Died August 15, 1935
Homespun wit. William Penn Adair Rogers was a renaissance man of the twentieth century. Actor. Writer. Comic. Politician. Equestrian. Producer. Director. Journalist. Born in Oologah, Oklahoma, 5́ 11˝ Rogers began his career in South Africa before returning to America after the Boer War. He began appearing in silent films (the first being Samuel Goldfish’s Laughing Bill Hyde) but lost money when he financed his own productions. His transition to sound films was seamless and he also began appearing on the wireless and writing for newspapers, where he was extremely influential as well as humorous. He once remarked: “You can’t say civilisation doesn’t advance, for in every war they kill you in a new way.” He helped Franklin D. Roosevelt win the 1932 Presidential election and served as Mayor of Beverly Hills, where a park is named in his honour. (It was in the Will Rogers Memorial Park that singer George Michael was arrested for gross indecency on April 8, 1998.) Rogers’ other pronouncements included: “I don’t make jokes – I just watch the government and report the facts;” “The American people are generous and will forgive almost any weakness with the exception of stupidity;” “Nobody wants to be called common people, especially common people” and “ A remark generally hurts in proportion to its truth.” Rogers married Betty Blake (d. 1944) on November 25, 1908, and fathered four children: William Vann (b. October 20, 1911), Mary Amelia (b. May 18, 1913), James Blake (b. July 25, 1915) and Fred Stone (b. 1918, d. California 1919, of diphtheria).
CAUSE: After pulling out of a film, Rogers fulfilled a long-standing ambition to visit Alaska. His fellow traveller was aviator Wiley Post and they flew in a plane that can openly be described as a cut and shut – it was an amalgam of four separate aircraft. In Alaska they were warned not to continue their journey because of bad weather, but Rogers was impatient to visit Point Barrow. They took off from Fairbanks and followed the Trans Alaska Pipeline before heading west in near zero visibility. They landed in a lagoon and asked directions from some Inuits. They took off again but only reached an altitude of 50 feet when the engine cut out and the plane dived into the water. The fuselage split open and one of the wings came away before the plane exploded. It was exactly 3.18pm. Rogers, who “never met a man [he] didn’t like,” was 55. Originally buried at Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks, Rogers was reinterred at Will Rogers Memorial, Box 157, Claremore, Oklahoma 74018.
Gilbert Roland
(LUIS ANTONIO DáMASO DE ALONSO)
Born December 11, 1901
Died May 15, 1994
Latin lover. Born in Ciudad Juárez, or possibly Chihuahua, Mexico, the son of a bullfighter, he eschewed the life of a matador for the life of a thespian in Hollywood. His first major film was The Plastic Age (1925) as Carl Peters but it was as Armand Duval in Camille (1927) that he caught the public’s attention. Hollywood had, and still has, an aversion to casting Latinos in leading roles in A pictures, so the handsome, moustachioed, 5́ 11˝ Roland was usually someone’s friend or rival. His films included: The Woman Disputed (1928) as Paul Hartman, New York Nights (1929) as Fred Deverne, Mephisto (1930) as Robert d’Arbel, No Living Witness (1932) as Jerry Bennett, The Passionate Plumber (1932) as Tony Lagorce, Call Her Savage (1932) as Moonglow, She Done Him Wrong (1933) as Serge Stanieff, After Tonight (1933) as Captain Rudolph ‘Rudy’ Ritter, Ladies Love Danger (1935) as Ricardo Souchet, Midnight Taxi (1937) as Flash Dillon, Thunder Trail (1937) as Arizona Dick Ames, Gambling On The High Seas (1940) as Greg Morella, My Life With Caroline (1941) as Paco Del Valle, Angels With Broken Wings (1941) as Don Pablo Vicente, Enemy Agents Meet Ellery Queen (1942) as Paul Gillette, The Desert Hawk (1944) as The Hawk/Hassan, Captain Kidd (1945) as Jose Lorenzo, The Gay Cavalier (1946) as Chico Villa, High Conquest (1947) as Hugo Lanier, Malaya (1949) as Romano, Crisis (1950) as Gonzales, Bullfighter And The Lady (1951) as Manolo Estrada, The Miracle Of Our Lady Of Fatima (1952) as Hugo da Silva, My Six Convicts (1952) as Punch Pinero, Thunder Bay (1953) as Teche Bossier, Underwater! (1955) as Dominic, Around The World In 80 Days (1956) as Achmed Abdullah, Guns Of The Timberland (1960) as Monty Walker, Cheyenne Autumn (1964) as Dull Knife, Anche Nel West C’Era Una Volta Dio (1968) as Juan Chasquisdo, Islands In The Stream (1977) as Captain Ralph and, his final film, Barbarosa (1982) as Don Branlio. He was married twice, the first time to Constance Bennett. His second wife, from December 12, 1954, was Guillermina Cantu.
