 1959 because of Reed’s homosexuality. He was extremely closeted and his fellow cast members professed shock when it was revealed he was gay. Back in America, he studied method acting and appeared in several Shakespearean plays and television shows. His big break came in 1959 playing a lawyer on Father Knows Best. As well as playing Mike Brady he also played Lieutenant Adam Tobias in the TV show Mannix. Reed’s other films included: The Hunters (1958), Bloodlust (1959), Star! (1968) and The Maltese Bippy (1969). Unlike many actors, Reed never legally changed his name: “I think of vanilla pudding or tapioca when I think of Reed,” he once said.

  CAUSE: Reed died aged 59 of colon lymphoma in Huntington Memorial Hospital, 100 West California, Pasadena, California. He was also infected with the AIDS virus. His corpse was cremated and his ashes buried in Memorial Park Cemetery, Skokie, Illinois.

  Walter Reed

  (WALTER REED SMITH)

  Born March 16, 1916

  Died August 20, 2001

  Smooth heavy. Born in Fort Ward, on Bainbridge Island, Washington, he was the son of an army officer. As such the family often moved to keep up with the father’s posting and they went first to Honolulu then Los Angeles where he attended the notorious Beverly Hills High School. He began making films – the first of his more than 150 – in the late Twenties with Redskin (1929), a silent picture that starred Richard Dix and Jane Novak. He later recalled, “Jane was the prettiest girl I ever saw, big eyes and the sweetest smile. I knew that if working in movies meant meeting women like Jane I was going to have a darn good time.” In March 1932, he took $20 and hitched to the East Coast where he appeared in off-Broadway shows and in repertory. It was the day that he met Joel McCrea at the Santa Monica Beach Club that changed his career. He began working as McCrea’s stand-in during the day while treading the boards at night. One day McCrea and his wife, Frances Dee, went backstage to congratulate Reed, much to the amazement of other members of the cast. Ten days after their initial meeting Reed was signed to RKO. He was cast as a juvenile lead in many films such as Mexican Spitfire’s Elephant (1942) and Mexican Spitfire’s Blessed Event (1943) as Dennis Lindsay, opposite the unbalanced Lupe Velez. The Second World War intervened and he served in the army. Back home in civvy street and married (1946) to Peggy Shaw (one son, two daughters) he returned to Hollywood but became a second lead. “I started out as leading man then I came back from the service, looked in the mirror and decided to become a second man. They don’t pay as much, but you last longer. I enjoyed character work.” He appeared in Banjo (1947), Fighter Squadron (1948), The Torch (1948), Captain China (1949) and Young Man With A Horn (1949). The advent of regular television in the Fifties also opened up a new front for him and he appeared in early episodes of Superman, Dragnet and The Lone Ranger. He also began to get lots of fan mail, all of which received a personal reply. “It was a full-time job, but one that was rewarding and on occasion quite touching.” For much of the Fifties and Sixties Reed worked on a horse or wearing a stetson, often with John Ford. He retired in 1968 after making The Destructors because of heart problems. He took the occasional role but spent his time dealing in real estate. On July 14, 2001, his home town of Santa Cruz declared a Walter Reed Day. He said at the time, “If I hadn’t gone to RKO I’m told by friends that I could have been a matinée idol. That’s as maybe. I liked riding horses, getting all dirty and enjoyed being a part of Hollywood.”

  CAUSE: He died aged 85 in Santa Cruz, California, of kidney failure.

