CAUSE: Fay Wray died aged 96 from natural causes in Manhattan, New York. She lived in Trump Tower. She is buried in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, California. A card that came with lilies read, “Fay – We will never forget you. From everyone at the Empire State Building.” On September 26, 2004 about 100 people went to the West Village for a private tribute at the cinema on Houston Street.
William Wyler
Born July 1, 1902
Died July 28, 1981
Star director. Born in Muhlhausen, Germany, Wyler was a business student who didn’t even consider a career in films until he was asked to visit the States by his relative Carl Laemmle. He began working at Universal as a publicist before moving behind the camera to become a highly successful director, winning Oscars for Mrs Miniver (1942), The Best Years Of Our Lives (1946) and Ben-Hur (1959). During World War II he served with the air force, making documentaries. After the war he worked on Carrie (1952), Roman Holiday (1953), Friendly Persuasion (1956), Funny Girl (1968), and The Liberation Of L.B. Jones (1970). In 1965 he was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Award for lifetime achievement. Ten of his films earned Best Film nominations. Wyler was the love of Bette Davis’ life. They met in 1931 when she auditioned unsuccessfully for one of his films, A House Divided. In 1938 Wyler was divorced from actress Margaret Sullavan (whom he had married on November 25, 1934) and began an affair with Davis during the filming of Jezebel. The affair ended in October 1938 when he sent her an ultimatum in a letter – divorce her husband, Ham Nelson, and marry him or he would marry someone else. The following week he married actress Margaret Tallichet. The next film Wyler and Davis made together was, ironically, entitled The Letter (1940).
CAUSE: Wyler died in Beverly Hills, California, aged 79 from natural causes. He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks, 1712 Glendale Avenue, Glendale, California 91209.
Ed Wynn
(ISAIAH EDWIN LEOPOLD)
Born November 9, 1886
Died June 19, 1966
‘The Perfect Fool’. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Wynn left home aged 15 to join a touring show and later (1914) worked at the Ziegfeld Follies and also wrote, directed and produced as well as performing. He made his film début in Rubber Heels (1927) playing a character with the unlikely name of Homer Thrush. In the Thirties he was a popular radio star but failed to translate that popularity to film in such movies as Follow The Leader (1930) as Crickets and The Chief (1933) as Henry Summers. It wasn’t until the advent of television that he became a star with The Ed Wynn Show in 1949. His career was energised when he was cast opposite his son in the Playhouse 90 episode Requiem For A Heavyweight. That led to work as a character actor in The Great Man (1956) as Paul Beaseley, Marjorie Morningstar (1958) as Uncle Sampson, The Diary Of Anne Frank (1959) as Mr Dussell, for which he was nominated for an Oscar, The Absent Minded Professor (1961) as the fire chief, Babes In Toyland (1961) as the toy maker, Son Of Flubber (1963) as A.J. Allen, Mary Poppins (1964) as Uncle Albert, Those Calloways (1965) as Ed Parker, The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) as Old Aram, Dear Brigitte (1965) as the captain, That Darn Cat! (1965) as Mr Hofstedder and The Gnome-Mobile (1967) as Rufus. Wynn was married three times. On September 5, 1914, he married Hilda Keenan, the daughter of a silent film star. They had one son. The couple was divorced on May 13, 1937. On June 15, of the same year, he married dancer Frieda Mierse in New York City. They divorced on December 12, 1939 (the day Douglas Fairbanks died). On July 31, 1946, he married Dorothy Elizabeth Nesbitt in the Little Church of the West in Las Vegas. They divorced on March 1, 1955.
CAUSE: The 79-year-old Wynn died in Beverly Hills, California, from cancer. He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks, 1712 Glendale Avenue, Glendale, California 91209.