CAUSE: Roland died aged 92 of cancer in Beverly Hills, California.
Ruth Roman
(NORMA ROMAN)
Born December 23, 1922
Died September 9, 1999
Reliable support who never quite made it. Born in Lynn, Massachusetts, Ruth Roman studied at the Bishop Lee Dramatic School in Boston, and appeared in various films in bit parts before landing her first starring role in an A picture in Belle Starr’s Daughter (1948) as Rose of Cimarron. Prior to that she had starred as Lothel in the 1945 series Jungle Queen in which she fought Nazis in Africa! Her films included: Dallas (1950) as Tonia Robles (coincidentally, one of her last parts was as Sylvia Lean in TV series Dallas spin-off Knots Landing in 1986), Colt.45 (1950) as Beth Donovan, Barricade (1950) as Judith Burns, Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers On A Train (1951) as Anne Morton, King Vidor’s Lightning Strikes Twice (1951) as Shelley Carnes, Mara Maru (1952) as Stella Callahan, Young Man With Ideas (1952) as Julie Webster, Invitation (1952) as Maude Redwick, Tanganyika as Peggy Merion, Joe MacBeth as Lily MacBeth and Impulse (1974) as Julia Marstow. She was married three times. Towards the end of her career, she spent most of her time in television. She was a passenger on the Andrea Doria when it sank in the mid-Fifties.
CAUSE: She died in her sleep in Laguna Beach, California. She was 76.
Cesar Romero
Born February 15, 1907
Died January 1, 1994
Gay caballero. Despite spending 20 years as the archetypal Latin lover, Romero was actually born in New York. However, his parents were Cuban and his grandfather, José Martí, was the liberator of that country. Romero, who disliked being known as a Latin lover, was an exceptional dancer and that’s how he began his career, being paid 10¢ for a dance in Manhattan. That led to Broadway shows and finally Hollywood, where he made his début in The Shadow Laughs (1933) as Tony Rico. He signed for MGM but the homophobic Louis B. Mayer didn’t know what to do with him. In 1935 he signed for Paramount, where he was billed as “the new Valentino”. When playing Marlene Dietrich’s lover, Antonio Galvan, in The Devil Is A Woman (1935) didn’t win him acclaim, he moved to Fox. He went on to appear in over 100 films, including: The Thin Man (1934) as Chris Jorgenson, British Agent (1934) as Tito Del Val, Metropolitan (1935) as Niki Baroni, Diamond Jim (1935) as Jerry Richardson, Cardinal Richelieu (1935) as Andre de Pons, Strange Wives (1935) as Boris, Rendezvous as Captain Nicholas ‘Nikki’ Nieterstein, Clive Of India (1935) as Mir Jaffar, Love Before Breakfast (1936) as Bill Wadsworth, Nobody’s Fool as Dizzy Rantz, Wee Willie Winkie (1937) as Khoda Khan, My Lucky Star (1938) as George Cabot, Jr, Wife, Husband And Friend (1939) as Hugo, Charlie Chan At Treasure Island (1939) as Fred Rhadini, Return Of The Cisco Kid (1939) as Lopez, Viva Cisco Kid (1940) as Cisco Kid, The Gay Caballero (1940) as Cisco Kid, The Cisco Kid And The Lady (1940) as Cisco Kid, Tall, Dark And Handsome (1941) as Shep Morrison, Romance Of The Rio Grande (1941) as Cisco Kid, Ride On Vaquero (1941) as Cisco Kid (thereafter the series was cancelled after complaints that Romero was playing the part in a ‘gay’ way), Weekend In Havana (1941) as