CAUSE: Reisz died in London from a blood disorder. He was 76.
Lee Remick
Born December 14, 1935
Died July 2, 1991
Horrific gentility. Born into wealth in Quincy, Massachusetts, Remick studied ballet and modern dance and appeared on stage and in television for a number of years before making her first film, A Face In The Crowd, as Betty Lou Fleckum, in 1957. She quickly revealed her versatility, appearing in everything from comedy to horror films and all genres in-between. Her films included: Anatomy Of A Murder (1959) as Laura Manion, Wild River (1960) as Carol Garth Baldwin, Sanctuary (1961) as Temple Drake, Experiment In Terror (1962) as Kelly Sherwood, Days Of Wine And Roses (1962) as Kirsten Arnesen Clay, for which she was nominated for an Oscar, The Wheeler Dealers (1963) as Molly Thatcher, The Hallelujah Trail (1965) as Cora Templeton Massingale, No Way To Treat A Lady (1968) as Kate Palmer, Loot (1970) as Fay and The Omen (1976) as Katherine Thorn. In 1970 she moved to Britain and appeared on television in the title role in Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill (1975). Back in America, she became a regular in TV mini-series.
CAUSE: She died of kidney and lung cancer aged 55 at her Brentwood home, 570 North Bundy Drive, at 5.15pm on July 2, 1991. Remick was cremated at Westwood Memorial Park.
Jean Renoir
Born September 15, 1894
Died February 12, 1979
Poetic director. The son of famed painter Auguste Renoir, he was born in Paris and early on developed a passion for the cinema. He formed his own production company and directed his first film before he turned 30 – La Fille De L’Eau, (1924). Eight years later, his Boudu Sauvé Des Eaux (1932), was hailed as a comedy masterpiece. With Le Crime De Monsieur Lange (1936) he proved that he could direct political films but his magnum opus was La Grande Illusion (1937). His next most spectacular work, La Règle Du Jeu (1939), flopped when it was released but gained respect in later years. In the Forties he travelled to America and was put under contract at 20th Century Fox, but his films usually flopped, apart from The Southerner (1944) which earned him an Oscar nomination, and he was unable to recreate his Gallic glory.
CAUSE: He died in Beverly Hills, California, aged 84, from Parkinson’s disease.
Tommy Rettig
Born December 10, 1941
Died February 15, 1996
Little boy lost. Born in Jackson Heights, New York, Thomas Noel Rettig was just five when he appeared in the stage version of Annie Get Your Gun, earning $60 a week. He made his film début playing Richard Widmark’s son in Panic In The Streets (1950) and was signed to 20th Century Fox, where he appeared in The 5,000 Fingers Of Dr T (1953) and with Marilyn Monroe in River Of No Return (1954). That year he played Jeff Miller in the TV series Lassie, for which he was paid $500 a week, rising to $2,500 a week in the last season. When the series ended his work began to dry up and Rettig tried his hand at photography, tool salesman and managing a health club. He moved to California with his wife (Darlene Portwood, whom he had married in 1959 when she was just 15) and began to grow marijuana. In 1972 the 5́ 5˝ Rettig was arrested once again for growing marijuana, and sentenced to two years’ probation but it wasn’t a deterrent. Three years later, he was sentenced to five years for smuggling cocaine but the charge was later dropped on appeal. In 1976 he was divorced. He was arrested on drugs charges again in 1980.
CAUSE: Rettig died aged 54 in Marina Del Rey, apparently from natural causes.
