Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries
Page 156
CAUSE: He died aged 82 in Beverly Hills, California, from the effects of a stroke.
George C. Scott
Born October 18, 1927
Died September 20, 1999
Forceful arrogance. George Campbell Scott was born in Wise, Virginia, and graduated in journalism from the University of Missouri. After serving four years in World War II he became an actor. He didn’t make his film début until he was in his thirties in The Hanging Tree (1959) as Dr George Grubb. His films included: Anatomy Of A Murder (1959) as Claude Dancer, for which he was nominated for an Oscar, The Hustler (1961) as Bert Gordon, for which he was also nominated for an Oscar, The List Of Adrian Messenger (1963) as Anthony Gethryn, Dr Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb (1964) as General ‘Buck’ Turgidson, The Flim-Flam Man (1967) as Mordecai Jones, They Might Be Giants (1971) as Justin Playfair, The Hospital (1971) as Dr Herbert Bock, for which he was nominated for an Oscar, The Last Run (1971) as Harry Garmes, The New Centurions (1972) as Kilvinski, The Day Of The Dolphin (1973) as Dr Jake Terrell, The Savage Is Loose (1974) as John, The Hindenburg (1975) as Colonel Franz Ritter, Hardcore (1979) as Jake Van Dorn, The Changeling (1980) as John Russell, Taps (1981) as General Harlan Bache, Firestarter (1984) as John Rainbird and Gloria (1999) as Ruby. Most of his last films were television movies. From February to May 1969 he filmed Patton (1970) as General George S. Patton, after numerous actors including Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, Robert Mitchum and Rod Steiger turned down the role and it was decided John Wayne didn’t have quite the right qualities, i.e. the ability to act. The film was made in 71 locations in three countries on three continents and President Richard M. Nixon said it was his favourite film. The director claimed that Patton was an anti-war film, but Republicans such as Nixon and Ronald Reagan applauded what they saw as its strong patriotic message. The film won seven Oscars, including Best Actor for Scott but he declined the award, somewhat ungraciously, saying the Academy was a “meaningless, self-serving meat parade.” Scott was married five times: his wives were Carolyn Hughes (August 31, 1951–1954); Patricia Reed (1954–1960); Colleen Dewhurst (1960–July 1965); Colleen Dewhurst again (July 4, 1967–February 3, 1972) and Trish Van Devere (September 13, 1972 onwards).
CAUSE: Scott died aged 71 from a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm in Westlake Village, California. He lay dead for two days (found at 3pm on September 22) before he was discovered by his housekeeper in his den in a house filled with empty bottles of booze.
Randolph Scott
(GEORGE RANDOLPH CRANE)
Born January 23, 1898
Died March 2, 1987
Cary Grant’s husband. The quintessential movie cowboy Randy Scott was born in Orange County, Virginia. After fighting in World War I he studied at North Carolina University, obtaining an engineering degree before joining his father’s textile mill. He went to Hollywood to work as an extra in various films including: Sharp Shooters (1928), Weary River (1929), The Far Call (1929), The Black Watch (1929), Sailor’s Holiday (1929), The Virginian (1929), Dynamite (1929) and Sky Bride (1932), a part that he supposedly acquired due to his close friendship with bashful billionaire Howard Hughes. Scott was lean, over six feet tall, wore “an air of calculating laziness” and “disliked emotional commitments, indulging the attentions of both men and women while possessing the soul of a cash register.” His long relationship with Cary Grant caused an enormous stir. He appeared with Grant in two films: Hot Saturday (1932) and My Favorite Wife (1940). It was after the first of these that the two men began living together, initially at 1129H North Sweetzer Avenue, West Hollywood, and then at 2177 West Live Oak Drive in Los Feliz. Grant moved out following his February 9, 1934 marriage to Virginia