Monte Blanca, Tales Of Manhattan (1942) as Harry Wilson, Coney Island (1943) as Joe Rocco, Carnival In Costa Rica (1947) as Pepe Castro, Captain From Castile (1947) as Hernando Cortez, That Lady In Ermine (1948) as Mario, The Beautiful Blonde From Bashful Bend (1949) as Blackie Jobero, Love That Brute (1950) as Pretty Willie, FBI Girl (1951) as Agent Glen Stedman, Street Of Shadows (1953) as Luigi, Vera Cruz (1954) as Marquis de Labordere, Around the World In 80 Days (1956) as a henchman, Villa! (1958) as Fierro, Ocean’s 11 (1960) as Duke Santos, Donovan’s Reef (1963) as Marquis Andre de Lage, A House Is Not A Home (1964
) as Mafioso Lucky Luciano in the story of madame Polly Adler, Target: Harry (1969) as Lieutenant George Duval, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1970) as A.J. Arno, Now You See Him, Now You Don’t (1972) as A.J. Arno, The Spectre Of Edgar Allan Poe (1974) as Doctor Grimalda, Lust In The Dust (1985) as Father Garcia and Judgment Day (1988). When his film roles began to dry up he turned to television and played The Joker in Batman (both the TV series and the spin-off 1966 film) and Peter Stavros in Falcon Crest. Romero was tall (6́ 3˝), handsome, moustachioed, nicknamed ‘Butch’ by his friends and as gay as a goose. He had affairs with Tyrone Power and Desi Arnaz.
CAUSE: He died in Santa Monica, California, aged 86, of natural causes.
George Rose
Born February 19, 1920
Died May 5, 1988
Stocky character actor. Born in Bicester, Oxfordshire, Rose became a secretary and then a farmer before studying at the Central School of Speech & Drama. He joined the Old Vic company and made his first stage appearance at the New Theatre on August 31, 1944. He continued to work in the theatre, appearing as Boanerges in Shaw’s The Apple Cart opposite Noël Coward from May 7, 1953. Prior to the performance Rose had visited a trattoria and ate moules marinière and his breath stank of garlic. As he approached Coward (playing King Magnus) on stage to get his application papers, instead of handing the documentation over, Coward backed away, “Oh my dear, my dear, don’t breathe out, you’re scorching the furniture polish. We only need a loaf of bread and we can all have a meal.” Rose corpsed and the Master was not impressed. “We can all do a bit of ad libbing during a long run, when it’s getting rather dreary but I will not have corpsing.” Rose had made his first film four years earlier in Midnight Frolics (1949) and appeared in several more films on both sides of the Atlantic. His other films included: The Square Ring (1953) as Whitey Johnson, Track The Man Down (1954) as Rick Lambert, The Sea Shall Not Have Them (1954) as Tebbitt, The Good Die Young (1954) as Bunny, The Shiralee (1957) as Donny, The Good Companions (1957) as the theatre manager, Barnacle Bill (1957) as Bullen, A Night To Remember (1958) as Chief Baker Joughin, Jack The Ripper (1959) as Clarke, Hawaii (1966) as Captain Janders and The Pirates Of Penzance (1983) as Major-General Stanley. For his stage work, Rose received two Tonys and three other Tony nominations.
CAUSE: He died aged 68 while on holiday in Rio Plata, Dominican Republic. Rose was murdered by four men including his adopted son and the young man’s real father.