Keenan Wynn
(FRANCIS XAVIER ALOYSIUS WYNN)
Born July 27, 1916
Died October 14, 1986
Likable, gruff character. Born in New York, the son of Ed Wynn, Keenan (his mother’s maiden name) was signed by MGM to a long-term contract in 1942 and found himself playing a veritable smorgasbord of roles in dramas, comedies, musicals and melodramas. He was probably most unforgettable as Lippy, one of the gangsters in Kiss Me Kate (1953), who sings ‘Brush Up Your Shakespeare’. Following the end of his contract he moved to New York, where he found a niche on television including the memorable Requiem For A Heavyweight, which saw him cast opposite his father. A later generation will remember him as the second Willard ‘Digger’ Barnes on the glossy soap Dallas. Wynn’s films included: Northwest Rangers (1942) as Slip O’Mara, Somewhere I’ll Find You (1942) as Sergeant Tom Purdy, For Me And My Gal (1942) as Eddie Melton, See Here, Private Hargrove (1944) as Private Thomas Mulvehill, Marriage Is A Private Affair (1944) as Major Bob Wilton, Between Two Women (1944) as Tobey, Since You Went Away (1944) as Lieutenant Solomon, Without Love as Quentin Ladd, What Next, Corporal Hargrove? (1945) reprising his role as Private Thomas Mulvehill, Week-End At The Waldorf (1945) as Oliver Webson, No Leave, No Love as Slinky, Easy To Wed (1946) as Warren Haggerty, Song Of The Thin Man (1947) as Clarence ‘Clinker’ Krause, My Dear Secretary (1948) as Ronnie Hastings, The Three Musketeers as Planchet, Neptune’s Daughter as Joe Backett, Annie Get Your Gun (1950) as Charlie Davenport, Love That Brute (1950) as Bugs, Kind Lady (1951) as Edwards, Angels In The Outfield (1951) as Fred Bayles, Texas Carnival (1951) as Dan Sabinas, Holiday For Sinners (1952) as Joe Piavi, All The Brothers Were Valiant (1953) as Silva, Battle Circus (1953) as Sergeant Orvil Statt, Tennessee Champ (1954) as Willy Wurble, Shack Out On 101 (1955) as George, The Glass Slipper (1955) as Kovin, The Naked Hills (1956) as Sam Wilkins, The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit (1956) as Caesar Gardella, Johnny Concho (1956) as Barney Clark, Joe Butterfly (1957) as Harold Hathaway, The Deep Six (1957) as Lieutenant Commander Mike Edge, That Kind Of Woman (1959) as Harry Corwin, King Of The Roaring 20s – The Story Of Arnold Rothstein (1961) as Tom Fowler, The Absent Minded Professor (1961) as Alonzo Hawk, Bikini Beach (1964) as Harvey Huntington Honeywagon III, Dr Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb (1964) as Colonel ‘Bat’ Guano, The Patsy (1964) as Harry Silver, Honeymoon Hotel (1964) as Mr Sampson, The Great Race (1965) as Hezekiah Sturdy, Stagecoach (1966) as Luke Plummer, Promise Her Anything (1966) as Angelo Carelli, Around The World Under The Sea (1966) as Hank Stahl, The Night Of The Grizzly (1966) as Jed Curry, Run Like A Thief (1967) as Willy Gore, Warning Shot (1967) as Sergeant Ed Musso, Finian’s Rainbow (1968) as Senator Billboard Rawkins, 80 Steps To Jonah (1969) as Barney Glover, Pretty Maids All In A Row (1971) as Chief John Poldaski, Snowball Express (1972) as Martin Ridgeway, Jeremiah Of Jacob’s Neck (1975) as Jeremiah Starbuck, The Shaggy D.A. (1976) as John Slade, Orca (1977) as Novak, Sunburn (1979) as Mark Elmes, Just Tell Me What You Want (1980) as Seymour Berger, Wavelength (1983) as Dan and Black Moon Rising (1986) as Iron John. Wynn’s hobby was riding a motorcycle fast and in March 1945 he was involved in a near fatal crash when he fractured his skull, sprained his back and broke his jaw in five places. Wynn was married several times. Firstly, he married Eve Abbott on September 30, 1938, and by her had two sons: Edmund (b. April 27, 1941) and screenwriter Tracy Keenan (b. 1945). They divorced on January 25, 1947, and four hours later she married Wynn’s best friend, Van Johnson. Wynn, his ex-wife and Johnson had spent a lot of time with Peter Lawford, leading to speculation that all four were involved in some kind of sexual square. Wynn’s ex-wife later stated that she had sex with Lawford but that her husband didn’t. On January 11, 1949, Wynn married model Betty Jane Butler by proxy. They separated in 1952 and were divorced on June 29, 1953. She claimed Wynn was unconscionably close to his ex-wife. On January 8, 1954, Wynn married Shirley Jean Hudson in Puerto Rico. Six months later, they remarried at the Little Brown Church in the Valley in California. They had two daughters: Hilda (b. 1954) and Edwynna (b. February 2, 1960).
CAUSE: Wynn died aged 70 of cancer at his home in Brentwood, California. He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks, 1712 Glendale Avenue, Glendale, California 91209.
