CAUSE: Alone for much of her life, Stanwyck drank herself into a stupor and smoked herself to death. In June 1988 she was hospitalised with pneumonia at St John’s Hospital, Santa Monica, California. She was released after three weeks. In May 1989 she was again in St John’s with, among other illnesses, a bladder complaint. On January 9, 1990, she was admitted again to St John’s where she died, aged 82 of congestive heart failure, coupled with pneumonia, lung disease and emphysema. Nancy Sinatra, Sr was by her side when she died. She was cremated on 25 January, 1990.
FURTHER READING: Stanwyck: The Untold Biography – Jane Ellen Wayne (London: Robson Books, 1986); Stanwyck – Axel Madsen (New York: HarperCollins, 1994).
Ray Stark
Born October 3, 1914
Died January 17, 2004
‘Funny’ producer. Born in Chicago, Illinois, Ray Stark began his career as a journalist before turning to PR and then becoming a literary agent. For a time one of his clients was Raymond Chandler. He then became a talent agent and joined Famous Artists. In 1957 with Eliot Hyman he formed Seven Arts Productions and the company was a successful packager of made-for-television films. In 1966 he left to become an independent producer. Two years earlier he had produced the original Broadway production of Funny Girl, the fictionalised story of his mother-in-law Fanny Brice. He made the film version four years later and its sequel Funny Lady in 1975. Barbra Streisand was not his first choice for the lead. He wanted Anne Bancroft but she withdrew after deciding she wouldn’t be comfortable with the songs. His next two choices, Eydie Gorme or Carol Burnett, also turned down the opportunity. Ever the driver of a hard bargain, Stark made Streisand sign a four film deal in return for starring in Funny Girl. He also produced her in The Owl And The Pussycat (1970) and The Way We Were (1973) before Funny Lady. When the latter picture finished shooting she gave Stark an antique mirror on which she had written in lipstick, “Paid in full”. At the 1980 Oscars ceremony Stark received the Irving G. Thalberg Award. His other films included: The World Of Suzie Wong (1960), The Night Of The Iguana (1964), This Property Is Condemned (1966), Drop Dead Darling (1966), The Sunshine Boys (1975), Robin And Marian (1976), Murder By Death (1976), The Goodbye Girl (1977), California Suite (1978), The Electric Horseman (1979), Annie (1982), Biloxi Blues (1988), Steel Magnolias (1989) and The Night Of The Iguana (2005). In 1939 he married Frances Brice (d. May 31, 1992) by whom he had two children.
CAUSE: He died in West Hollywood, California, of heart failure. He was 89.
Anthony Steel
Born May 21, 1920
Died March 21, 2001
Beefcake. Born in London (some sources say in 1919), the son of Edward Steel (b. 1897, d. October 18, 1965), Anthony Maitland Steel was educated at school in Ireland and then Cambridge, serving in the Grenadier Guards during the Second World War. He took up acting only after the war and fortuitously his then girlfriend introduced him to her uncle who happened to be J. Arthur Rank. Steel made his début in Saraband For Dead Lovers (1948) and was signed to the Rank Organisation. Groomed for stardom by Rank he had bit parts in Poet’s Pub (1949), Marry Me (1949) as Jack Harris, Don’t Ever Leave Me (1949) as Harris, Helter Skelter (1949), The Mudlark (1950) as Lieutenant Charles McHatten and was a policeman in The Blue Lamp (1950). He was never a serious rival to his contemporaries Stewart Granger and Kenneth More. He played heroic roles relying on his good looks rather than any talent. His first major part was as John in The Wooden Horse (1950). Jack Lee, the film’s director, commented, “Tony Steel was fine to work with – just a physical type, a young chap who could do certain things, though he didn’t have much acting to do in this.” His stardom was assured in Where No Vultures Fly (1951) where he played Bob Payton, a gamekeeper on the trail of ivory poachers in Kenya. He injured his leg, requiring an operation on his knee, after colliding with a tree during filming. He was presented to the Queen as Where No Vultures Fly was the movie chosen as the Royal Command Performance film. It was also the top British moneymaker of 1952. He starred opposite Bette Davis in Val Guest’s Another Man’s Poison (1951) as Larry Stevens but was acted off the screen by Davis. He starred opposite Patricia Roc in the comedy Something Money Can’t Buy (1952) as Captain Harry Wilding, a soldier who finds difficulty adjusting to civvy street. In