Roberto Rossellini
Born May 8, 1906
Died June 3, 1977
‘The father of Italian neo-realism’. Born in Rome, the son of an architect, Rossellini spent much of his childhood in a cinema designed by his father. His first film, Dafne (1936), was shot in a spare room of the family home. His second, Prélude A L’Après-Midi D’Un Faune (1937), was banned by the authorities for indecency. His reputation was made with Roma, Città Aperta/Open City (1946) and Paisà/Paisan (1946), which he co-wrote with Federico Fellini. Rossellini was never able to recapture his early form and became notorious in 1949 when actress Ingrid Bergman left her husband for him. She became pregnant by Rossellini, news that was broken by gossip columnist Louella O. Parsons on December 12, 1949. Since it was impossible for the lovers to marry in Italy, they arranged a proxy ceremony in Mexico. Oddly, both proxies were men. Their son, Robertino, was born in Rome’s Villa Margherita Clinic on February 2, 1950. They followed him with twin daughters – Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna weighing 7lb 3oz and Isotta Ingrid Frieda Giuliana weighing 8lb 5oz, born in Rome on June 18, 1952. In 1957 Rossellini made another woman pregnant, Indian screenwriter Somali Das Gupta, and that led to the break-up of his marriage to Bergman. Crowds booed his India (1959) as a result of the affair and the film flopped.
CAUSE: He died aged 71 in Rome of a heart attack.
Norman Rossington
Born December 24, 1928
Died May 20, 1999
The dumb sidekick. Born in Liverpool, he began working on the docks as an office boy and then trained at the Bristol Old Vic. Rossington made a career out of playing the hero’s thick friend or a stupid villain. He was Sergeant Cupcake in television’s The Army Game. He was the perpetually incompetent Private Herbert Brown in Carry On Sergeant (1958), Norm in Carry On Nurse (1959) and a boxing referee in Carry On Regardless (1960). He was also in The Long Haul (1956), A Night To Remember (1958), Saturday Night And Sunday Morning (1960), Lawrence Of Arabia (1962), The Longest Day (1962), A Hard Day’s Night (1964) and many more. Divorced, he numbered golf, skiing and languages among his hobbies.
CAUSE: He died aged 70 of natural causes.
Jean Rouch
Born May 31, 1917
Died February 18, 2004
‘Exponent of cinéma vérité.’ Born in Paris, the son of Commander Jules Rouch, a sailor and oceanographer, Jean attended the Sorbonne where he studied to become a civil engineer. In 1941 he left France to escape the Nazis and settled in Niger. He developed an interest in anthropology and sent reports back to the Institut Français d’Afrique Noir. After the war he returned to France and studied anthropology. Having graduated, he turned his interest to film and began with Au Pays Des Mages (1947). His 1957 film Les Maîtres Fous was banned in British Africa as inflammatory after it showed natives eating dogs and speaking pidgin English. In 1958 he made Moi, Un Noir about an Ivory Coast tribe who adopted the names of film stars. He made more than 120 films in all. In 1952 he married Jane George.
CAUSE: He died in a car crash in Birni N’Konni in Niger where he was attending a festival of his work. He was 86.
Patsy Rowlands
Born January 19, 1934
Died January 22, 2005
Comic support. Born in Palmers Green, London, 5́ 4˝ Patricia Rowlands was educated at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Whetstone and then, aged 15, won a scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Her first professional appearance was in the chorus for the touring version of Annie Get Your Gun (1951). She made her West End début playing Thetis Cooke, Doris Hare’s granddaughter, in 1959 at the Saville Theatre in Sandy Wilson’s classic musical Valmouth. She then joined the Players Theatre Company where she worked alongside Hattie Jacques and Clive Dunn. In 1961 she appeared in David Turner’s Semi-Detached at the Saville Theatre with Laurence Olivier. She made her film début in Over The Odds (1961) as Marilyn and her early films included On The Fiddle (1961, with Alfred Lynch and Sean Connery) as Evie, In The Doghouse (1961) as a barmaid, John Schlesinger’s A Kind Of Loving as Dorothy and Ein Toter Sucht Seinen Mörder (1962). She had already appeared in comedy when she was signed to appear in the Norman Wisdom Rank film A Stitch In Time in which she played Amy. It was the Carry On… films that established her comic credentials. Her first was Carry On Again Doctor (1969) in which she played Miss Fosdick. Her most memorable role in the series was as Miss Dempsey, the lovelorn housekeeper to Percival Snooper (Kenneth Williams) in Carry On Loving (1970). When Sophie Plummet (Hattie Jacques) comes to dinner with a view to romancing Snooper, Miss Dempsey pulls out all the stops to show her love rival that she will not give up “her” man without a fight. She was also in Carry On Henry (1970) as Queen, Carry On At Your Convenience as the long-suffering Hortense Withering who has to test run the new products of W.C. Boggs, Carry On Matron (1972) as Evelyn Banks, Carry On Abroad (1972) as Miss Dobbs, Carry On Girls (1973) as Mildred Bumble, Carry On Dick (1974) as Mrs Giles, and Carry On Behind (1975) as Linda Upmore. She did not think much of Carry On Columbus (1992). “The Carry On s have become a cult because of the way they were done and the people who were in them,” she said. “We couldn’t recapture that sort of spirit. These days we’ve got alternative comedy and it’s a completely different type of humour. That’s progress and I wouldn’t want to stop it. But it wouldn’t suit the Carry On s.” Patsy Rowlands also worked with Sid James in Bless This House (TV and film versions) as Betty Lewis, and also appeared as Angela in the film version of the sitcom Please Sir! (1971). Her other films included Tom Jones (1963) as Hon
or, Dateline Diamonds (1965) as Mrs Edgecomb, Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland as the cook, Sammy’s Super T-Shirt (1978) as Mum and Tess (1979) as the landlady. She married and divorced Malcolm Sircom and had one son, Alan.