Y
Gig Young
(BYRON ELSWORTH BARR)
Born November 4, 1913
Died October 19, 1978
Insecure hunk. Born in St. Cloud, Minnesota, the son of a businessman and an ex-schoolteacher, Young was the third child. There was already a brother, Donald, and a sister, Genevieve. In 1932 with the Depression ruining the family venture, Young and his parents moved to Washington DC. There Young began acting with the Phil Hayden Players and, to please his father, unsuccessfully as it turned out, worked for a local car firm. When he realised that his father would remain stoically unimpressed at whatever he did, Young decided to give Hollywood a try. Enrolling at the famous Pasadena Playhouse he worked in a petrol station amongst other jobs to keep his head above water. He also auditioned for studios whenever an open casting was held. On August 2, 1940, he married fellow Pasadena Playhouse student Sheila Stapler and signed for Warner Bros. He made his first film, credited still as Byron Barr, playing a floor walker in Misbehaving Husbands (1940). He was later to claim that he excelled at “corpses, unconscious bodies and people snoring in spectacular epics”. The first of his roles to get him noticed was in Barbara Stanwyck’s The Gay Sisters (1942) in which he played a character called Gig Young. Taking the good reviews to be an omen, he adopted his character name as his own stage name. The following year he worked closely with another Hollywood great when he appeared opposite Bette Davis in Old Acquaintance (1943). They also became acquainted off screen, having a brief romantic interlude. It has been suggested by some that Young had an Oedipus complex and certainly he did have affairs with a number of women older than himself. (Perhaps it had started early for he lost his virginity when he was 16 years old to a “slim-waisted, full-breasted” 28-year-old blonde, who followed him home from basketball practice one evening.) During World War II he served with the US Coast Guard. Following demob he returned to Warner Bros but felt frustrated by what he saw as the studio’s lack of enthusiasm over his career. Around this time he also began an affair with another older woman, drama teacher Sophie Rosenstein (b. 1906). In 1947 his contract was not renewed by Warner Bros. A gulf had opened up between Young and his wife and they divorced in 1949. The following year, he married Sophie Rosenstein but she was to die of cancer in November 1952. It was a bittersweet year for Gig Young. Thanks to Sophie’s encouragement, he had earned a role in Come Fill The Cup (1951) as Boyd Copeland, which earned him his first Academy Award nomination. To help with his grief, Young began to drink heavily. He had affairs with stripper Sherry Britton and actress Elaine Stritch and worked in television and on Broadway. While hosting Warner Brothers Presents on TV he met actress Elizabeth Montgomery, the daughter of actor Robert Montgomery. Against her father’s express wishes, Elizabeth Montgomery married Gig Young on 28 December, 1956. Two years later, he was Oscar nominated again, for Teacher’s Pet (1958) but still felt he should be getting leading roles not supporting ones. Young returned to Broadway and to alcohol with a vengeance as well as infatuations with older women. It led to his divorce in January 1963 from Elizabeth Montgomery. He then turned to the bottle with a vengeance. On September 18, 1963, he married estate agent Elaine Whitman (who would later sell O.J. Simpson his infamous house at 360 Rockingham Avenue, Brentwood). Their daughter, Jennifer, was born in Los Angeles on April 21, 1964. Tall (5́7½˝), blonde and beautiful, she grew up to be a singer and co-authored a book about Hollywood excesses. Her parents’ marriage wasn’t all sweetness and light. Gig spent heavily, drank heavily and began taking LSD. Elaine Young received a divorce on November 23, 1966. The last time Jennifer Young saw her father, she was one and a half years old. Alcohol took hold of Young and he began to put on weight. He went back to Broadway to appear in There’s A Girl In My Soup and began an affair with actress Skye Aubrey (b. 1944) but when she proposed, he turned her down. It seemed as if there was no way for Young to go until his former agent wangled him the role of Rocky in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969). It won Young an Oscar. Unfortunately, it turned out not to be the salvation of his career. His next part was playing the grandfather Hal Henderson in Lovers And Other Strangers (1970). He was often in court with Elaine Young over his failure to pay her their divorce settlement. He was sacked from Blazing Saddles (1974) and replaced by Gene Wilder and quickly gained a reputation, perhaps deserved, perhaps not, of unreliability. In 1977 he met German-born actress Kim Schmidt (b. 1947) on the set of Game Of Death (1978). They began a relationship and eventually married on September 27, 1978, at City Hall in New York.
CAUSE: Almost immediately after his fifth marriage, Young began to argue with his young wife. His career was at an end and his alcoholism was affecting his thought capacity. His will didn’t leave everything to Kim, who taunted him about his inability to satisfy her in bed, and he was concerned about getting older. The Youngs lived at number 1 BB in the trendy Osborne Apartments, 205 West 57th Street in New York. On October 18, 1978, he called a friend in Hollywood, bemoaned his fate and asked her to collect him and take him back to the West Coast. She refused. The next day, Kim Young ordered some groceries from a local shop on the phone. At 2.30pm Gig Young loaded a .38 calibre Smith & Wesson gun, walked into the bedroom and shot his wife in the head. Then he turned the gun on himself, putting the barrel in his mouth and pulling the trigger. The corpses were discovered five hours later when the porter wondered why the groceries hadn’t been collected. A diary in the apartment was open on September 27, 1978, and police found three more guns and 350 bullets secreted in the property. On October 26, 1978, Young’s body was cremated in Beverly Hills.
Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries Page 183