Cherrill. When he was divorced on March 26, 1935, he moved in again with Scott at 1019 (now 1039) Ocean Front Road in Santa Monica. They continued to live together until Scott married the mannish, tweed-suit-wearing Mariana du Pont Somerville on March 23, 1936. They separated in 1938 and Scott resumed living with Grant until Grant married Barbara Hutton on July 8, 1942, at Lake Arrowhead, California. When columnists began to enquire as to why two wealthy Hollywood actors were sharing a house, publicists explained it by saying that the two men were saving money! Hardly likely since both could easily have afforded separate residences if they wanted. The rent was around $75 a month and each man took home around $400 a week. Pictures appeared of the two of them doing the washing up wearing aprons, eating breakfast and sunbathing. Journalist Jimmie Fiddler opined that they were “carrying the buddy business a bit too far”. Columnist Edith Gwynn went further than most in putting into print stories about Grant’s sexual preferences. She suggested a game in which guests turned up to a party disguised as their favourite film. According to Gwynn, Marlene Dietrich would be Male And Female, Greta Garbo The Son-Daughter and Cary Grant One Way Passage. On March 3, 1944, Scott married heiress (Marie) Patricia Stillman. They adopted a son and a daughter. In the Fifties Scott set up his own production company, Ranown, with Harry Jo Brown. It was then that he produced and appeared in many of his best Westerns. His canon of work included: Hello, Everybody! (1933) as Hunt Blake, Cocktail Hour (1933) as Randolph Morgan, The Thundering Herd (1933) as Tom Doan, Sunset Pass (1933) as Jack Rock, To The Last Man (1933) as Lynn Hayden, Broken Dreams (1933) as Dr Robert Morley, So Red The Rose (1935) as Duncan Bedford, Rocky Mountain Mystery as Larry Sutton, Roberta (1935) as John Kent, She (1935) as Leo Vincey, Follow The Fleet (1936) as Bilge Smith, The Last Of The Mohicans as Hawkeye, And Sudden Death as Lieutenant James Knox, Go West Young Man (1936) as Bud Norton, High, Wide, And Handsome as Peter Cortlandt, The Texans as Kirk Jordan, Rebecca Of Sunnybrook Farm (1938) as Anthony Kent, Paris Calling (1941) as Nick, Belle Starr (1941) as Sam Starr, Western Union (1941) as Vance Shaw, To The Shores of Tripoli (1942) as Sergeant Dixie Smith, Pittsburgh (1942) as Cash Evans, Gung Ho! (1943) as Colonel Thorwald, Corvette K-225 (1943) as Lieutenant Commander MacClain, Bombardier (1943) as Captain Buck Oliver, Belle Of The Yukon (1944) as Honest John Calhoun, Captain Kidd (1945) as Adam Mercy, China Sky (1945) as Dr Gay Thompson, Home, Sweet Homicide (1946) as Lieutenant Bill Smith, Abilene Town (1946) as Dan Mitchell, Gunfighters (1947) as Brazos Kane, Christmas Eve (1947) as Jonathan, Trail Street (1947) as William Barkley ‘Bat’ Masterson, Albuquerque (1948) as Cole Armin, The Nevadan (1950) as Andrew Barclay, which he also produced, Colt.45 (1950) as Steve Farrell, Santa Fe as Britt Canfield, Man In The Saddle (1951) as Owen Merritt, which he also produced, Fort Worth (1951) as Ned Britt, Sugarfoot (1951) as Jackson ‘Sugarfoot’ Redan, Hangman’s Knot as Matt Stewart, which he also produced, Carson City (1952) as Silent Jeff Kincaid, Thunder Over The Plains as Captain David Porter, Riding Shotgun (1954) as Larry Delong, Tall Man Riding (1955) as Larry Madden, Ten Wanted Men (1955) as John Stewart, which he also produced, Rage At Dawn as James Barlow, 7th Cavalry as Captain Tom Benson, which he also produced, Seven Men From Now (1956) as Ben Stride, Decision At Sundown (1957) as Bart Allison, which he also produced, The Tall T (1957) as Pat Brennan, which he also produced, Shoot-Out At Medicine Bend (1957) as Buck Devlin, Westbound (1958) as John Hayes, Buchanan Rides Alone (1958) as Tom Buchanan which he also produced, Ride Lonesome (1959) as Ben Brigade, which he also produced, Comanche Station (1960) as Jefferson Cody, which he also produced and his last film, Ride The High Country (1962) as Gil Westrum.