CAUSE: While working as Mrs Pearce in the 2001 revival of My Fair Lady at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, she was diagnosed with breast cancer but she continued to appear in the show without telling her fellow performers. She died three days after her 71st birthday at her home in Hove, Sussex.
Alma Rubens
(ALMA SMITH)
Born February 19, 1897
Died January 21, 1931
Early victim of the drug culture. Born in San Francisco, where she was educated at the local convent, 5́ 7˝ Alma had talent and, with her jet black hair and black eyes, good looks. Before she turned 20 she was in films. She appeared opposite Douglas Fairbanks in The Half-Breed (1916) as Teresa and subsequently signed a contract with Triangle Pictures. In August of 1918 she married actor Franklyn Farnum (b. Boston, Massachusetts, 1876, d. Hollywood, California, July 4, 1961 of cancer), 42 to her 21. Within a month, the marriage was over and Alma made headlines for all the wrong reasons for the first time: she claimed that Farnum had been physically abusive towards her. Unlike many actresses Alma’s career was not her reason for living and in the early Twenties she made just a few films each year: Thoughtless Women (1920) as Annie Marnet, Humoresque (1920) as Gina Berg, The World and His Wife (1920) as Teodora, Find The Woman (1922) as Sophie Carey, The Valley Of Silent Men (1922) as Marette Radison, Under The Red Robe (1923) as Renee de Cocheforet, and Enemies Of Women (1923) as Alicia. On August 12, 1923, she married doctor and film producer Daniel Carson Goodman. They were divorced on January 28, 1925, after Alma alleged he hit her. Alma moved to Fox and then to MGM. On January 30, 1926, in Riverside, California, she married 6́ 1˝ actor Ricardo Cortez (b. Vienna, September 19, 1899, as Jacob Krantz, d. New York City, April 28, 1977). She was slated to star opposite her new husband in The Torrent (1926) but by this time she had already become a drug addict and the film went to Greta Garbo; it helped to make her a star. Soon, all Alma’s earnings were going to fund her drug habit and MGM boss Louis B. Mayer ordered executives not to renew her contract. On January 26, 1929, Alma was spotted running down Hollywood Boulevard in a state of extreme agitation, hotly pursued by two men. She ran to a petrol station and the two men caught up with her, whereupon Alma pulled a knife and stabbed the younger man in the shoulder. The older man turned out to be her GP and Alma was committed to Alhambra Clinic. There, in April 1929, she stabbed a nurse and was taken to the psychiatric ward of Los Angeles General Hospital and thence to the California State Hospital for the Insane at Patton. She was released after six months and tried to resume her career on Broadway, unsuccessfully. She filed for divorce from Ricardo Cortez while in the Big Apple. Her next stop was a return to Hollywood. After a trip to Mexico, Alma was arrested on January 6, 1931, and charged with possession of 40 cubes of morphine. By this time Alma knew she was dying, and so gave an interview to the Los Angeles Examiner and berated the studio doctors who had prescribed her drugs to enable her to work after she had begun to suffer from blinding headaches.
Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries Page 153