The Planter’s Wife (1952) he played Hugh Dobson opposite Jack Hawkins (in 1954 he was second only to Hawkins as the most popular British star) and Claudette Colbert. He was Henry Durie, Errol Flynn’s little brother, in The Master Of Ballantrae (1953) although Flynn managed to run his sword through Steel’s hand. He reprised the role of gamekeeper Bob Payton in West Of Zanzibar (1954). In The Sea Shall Not Have Them (1954) he played Flying Officer Treherne, an Air Sea Rescue officer who rescued four downed airmen adrift in a dinghy in the North Sea. His co-stars were Dirk Bogarde and Michael Redgrave. Storm Over The Nile (1955) was a remake of The Four Feathers, in which Steel played the central character Harry Faversham who was branded a coward by his fellow officers after he resigned his commission in 1895 rather than go to the Sudan. In December 1955 he met the pneumatic Anita Ekberg, a former Miss Universe, at a film première. On May 22, 1956 in Florence she became his second wife. He announced an intention to break Hollywood much to the annoyance of Sir John Davis, the head of the Rank Organisation. It never happened and he made headlines for all the wrong reasons. Steel was arrested twice for drunken driving, and he acquired a reputation as a hell-raiser who physically attacked paparazzi for photographing his wife. His time in Tinseltown generated just one film Valerie (1957) in which he played Reverend Blake and appeared with Sterling Hayden and Ekberg. Back in England he appeared in Hugo Fregonese’s Harry Black And The Tiger (1958) as Desmond Tanner and Raymond Stross’ A Question Of Adultery (1959) as Mark Loring, a sterile husband whose wife resorts to artificial insemination. His last prestigious leading role was in Michael Powell’s Honeymoon (1959). That year, on May 14, he and Ekberg were divorced. He moaned, “It was no fun being married to a glamour girl.” With his star fading he moved to Rome and began to make continental films such as Luna De Miel (1959) as Kit Kelly, Med Fara För Livet (1959) as Mike Gibson, La Vendetta Dei Barbari (1960) as Consul Olympus, Vacanze Alla Baia D’Argento (1961) as Pietro, La Tigre Dei Sette Mari (1963) as William Scott, Die Goldsucher Von Arkansas (1964) as Lopez, Ich Spreng’ Euch Alle In Die Luft (1968) as Arthur Baker, I Diavoli Della Guerra (1969) as Colonel James Steele and Rappresaglia (1973) as Major Domizlaf. His film Histoire D’O (1975) in which he played Sir Stephen was banned in the UK for a quarter of a century. Some of his later work was in seedy films such as Let’s Get Laid (1977) as Moncrieff Dovecraft, Hardcore (1977) as Robert Charlton and The World Is Full Of Married Men (1979) as Conrad Lee. His other films included Laughter In Paradise (1951) as Roger Godfrey, Emergency Call (1952) as Dr Carter, Malta Story (1953) as Wing Commander Bartlett, Albert R.N. (1953) as Lieutenant Geoffrey Ainsworth, Out Of The Clouds (1955) as Gus Randall, Passage Home (1955) as First Mate Vosper, Checkpoint (1956) as Bill Fraser, The Black Tent (1956) as Captain David Holland, The Switch (1962) as Bill Craddock, A Matter Of Choice (1963) as John Crighton, Anzio (1968) as General Marsh, Hell Is Empty (1969) as Major Morton, La Notte Dell’Alta Marea (1977) as Richard Butler, Indagine Su Un Delitto Perfetto (1978) as Superintendent Jeff Hawks and The Mirror Crack’d (1980) as Sir Derek Ridgeley. He was married three times. His first wife was Juanita Forbes whom he married in 1949. They divorced in 1954. He married Johanna Melcher, a former Miss Austria, in 1964. That marriage also ended in divorce. He had a son and two daughters.
CAUSE: When work was scarce he left his seedy Earls Court hotel to live in sheltered accommodation in a council flat in Northolt, west London. He did not even tell David Daly, his agent, where he was living. In the mid-Nineties Daly discovered his whereabouts from a tabloid newspaper but when he drove over to see his client Steel refused to open the door. Daly found him work as Dr Steven Hart in the television series The Broker’s Man (1999). He also arranged to have him admitted to Denville Hall, a home for retire
d theatre folk at 62 Ducks Hill Road, Northwood, Middlesex. Daly said, “He was a very private man. He just decided that he would withdraw. He found a place to live and simply went into hiding. In some ways, it was not unlike him; if he decided that things weren’t right, he would withdraw into himself and not contact anybody.” Steel died at Denville Hall of heart failure, aged 80.