CAUSE: A very wealthy man, Scott died aged 89 in Beverly Hills, California, of natural causes one day before his 43rd wedding anniversary.
Terry Scott
(OWEN JOHN SCOTT)
Born May 4, 1927
Died July 26, 1994
Overgrown cherub. Born in Watford in the shadow of Benskin’s brewery, the son of a postman who retired to run a corner shop, Scott was educated at Watford Grammar School and wanted to be an entertainer and two years in the accountancy business did not deter him. Scott was a show business mainstay for more than 50 years appearing as a pantomime dame (some regarded him the best dame in the post-Clarkson Rose era), a West End comedi
an and a regular in clubs and summer shows. However, he was best known for his sitcoms alongside June Whitfield Happy Ever After (July 17, 1974–December 20, 1978) and Terry & June (October 24, 1979–August 31, 1988). The Second World War interrupted Terry Scott’s career and he joined the Royal Navy. After being demobbed he became a stage manager, before making his professional début in rep at Grange-Over-Sands. He changed his name, deciding Owen was not a humorous moniker and became a stand-up in a pub at 25 shillings per night. In 1950 Terry Scott unveiled his schoolboy character based on his cousin Knocker, whom he remembered as “a dreadful little tyke”. The act would end with Scott singing ‘My Brother’, which became a hit and years later a regular on Radio 1’s Junior Choice in the days when there was delineation between adults and children. From October 4, 1955 until December 20, 1956 he partnered Bill Maynard for the show Great Scott, It’s Maynard. From July 17, 1962 until February 26, 1968 he made Hugh And I with Hugh Lloyd. It was said to be one of the Queen’s favourite shows. Scott had made his film début in Blue Murder At St Trinian’s (1957) playing a police sergeant and for some time after would nearly always be cast as a law officer. He appeared in Too Many Crooks (1958) as fire policeman Smith, Carry On Sergeant (1958) as Sergeant Paddy O’Brien, I’m All Right Jack (1959) as Crawley, The Bridal Path (1959) as Pc Donald, And The Same To You (1960) as a police constable, Mary Had A Little (1961) as a police sergeant, What A Whopper! (1961) as the sergeant, Nothing Barred (1961) as a policeman, No My Darling Daughter (1961) as a constable, The Night We Got The Bird (1961) as Pc Lovejoy, Nearly A Nasty Accident (1961) as Sam Stokes, Double Bunk (1961) as the second river policeman, A Pair Of Briefs (1962) as the policeman at the law courts and Murder Most Foul (1964) as Pc Wells. He then went on to appear in the Carry On… series playing Sergeant Major MacNutt in Carry On … Up The Khyber (1968), Peter Potter in Carry On Camping (1969), Jungle Boy in Carry On Up The Jungle (1970) in which he woos a not unwilling Jacki Piper, Terence Philpot in Carry On Loving (1970) in which his attempts to seduce the sexy Jenny Grubb (Imogen Hassall) are frustrated by her flatmates, Cardinal Wolsey in Carry On Henry (1971), Mr Allcock in Carry On At Your Convenience (1971) although his scenes were deleted from the final edit and Carry On Matron (1972) as Dr Prodd. He also appeared in the film version of another successful sitcom Bless This House (1972) in which he played Ronald Baines. In 1983 he began a long association with Ray Cooney’s Run For Your Wife in the West End. But it was for his work with June Whitfield that Scott is most fondly remembered. He was twice married. He walked out on his first wife after their one-year-old son died after choking on food. He married again in 1957 to former ballet dancer Margaret Pollen, and had four daughters, Sarah, Nicola, Lindsay and Alexandra. Terry Scott was possessed of some rather strange views. He was a lay preacher and a fundamentalist Christian who was also a serial adulterer. He confessed to 24 adulterous relationships in his marriage. He insisted that his daughters never had boyfriends to stay. “I told the girls to go up to the woods if they wanted to mess about.” Very right-wing, he was also in favour of the status quo in apartheid South Africa and believed that Communists had infiltrated all the important posts in Britain.