Sir Ralph Richardson
Born December 19, 1902
Died October 10, 1983
Eccentric mummer. Ralph David Richardson was, by his own admission, “a mummy’s boy”. His parents separated when he was four and he was raised by his mother in Shoreham, Sussex, in a home made out of two disused railway carriages. (Trivia note: Profumo scandalite Christine Keeler also grew up in a converted railway carriage.) Richardson was born in Langsyne, Tivoli Road, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, and intended to join the priesthood but ran away from the seminary. He joined the Liverpool & Victoria Insurance Company but left when an inheritance enabled him to enrol in an art college where, to his disappointment, he found he had no aptitude for art. After considering journalism for a while, he decided an actor’s life was for him. At Hampstead Register Office on September 18, 1924, he married actress Muriel Bathia ‘Kit’ Hewitt (b. September 9, 1907, d. Sussex, October 4, 1942). He made his London stage début on July 10, 1926 playing the stranger in Oedipus In Colonus. In 1929 Kit Richardson fell victim to encephalitis lethargica. It left her in great pain and virtually crippled. Kit almost certainly died by her own hand by self-strangulation. She had spoken of suicide but the coroner recorded a verdict of “death by misadventure”. Richardson had made his film début in Friday The Thirteenth (1933) as Horace Dawes and went on to appear in Java Head (1934) as William Ammidon, Bulldog Jack (1934) as Morelle, The Return Of Bulldog Drummond (1934) as Major Hugh ‘Bulldog’ Drummond, The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1937) as Colonel Winstanley, South Riding (1938) as Robert Carne, The Divorce Of Lady X (1938) as Lord Mere, Q Planes (1939) as Major Charles Hammond, The Four Feathers (1939) as Captain John Durrance, The Lion Has Wings (1939) as Wing Commander Richardson, Anna Karenina (1948) as Alexei Karenin, The Fallen Idol (1948) as Baines, The Heiress (1949) as Dr Austin Sloper, for which he was nominated for an Oscar, Home At Seven (1952) as David Preston, Outcast Of The Islands (1952) as Captain Lingard, The Holly And The Ivy (1952) as Reverend Martin Gregory, Richard III (1954) as Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, Oscar Wilde (1959) as Sir Edward Carson, Exodus (1960) as General Sutherland, Our Man In Havana (1960) as ‘C’, Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1962) as James Tyrone Sr, Woman Of Straw (1964) as Charles Richmond, Doctor Zhivago (1965) as Alexander Gromeko, Battle Of Britain (1969) as Sir David Kelly, Oh! What A Lovely War (1969) as Sir Edward Grey, Lady Caroline Lamb (1972) as King George III, O Lucky Man! (1973) as Monty/Sir James Burgess, Time Bandits (1981) as the Supreme Being/God, Dragonslayer (1981) as Ulrich, Greystoke: The Legend Of Tarzan, Lord Of The Apes (1984) as 6th Earl of Greystoke, for which he was nominated for an Oscar and Give My Regards To Broad Street (1984) as Jim. During the war he served with the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. He married for the second time on January 26, 1944, at Chelsea Register Office. The new Mrs Richardson was actress Meriel Forbes (b. London, September 13, 1913, d. April 7, 2000) by whom he had one son, Charles (b. London, January 1, 1945 dec.). Richardson was a regular in the theatre and casting him in Macbeth must have seemed a good idea at the time. However, Richardson had the utmost difficulty choreographing his moves in time with his lines. He finally conquered his inability by saying out loud the lines “One, two, clash your swords, three, four, round we go.” Unfortunately, on the opening night he spoke the line out loud, much to the amusement of the audience. Always eccentric, he was still riding his motorcycle into his seventies and had a penchant for pet parrots. He summed up his own profession rather well: “Actors never retire. They just get offered fewer parts,” adding, “The art of acting lies in keeping people from coughing.”
CAUSE: Richardson died, aged 80, in Marylebone, London, from a stroke and was buried in Highgate Cemetery, north London. He left £1,291,468.
FURTHER READING: Ralph Richardson: An Actor’s Life – Garry O’Connor (London: Coronet, 1983).