Rod Steiger
Born April 14, 1925
Died July 9, 2002
Method actor. Rodney Stephen Steiger was born in Westhampton, Long Island, the son of a peripatetic song and dance act. Steiger’s ancestry was French, German and Scottish. His parents split up before he celebrated his first birthday. As a result he never knew his father and was raised by his mother, an alcoholic, in various parts of New Jersey. Educated at West Side High School in Newark, the young Steiger took an interest in acting. He left school at 16 and joined the US Navy by lying about his age. He served aboard the destroyer USS Taussig for four years before his demob. He then joined the civil service where he landed a job with the Office of Dependants and Beneficiaries of the Veterans Administration. Using a government grant to help ex-servicemen, Steiger moved to New York where he began to study acting at the New School for Social Research, the Dramatic Workshop and the Actors’ Studio. (The Method acting taught at the Actors’ Studio – in which the actor used his own experiences in a role and invented a life for the character – was not always a resounding success. For his performances as Napoleon in Waterloo (1970) Steiger regarded the French emperor as a man ill with disease and dependent on drugs. “I believe that on the night before the battle, he bombed himself out on laudanum.” Steiger also used his Method in Fred Zinnemann’s film of Oklahoma! in 1955 in which he played the baddie Judd Fry. One reviewer stated that Steiger “loaded the part with so many psychological hang-ups that he undermined the prevailing tone of exuberance and optimism”.) Steiger began working in television in 1947 and, four years later, made his Broadway début in a revival of Clifford Odets’ Night Music. That same year saw his big screen début in Fred Zinnemann’s Teresa (1951). In 1953 he was the original Marty in the television production of Paddy Chayefsky’s play about a butcher from the Bronx who falls in love with Clara, a shy teacher. Steiger was offered the role when the inevitable Hollywood movie came to be made in the winter of 1954–1955 but turned it down. The film won an Oscar for Ernest Borgnine. (In the original the butcher was Jewish but he metamorphosed into an Italian for the film.) Another Odets vehicle saw Steiger give a winning performance as a film executive in The Big Knife (1955) as Stanley Shriner Hoff, directed by Robert Aldrich. He appeared in The Court-Martial Of Billy Mitchell (1955), The Harder They Fall (1956) as Nick Benko (Humphrey Bogart’s last film), Jubal (1956) as Pinky and Run Of The Arrow (1957) as Private O’Meara. It was during the filming that Steiger began to get the reputation of being difficult to work with. Director Samuel Fuller said, “He has lots of talent but he doesn’t know how to use it … he gets carried away and needs to be closely directed.” Steiger was closely directed in On The Waterfront (1954) by Elia Kazan, in which Steiger played Marlon Brando’s gangster brother Charley “the Gent” Malloy – “a killer in a camel hair coat”. Steiger appeared as Paul Hochen opposite Diana Dors making her Hollywood début in The Unholy Wife (1957). Dors was married to the mentally unstable and paranoically jealous - not to say psychopathically violent - Dennis Hamilton at the time but that didn’t stop her falling for Steiger. She was to write in one of her autobiographies, “Rod made me feel like a woman, not a child, and in him … I saw a real man.” Steiger ended the affair – by phone – after a few months. Steiger then visited Britain to make Across The Bridge (1957) as Carl Schaffner, which despite being based on a Graham Greene story was not a success. His next venture playing Al Capone in 1959 was more successful. Back in New York, Steiger appeared in the Broadway production of Rashomon playing the bandit in a production that ran for 159 performances. Its co-star was Claire Bloom, who became Steiger’s second wife. Unlike many husbands and wives the Rod Steigers rarely worked together. They appeared in two films The Illustrated Man (he was Carl) and Three Into Two Won’t Go (he was Steve Howard) (both 1969). In 1964 he played Sol Nazerman, a Jewish survivor of a Nazi concentration camp in The Pawnbroker for which he was honoured at the Berlin Film Festival and Oscar nominated (his second nod, the first coming for On The Waterfront). The following year he appeared in David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago and Tony Richardson’s The Loved One (1965) playing Mr Joyboy, the mother-loving mortician. He also appeared in Le Mani Sulla Citta (1963), E Venne Un Uomo (1965) as the intermediary, No Way To Treat A Lady (1968) as Christopher Gill, Duck, You Sucker (1971), Lucky Luciano (1973) as Gene Giannini, Les Innocents Aux Mains Sales (1975), and Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus Of Nazareth (1977) as Pontius Pilate. What is generally regarded as Steiger’s finest role and the one for which he won an Oscar, was as the intolerant Sparta police chief Bill Gillespie in the 1967 film In The Heat Of The Night. His co-star was Sidney Poitier. Steiger later turned down the lead in Patton because he thought it glorified war. The part – and an Oscar – went to George C. Scott. Steiger later called his refusal his most stupid career move. His later films included: The Amityville Horror (1979), The January Man (1989), The Ballad Of The Sad Cafe (1991) and The Specialist (1994), in all of which he over-acts terribly. 5́ 10˝ Rod Steiger was married five times. His first wife was the actress Sally Gracie (b. Little Rock, Arkansas, December 31, 1920, d. New York, New York, August 13, 2001) whom he married in 1952 and divorced six years later. Wife number two (in Los Angeles on September 19, 1959) was Claire Bloom (b. North Finchley, London, February 15, 1931), by whom he had a daughter, Anna Justine (b. February 13, 1960). That marriage lasted ten years. His third wife (from April 23, 1973 until the autumn of 1979) was Sherry Nelson. Wife number four was Paula Ellis, by whom he had a son. They married in 1986 and divorced in 1997. His fifth and final wife was Joan Benedict, another actress, whom he married on October 10, 2000.
Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries Page 163