CAUSE: In 1980 he suffered a brain haemorrhage that almost killed him. In 1987 he was struck down by bladder cancer. Terry Scott died in Godalming, Surrey, aged 67 from cancer. His funeral took place on August 4, 1994 at his local parish church in Godalming and was followed by a private cremation.
Jean Seberg
Born November 13, 1938
Died August 30, 1979
Androgynous, easily led waif. Born in Marshalltown, Iowa, Seberg came to fame playing the title role in the 1957 Otto Preminger film St Joan. She was just 17 when Preminger discovered her, the result of a world-wide hunt for an actress to play the lead in his production of George Bernard Shaw’s play. During the execution scene Jean was burned for real when the gas cylinders that were being used failed to work properly. The film was not a hit and professional success; personal happiness was to elude Seberg for the rest of her life. Her second film was Bonjour Tristesse (1958) as Cecile, also for Preminger and also a failure. On September 5, 1958, she married Harvard-educated French lawyer François Moreuil (b. 1935). She also appeared in The Mouse That Roared (1959) as Helen Kokintz. It was filmed in England as a vehicle for Peter Sellers and in the film Jean gave him his first on-screen kiss. It, too, was not a great picture. Her career was rescued by Jean-Luc Godard, who cast her in A Bout De Souffle (1960) as Patricia Franchini. Shooting began on August 17, 1959, and Jean very nearly walked out on the first day because she didn’t like her character. She refused to work until changes were made to the script. Bizarrely, the film was shot with no sound – it was dubbed in later. (The film was remade in 1983 with Richard Gere in Jean-Paul Belmondo’s role and Valerie Kaprisky playing Jean’s part.) The film was a success, making a star of Jean-Paul Belmondo and earning Godard his reputation as a leader of the New Wave film art. It also made Jean a hairdressing fashion icon, with thousands of teenage French girls asking for ‘la coupe Seberg’. With her marriage on the rocks, Jean returned to Hollywood alone to play Barbara Holloway in Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960). In December 1958 she met French novelist Romain Gary, a married womaniser, with whom she began an affair. In January 1960 columnist Dorothy Kilgallen reported that Jean and her husband had separated. They denied the report but it was, in fact, true and when they returned to France the Moreuils maintained separate residences. That year Jean appeared in quick succession in three monochrome films: La Récréation (1960), Les Grandes Personnes (1961) as Ann and the adultery comedy L’Amant De Cinq Jours (1961). On September 20, 1960, she and Moreuil were divorced. At the end of the year she moved in with Romain Gary at 108 Rue de Bac, Paris. In February 1961 her three films were all playing successfully (although they were not critically acclaimed) and one newspaper rather hyperbolically declared a “Jean Seberg Festival”. During the filming of the Franco-Italian movie Congo Vivo (1962), she contracted a severe case of amoebic dysentery that left her lethargic and ill for months afterwards. The area was in the midst of political strife and the danger was increased on September 17, 1961, when United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld was killed in a plane crash in the Congo. Jean and Gary, who had joined her on location in October 1961, were pleased to get back to domesticity. Jean didn’t make another film until Lilith (1964), during which time she gave birth to a son (Alexandre) Diego Gary in Barcelona on July 17, 1962. On October 16 she and Gary were married in Sarrola-Carcopino, Corsica. Her subsequent films were: Les Plus Belles Escroqueries Du Monde (1964) as Patricia Leacock, Échappement Libre (1964) as Olga Celan opposite Jean-Paul Belmondo, Moment To Moment (1965) as Kay Stanton, which flopped, Diamantenbilliard (1965), A Fine Madness (1966) as Lydia West in another film that flopped, Claude Chabrol’s World War II French resistance film La Ligne De Démarcation (1966) as Mary, Comptesse de Grandville, Estouffade A La Caraïbe (1966) as Colleen O’Hara, Chabrol’s La Route De Corinthe (1968) as Shanny, Les Oiseaux Vont Mourir Au Pérou (1968) as the frigid nymphomaniac Adriana in a story written and directed by Romain Gary (to many critics it was the most demeaning film Jean Seberg ever made and it was the first film to receive an X rating in