Tony Richardson
Born June 5, 1928
Died November 14, 1991
Vanessa’s gay ex. Born in Shipley, Yorkshire, and educated at Wadham College, Oxford, Cecil Antonio Richardson was a member of the Oxford University Debating Society before joining the Royal Court Theatre. On the screen he conjoined with Karel Reisz to form the Free Cinema group. On April 29, 1962 at Hammersmith, London, he married Vanessa Redgrave and fathered two daughters: Natasha Jane (b. London, May 11, 1963) who was formerly married to Harrow-educated impresario Robert Fox (b. March 25, 1953) and is now wed to the actor Liam Neeson (b. Ballymena, Northern Ireland, June 7, 1952); and Joely Kim (b. London, January 11, 1965). Richardson and Redgrave were divorced on April 28,
1967 supposedly because of his adultery with Jeanne Moreau. The films Richardson directed included: Look Back In Anger (1958), The Entertainer (1960), A Taste Of Honey (1961) which he also wrote and produced, Sanctuary (1961), The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner (1962) which he also produced, Tom Jones (1963) which he also produced and won Oscars for both disciplines, The Charge Of The Light Brigade (1968), Hamlet (1969) which he also wrote, Ned Kelly (1970) which he also wrote, A Delicate Balance (1973), Joseph Andrews (1977) which he also wrote, The Hotel New Hampshire (1984) which he also wrote and Blue Sky (1994) which was delayed for legal reasons. He produced Saturday Night And Sunday Morning (1960). Richardson directed seven actors to Oscar nominations – Diane Cilento, Dame Edith Evans, Albert Finney, Laurence Olivier, Joyce Redman and Jessica Lange, although only Lange triumphed. From the early Seventies until his death Richardson lived with Grizelda Grimond, the only daughter of the former Liberal Party leader Jo Grimond. They had one daughter, Katherine (b. 1973). Sir Robert Stephens said of Richardson, “He convinced me (wrongly, of course) that anyone can make a movie. All Tony Richardson did was come in and ask his cameraman what he should do … He was a useless unpleasant creature.”
CAUSE: Bisexual, Richardson was critical of Liberace for covering up his homosexuality and the fact that he had AIDS. “Interesting that Liberace, who created the phrase, ‘I cried all the way to the bank,’ chose to lie all the way to his grave,” he said. Yet Richardson also kept secret both his sexuality and his own infection with HIV. Tony Richardson died of a neurological condition brought on by AIDS in Los Angeles, California, aged 63. Novelist Anthony Burgess commented: “I’m sorry … not actually. I’m sorry he died that way, but Tony Richardson was a terrible person. Not because he had AIDS, not because he was bisexual, not because he was hypocritical about it. Because he was a terrible person. Not a terrible director, just a terrible human being.”
Arnold Ridley, OBE
Born January 7, 1896
Died March 12, 1984
Aged gentleman. Born at 4 Pera Place, Bath, Somerset, the son of William Robert Ridley, a drill instructor, and Rosa Caroline Morrish, Arnold Ridley was educated at Clarendon School, Bath, and Bristol University where he began his acting career. Upon graduation, he didn’t know if he could make it in the high pressure world of acting and so turned to teaching before returning to tread the boards. In 1914 he made his professional début playing in Prunella’s at the Theatre Royal, Bristol. At the outbreak of the First World War he joined the Somerset Light Infantry but was invalided out having been wounded at the Somme. His left arm was rendered virtually useless, his body was strewn with shrapnel and he was hit in the head with a rifle butt which caused blackouts that were to plague him for the rest of his life. In 1918 he returned to acting and joined the Birmingham Repertory Company but the injuries suffered in the war forced him to give up the stage in 1921. He turned his hand to writing plays and working in his father’s boot shop in Bath. He wrote 35 plays in longhand. In 1923 his most celebrated play The Ghost Train was inspired by having to wait in Mangotsfield Junction, a remote country station, for several hours. In 1935 he formed Quality Films, his own film production company, with a partner but although their first production, Royal Eagle (1936), was a success, their financial backers went bankrupt during the second and left both Ridley and his partner in debt. It took 20 years to repay the money. The character of Charles Godfrey was a conscientious objector during the First World War but when the second conflict began Ridley signed up to the army and was commissioned as a major. However, he suffered severe shell-shock in France and was again discharged. Instead he joined ENSA, the army entertainment troupe – Entertainment National Service Association – that was cruelly dubbed “Every Night Something Awful”. His first film was The Interrupted