  Christopher Reeve

  Born September 25, 1952

  Died October 10, 2004

  Tragic Superman. Christopher Reeve was the all-American cinematic hero – tall, handsome, a talented sportsman and then it all went horribly wrong. In May 1995, Reeve had planned to fly to Dublin to appear in an adaption of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped, but at the last minute he decided to compete in a three-day event at Culpeper, Virginia. On May 27 after the initial dressage competition, he and his horse Buck were placed fourth out of 27, and Reeve thought that they could win. In the cross-country, at the comparatively straightforward third fence, Buck began to jump gracefully and then suddenly stopped. Reeve was thrown forward and landed headfirst on the top rail of the jump. He broke his neck and was paralysed from the neck down and confined to an electric wheelchair, which he operated by blowing through a straw. His subsequent determination not to give up and to walk again inspired millions and he was even mentioned in the 2004 US Presidential debates between Senator John Kerry and President George W. Bush. Reeve announced that he hoped to stand on his own two feet by the age of 50 and he spent £270,000 a year on his treatment. He founded the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, which funds research and hands out grants to individuals; he wrote a best-selling autobiography and even resumed his screen career, both as an actor and a director. Reeve was born in Manhattan, New York, the elder son of the novelist, poet and academic Franklin D. Reeve and the journalist Barbara Johnson. His parents split up when he was four, and his mother moved with Reeve and his brother, Benjamin (b. 1953), to Princeton, New Jersey, where she married a banker. The children grew up in an intellectually rarefied atmosphere and continued to spend much time with their father and his circle of friends, who included the poet Robert Frost. Reeve’s interest in acting began when he attended the Princeton Day School. Aged nine, he had a small role in a professional production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Yeoman Of The Guard. He also excelled at sport, playing goalminder for the school’s ice hockey team. He made a decision that would affect the rest of his life and concentrated on acting rather than sport. In his gap year he starred with Celeste Holm in a touring production of The Irregular Verb To Love. At Cornell University he studied English and music theory and continued to act. He spent a semester in London helping actors with American accents. He then enrolled in Juilliard School in New York where he studied under John Houseman. To fund his education 6́ 4˝ Reeve took the role of Ben Harper in the daytime soap Love Of Life in 1974 and played the role for two years. In 1976 Reeve made his Broadway début as Nicky, the doting grandson in Enid Bagnold’s A Matter Of Gravity, with Katharine Hepburn, and his film début in a small role in Gray Lady Down, a naval adventure that starred Charlton Heston. In 1977 he auditioned for two jobs – one was for a washing powder advertisement. The other was for a film called Superman. The producers seriously considered 200 actors and gave screen tests to 10 before casting Reeve. To ensure that he looked the part of the Man of Steel Reeve worked in the gym with Dave Prowse, the bodybuilder who played Darth Vader in Star Wars, and put on 30lbs of muscle. The movie went vastly over budget, costing a reputed $40 million to make, but it eventually grossed $250 million. It also made Reeve an overnight star. His characterisation was, he said, based on Cary Grant. Superman was the top movie in North America in 1979, and the sequel Superman II was beaten only by Raiders Of The Lost Ark two years later. Two more sequels followed in 1983 and 1987, he directed and co-wrote the last one. In 1980 he played Richard Collier in Somewhere In Time, a quirky romance about a Chicago playwright who falls in love with a woman in an old painting and wills himself back in time to meet her. Two years later he starred as Clifford Anderson, a psychopathic homosexual, in Sidney Lumet’s Deathtrap with Michael Caine. Audiences were probably shocked to see Reeve kissing another man on the lips. Caine later revealed, “I said to Chris, ‘If you open your mouth I will kill you.’” In Monsignor (1982) he played Father Flaherty,
a priest who flirts with the Mafia. Neither made much impact on audiences or critics. In 1984 he played Basil Ransome in the Merchant Ivory adaptation of Henry James’ The Bostonians (1984), in a cast that included Vanessa Redgrave and Jessica Tandy. Other films included: Street Smart (1987), Switching Channels (1988), The Remains Of The Day (1993), Speechless (1994) as Bob ‘Bagdad’ Freed and Village Of The Damned (1995) as Dr Alan Chaffee. Reeve was said to have turned down starring roles in The Bounty (1984), The Running Man (1987) and Total Recall (1990). In a twist of irony worthy of Hollywood, in one of his last roles before his accident he played Dempsey Cain, a paralysed policeman in the cable TV movie Above Suspicion (1995). In 1998 he returned to acting in a television remake of the Alfred Hitchcock classic Rear Window, in which the hero is confined to a wheelchair. Reeve appeared before a Senate subcommittee and spoke in favour of federal funding for stem-cell research. He also directed two television movies on health-related themes. In The Gloaming (1997) was about a man dying of AIDS, and The Brooke Ellison Story was the true account of an 11-year-old girl who is almost killed in a car crash, survives as a quadriplegic and goes on to become an honours graduate at Harvard. While filming Superman Reeve met and fell in love with Gae Exton (b. 1952), a British models’ agent. They had a son Matthew (b. 1979) and a daughter Alexandra (b. 1982). They split after ten years in January 1987. In Williamstown in April 1992 he married the seven months pregnant Dana Morosini (b. New York, 1961), whom he had met on June 30, 1987 in Williamstown, at a nightclub where Morosini was singing. They had one son, Will (b. North Adams, Massachusetts, June 7, 1992 weighing 6 lb. 14 oz). Reeve also led a bisexual life in New York and would reward his male lovers with a signed photograph as a memento.