America), and Pendulum (1968) as Adele Matthews, for which she was paid $100,000. In the latter, she starred opposite George Peppard who tried unsuccessfully to seduce her and later claimed “there were two sides to her” when he was rebuffed. Then came another potentially big American film, just the thing to get her re-established in her native country. In March 1968 she screen-tested for the role of Elizabeth, Ben Rumson’s wife, in the $15-million film version of the hit musical Paint Your Wagon (1969). She signed to do the film at $120,000 (compared to Lee Marvin’s $1 million) and moved to Arden Drive, Beverly Hills. She also took singing lessons, even though she had just the one number to perform, ‘A Million Miles Away Behind The Door’, and that ended up being dubbed because Jean’s nerves meant her singing wasn’t good enough. Her marriage t
o Gary began to come apart and she had an affair with the equally married Clint Eastwood during filming. Her father would later say that Jean always sided with the underdog and when Dr the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr was assassinated on April 4, 1968, she pronounced herself amazed at the apathy of white America at the event. Jean began to raise money for black causes such as Jim Brown’s Negro Industrial Economic Union. The filming of Paint Your Wagon was not a happy experience for major cast or crew. Director Josh Logan clashed with lyricist Alan Jay Lerner. Some of the extras were drugged hippies whom Jean befriended. On September 17, 1968, she and Romain announced they were going their separate ways. The following month her affair with Eastwood was also over. She later confessed to writer Roderick Mann that the fling with Eastwood had been the major contributory factor to the break-up of her marriage. Following the critical mauling that Paint Your Wagon received, Jean’s career began a steady decline. Personally, she began to identify more and more with black causes. She began a passionate affair with Hakim Abdullah Jamal (b. Roxbury, Massachusetts, March 28, 1931, as Allen Eugene Donaldson), a leading Black Muslim who was married to a distant cousin of Malcolm X. Jamal was an often delusional self-publicist who claimed that he was being persecuted for his Black Power views by all sorts of groups, including other blacks. Jean stayed with him in Lake Tahoe and became as paranoid as Jamal, believing they were under observation. Many young coloureds and whites supported the Black Panther movement although Jamal’s ego never let him become totally subsumed in the culture. On November 17, 1968, Jamal introduced several Panthers to Jean and her house guest Vanessa Redgrave. The idea was to extract money for the Panthers’ cause; they had received $10,000 from Marlon Brando. Some of the activists that night had no idea who either Jean or Redgrave were. They just knew that the two, some would say misguided, women were sympathetic to their cause. When Jean went back to Marshalltown for Thanksgiving she gave Jamal the run of her Coldwater Canyon home. Back at home she tried to persuade her family and friends of the validity of Jamal’s cause. In December she flew to France to see Gary and their son. An estate agent management company went to check on the Coldwater Canyon house and were shocked to see how Jean’s generosity had been abused. The place had been trashed and rubbish was strewn over the garden. Many of his white devotees soon tired of Jamal but Jean invited him to Paris and he flew there on January 24, 1969. When he spoke to a gathering of mostly African students, Jamal urged them to kill all whites, much to the consternation of the predominantly black audience, many of whom dismissed Jamal as a flake. Meanwhile, Jean’s interest in the Black Panthers hadn’t gone entirely unnoticed in the States and she was placed under surveillance by the FBI. Jamal moved onto London, where he stayed with Vanessa Redgrave. Jean, in the meantime, was back in America filming her last US movie and, by all accounts, her worst – Airport (1970) in which she played public relations girl Tanya Livingston. She was paid $150,000 plus $1,000-a-week expenses for four months and was billed third in the cast; the film was lambasted by critics. The affair with Jamal moved into overdrive but Jean became more and more attuned to the message of the Black Panthers. He didn’t. She paid for Panthers to hire cars but they usually totalled them. The FBI also increased