Journey (1949) in which he played Mr Saunders. He also appeared in Green Grow The Rushes (1951) as Tom Cuffley, A Stolen Face (1952) as Dr Russell, Wings Of Mystery (1963) as Mr Bell, Crooks In Cloisters (1964) as a newsagent, Carry On Girls (1973) as Alderman Pratt and a cinema attendant in The Amorous Milkman (1974). He also appeared in the television soaps Coronation Street playing Herbert Whittle (in 1967) and John Gilbert (in 1969), Crossroads in 1964 playing the Reverend Guy Atkins and the radio soap The Archers as Arthur ‘Doughy’ Hood, the baker. In 1968 he was approached by producer David Croft who offered him the role of the gentlemanly Charles Godfrey in a new television sitcom entitled Dad’s Army about the Home Guard in Britain, a bunch of elderly and very young men who were unable to serve in the regular forces because of age or infirmity (or in the case of Joe Walker an allergy to corned beef). Croft warned Ridley, then in his seventies, that he would, on occasion, be required to run around and that he (Croft) would be unable to protect him. “I think I can manage,” replied Ridley and manage he did. The show ran from July 31, 1968 until 80 episodes later on November 13, 1977 when Lance Corporal Jones married Mrs Fox. Ridley was the subject of some good-natured banter from his co-star John Laurie, the second oldest member of the cast. Laurie would stare at Ridley arriving each day and shake his head, “Poor old boy … look at him, he’s falling apart.” Ridley once underwent an operation after breaking his hip and arrived to film in a limousine lying flat on his back, his leg in plaster. Each member of the cast went to greet Ridley except John Laurie who hung back. David Croft went up and leaned into the car to shake Ridley’s hand. All that was visible was Croft’s arm going up and down. “Look,” cried Laurie, “they’re pumping him up! They’re pumping him up!” The crew propped Ridley against a tree and photographed him looking left, right, up, down and worried and then sent him home. Whenever a reaction shot was needed the crew used one of those. He was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List of 1982 for services to the theatre. He was married three times: firstly to Hilda Mary Cooke, then to Isola Strong and finally to Althea Parker by whom he had one son, Nick, born in 1947.
CAUSE: Arnold Ridley died, aged 88, of natural causes in hospital in Northwood, having been in poor health for some time. His funeral was held at St Anne’s Church, Highgate, London, a week later. He left less than £4,000.
Dean Riesner
(DEAN FRANKLIN REISNER)
Born November 3, 1918
Died August 18, 2002
He made Clint feel lucky. Born in New York, Riesner was the son of silent film director Charles Reisner (b. Minnesapolis, Minnesota, March 14, 1887, d. La Jolla, California, September 24, 1962) who was also credited as Charles F. Riesner, the version his son preferred, and began his professional life as a child actor before moving behind the typewriter. He made his film début aged five under the nom de screen Dinky Dean. He appeared in several Charlie Chaplin films including The Pilgrim (1923) in which his father also appeared. It was his mother’s intervention that persuaded Dean’s father to let him “have his life back” and he settled himself in front of a typewriter after being contracted to Warner Bros. His first screen credit – under the name Dean Franklin – was for co-writing Code Of The Secret Service (1939), a movie that featured Ronald Reagan. His second credit came for The Fighting 69th (1940), a First World War-based film starring James Cagney. Riesner joined the Coast Guard during the Second World War and saw service in the Pacific. After demob, he returned to Hollywood and wrote and directed Bill And Coo (1947), a film in which trained birds in hats and ties “acted” out the goings-on in a town called Chirpendale. It won a special Oscar for its creator, Ken Murray, for “artistry and patience”. In the Fifties Riesner turned his hand to television and wrote scripts for Ben Casey, The Outer Limits and Rawhide among many others. It was while working on the last show that he met Clint Eastwood. Several years later, Eastwood and Don Siegel were working on the film Coogan’s Bluff but were unable to find a scriptwriter who could convey what they wanted. Four had tried and failed when Siegel called upon Riesner. The film was a success and led to the television series McCloud. He worked with Eastwood on the Dirty Harry series and wrote the famous lines “Go ahead, punk, make my day” an
d “You’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?” He later worked on the English-dubbed version of Das Boot and The Godfather III (1990). He was married to Marie who predeceased him.
CAUSE: He died in Encino, California, aged 83, of natural causes.
Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries Page 149