their surveillance of Panthers and Panther supporters. Jamal was eventually renounced by fellow black activists for “talking black but sleeping white.” By 1969 Jean was also sleeping with Raymond ‘Masai’ Hewitt, a leading Panther. It was around this time that J. Edgar Hoover announced the Black Panthers were the greatest threat to US internal security. The Bureau announced that Jean’s bags were to be searched every time she went to an airport and her details were sent to every Bureau field station. In June 1969 she began to make Ondata Di Calore (1970) playing the schizophrenic Joyce Grasse. The film was lauded by critics and Jean later favoured it above her others. In the late summer of 1969 she split from Jamal, tired of his constant boasts and lies. He soon found another mug – 25-year-old divorcée Gale Benson was the daughter of a former MP. Jean discovered cancerous cysts in her breasts around the turn of the decade and travelled to Paris for an operation. She was paid $100,000 to appear as Confederate colonel’s widow Alexandra Mountford in Macho Callahan (1970). On set she contracted a disease that caused her tongue to turn jet black. She would wander the locations jokingly asking if “anybody want[ed] to kiss the lady with the black tongue”. The film was to give her the last of her big pay packets. She had earned a lot of money but had wasted much of it on her foolish attempts to ingratiate herself with the Black Panthers and other minority groups. In March 1970 Jean discovered she was pregnant. The father was Carlo Navarra, an extra on Macho Callahan, although Romain Gary subsequently acknowledged paternity. On July 1, Jean and Gary were divorced but announced they would remarry after the infant’s birth. The FBI spread the rumour that the father was black, knowing full well that was not the case. On August 7, Jean tried to commit suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills. It all became academic when Nina Hart Gary was born, 63 days prematurely, in Geneva on August 23, 1970, weighing less than 4lb. The white baby died two days later at 6am. The following month on a flight to America, Jean drank heavily, disappeared to the toilet and came out completely naked and screaming that hijackers were attempting to take over the plane. Her bodyguard managed to make her return to her seat where she gobbled tranquillisers. By the time the flight landed in Chicago, Jean was out of it, barely able to stand. Her bodyguard put her into a luggage trolley and began wheeling her through the airport. Then she spotted a black policeman and began screaming at him that he was a traitor to his race, making a grab for his gun. Other officers joined their colleague and threatened to arrest the by now hysterical actress. Back home in Marshalltown on September 11, she wrote her resignation letter from the Black Panthers. She then rang columnist Joyce Haber, one of the leading critics of her affiliation with the Panthers, and berated her. Seberg had arranged for Nina to be buried in Marshalltown and the infant’s tiny body was displayed in an open casket from September 16–18. Jean also put down a deposit on a farm and bought a house that she said would be used to house black athletes visiting Marshalltown. That didn’t please the mostly white locals. She spent most of November 1970 in a Parisian lunatic asylum. She managed to get out for one night with Jamal and Gale Benson and went to a club with them. There she stubbed a lit cigarette out on Jamal’s hand before lighting another and burning three knuckles on her own hand. Jamal then proceeded to viciously beat her up, telling her that it was her suicide attempt that had killed Nina, not the press. In December she was released from care and was visited by Carlos Navarra. On December 29, she was placed on an FBI Security Index and listed as Priority 3. (If the President had declared a state of national emergency, all Priority 3s, including Jean Seberg, would have been arrested and interned for the duration.) In Spain and Tunisia in 1971 she filmed Kill! Kill! Kill! (1972) as Emily. Thereafter she moved to Italy, where she played the part of Giovanna in Questa Specie D’Amore (1972). She appeared in Camorra (1972) at the request of her lover Fabio Testi, with whom she was two-timing short, bearded wannabe film director Ricardo Franco (b. 1948). On January 2, 1972, Gale Benson was murdered by followers of Black Power leader Michael X (b. Trinidad, August 17, 1933, as Michael de Freitas) who later changed his name to Abdul Malik. He had been prosecuted in London in 1967 under the Race Relations Act by saying that any white man seen with a black woman should be shot. He spent a year in jail. In 1968 he was accused of a robbery and jumped bail. The sadly misguided Benson had been with Malik when his acolytes suddenly cut her throat with a cutlass and pushed her into a makeshift grave, where she was buried alive. Jamal returned to Boston alone, fearing for his own safety. On May 1, 1973, Jamal was shot dead in his home on Townsend Street, Roxbury, Massachusetts. On May 16, 1975, Malik was hanged for murder. Seberg began work on L’Attentat (1972) as wealthy social worker Edith Lemoine; the film was partially based on a true story of a left-wing Moroccan activist who was kidnapped and tortured by French police. Seberg was paid the equ
ivalent of $40,000 for her work. The film was a commercial success but did nothing to lift the torpor of Jean’s career. She met wannabe director Dennis Berry (b. 1944) whose father had been blacklisted during the McCarthy era. On March 12, 1972, they were married in Las Vegas’ Chapel of the Bells. Next Jean played Ruth Miller in the Spanish thriller La Corrupción De Chris Miller (1973). The following year she made Les Hautes Solitudes (1974), a black-and-white improvised film about loneliness. In it Jean improvised a scene of suicide that so terrified the director Philippe Garrel by its realism, he warned Dennis Berry never to let her be alone. Even in company, she could still get into trouble and on one occasion, after drinking with Berry and Garrel, she smashed a tumbler and began slashing at her wrist. She starred in Bianchi Cavalli D’Agosto, which was released in 1975. Jean spent much of 1974 in various clinics and asylums drugged up to the eyeballs. Her next film Die Große Ekstase (1975) flopped. Her last film, Die Wildente (1976), saw her nearly 4st overweight. Back in Paris she received a letter from the US Department of Justice confirming that she had been under FBI surveillance. It resulted in another bout of paranoia. In May 1976 she and Berry separated but he collected her from a hotel where she had gone to visit Ricardo Franco. Her stomach bore the marks of self-inflicted burns. She was admitted to another asylum. In 1977 she really began to spiral downwards. She drank more and more, became hugely fat and had violent mood swings. She went back home to Marshalltown for the last time but was disgusted by what she saw as its small-mindedness. Back with her husband she began exhibiting signs of nymphomania, desperate to feel attractive despite being overweight or drugged out. She would have sex with almost any man who took her fancy. After that Christmas she stayed on in Europe while her husband flew to Los Angeles. She began sleeping with a young Moroccan student called Mohammed. Her paranoia increased but a weight loss clinic at least helped her to shed the extra weight she had put on. She left after six weeks as svelte as she was when she did St Joan. However, the shock of the sudden weight loss finally pushed her over the edge. Following the disintegration of the Black Panthers, she looked for another ethnic group she could identify with. France had and still has a large contingent of Algerians and Jean began a series of affairs with several of them. On January 3, 1979, she admitted herself to an asylum and then, ten days later, to a sanatorium. In February she was committed to a state mental institution. She was released in mid-March and met an Algerian called Ahmed Hasni (b. 1960) who moved in with her; she had already slept with his uncle. On May 31 they married, but since she was still legally hitched to Dennis Berry, the ceremony was neither legal nor legitimate. They flew to Palma, Majorca, on holiday but separated after an argument. On August 3, she flew to Guyana to film one day on Le Légion Saute Sur Kolwezi and returned to Paris the following Tuesday (August 7). She was not due to film again until September 6. On August 18, according to Hasni, Jean tried to throw herself into the path of an oncoming tube train. On August 29, the couple went to the pictures to see Clair De Femme (1979), a film by Romain Gary. It caused her to think back to the happier times with her second husband, rather than the bedsit she shared with a lover young enough to be her son. Within 24 hours she was dead.