Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries Read online

  CAUSE: He died of angina pectoris and coronary sclerosis at Park Central Hotel, 55th St and 7th Avenue, New York, N.Y. at 2.15am aged 46. He was cremated.

  FURTHER READING: The Day The Laughter Stopped – David Yallop (London: Hodder & Stoughton 1976); Fatty – Andy Edmonds (London: Macdonald 1991).

  Eve Arden

  (EUNICE QUEDENS)

  Born April 30, 1908

  Died November 12, 1990

  Queen of the caustic crack. Born in Mill Valley, California, the daughter of a one-time actress, Eve Arden was educated at Mill Valley Grammar School and Tamalpais High School. Like many, she began her career on the stage, joining the Henry Duffy Stock Company at San Francisco’s Alcazar Theater for 18 months. On January 4, 1934, she made her first appearance on Broadway at the Winter Garden in The Ziegfeld Follies. She had made her film début as Maisie in Song Of Love (1929), credited under her real name, Eunice Quedens, and went on to appear in almost 60 movies. She took the name ‘Eve Arden’ after seeing the names ‘Evening In Paris’ and ‘Elizabeth Arden’ on the make-up counter in a shop. Her early films included Oh Doctor (1937) as Shirley Truman, Stage Door (1937) as Eve (the film that originally made her. She wore a live cat as a fur and her lines were written during shooting), Cocoanut Grove (1938) as Sophie De Lemma, Eternally Yours (1939) as Gloria, Big Town Czar (1939) as Susan Warren, No, No, Nanette (1940) as Winnie, Comrade X (1940) as Jane Wilson, She Knew All The Answers (1941) as Sally Long and Obliging Young Lady (1941) as ‘Space’ O’Shea. It was for her portrayal of Ida in Mildred Pierce (1945) that she was nominated for an Oscar. Arden was confident enough in her abilities to play unsympathetic roles, including Paula in The Unfaithful (1947) and Olive Lashbrooke in The Voice Of The Turtle (1947). She opined: “If you’re confident before you attain fame, then you’re okay. Don’t care too much what people think … If you’re not happy or not confident before you’re known, then no amount of fame or money will bestow instant happiness or self-confidence.” In 1948 she began appearing as schoolteacher Connie Brooks in the radio show Our Miss Brooks before it transferred to television on October 3, 1952. On February 11, 1954, she won an Emmy for her work and spent much of the Fifties appearing on the small screen, including The Eve Arden Show. She made the occasional foray into films in the Fifties, Sixties, Seventies and Eighties, including We’re Not Married! (1952) as Katie Woodruff, Anatomy Of A Murder (1959) as Maida, Sergeant Deadhead (1965) as Lieutenant Charlotte Kinsey, Grease (1978) as Principal McGee, Pandemonium (1982) as Warden June and Grease 2 (1982), reprising her role as Principal McGee. In June 1939 she married literary agent Edward Bergen and adopted a daughter, Liza, in 1944. Three years later, on July 27, 1947, they divorced. Single parent Arden adopted a second daughter, Connie, also in 1947. In August 1951 she married actor Brooks West (1915–1984) and in the summer of 1952 adopted Duncan Paris. Their son, Douglas Brooks, was born in September 1953. The couple was happily married for 32 years until West’s death on February 7, 1984. It was Arden who told Joan Crawford how to go about adopting children.

  CAUSE: She died of cardiac arrest and arteriosclerotic heart disease aged 82 at her home, 9066 St Ives Drive, Los Angeles, California 90069. She was cremated and her ashes buried at Westwood Memorial Park, 1218 Glendon Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90024 on November 15, 1990.

  Richard Arlen

  (CORNELIUS RICHARD VAN MATTIMORE)

  Born September 1, 1898

  Died March 28, 1976

  One of the first. Born in Charlottesville, Virginia, after the University of Pennsylvania, 5˝11˝ Arlen began his career as a pilot with the Royal Canadian Flying Corps and then became a messenger working for a film laboratory. After a lucky escape in a car accident he came to the attention of Hollywood and he was signed by Paramount Pictures as an extra. His role as the volatile and tragic pilot David Armstrong in Wings (1927) won him rave reviews. It also won the film the first Best Picture Oscar, the only silent feature ever to do so. Arlen was never to achieve such dizzy heights again but became a steady, if unexciting, support player. His films included Sally In Our Alley (1927) as Jimmie Adams, Under The Tonto Rim 1928) as Edd Denmeade, Manhattan Cocktail (1928) as Fred Tilden, Thunderbolt (1929) as Bob Morgan, The Virginian (1929) as Steve, Dangerous Paradise (1930) as Heyst, The Santa Fe Trail (1930) as Stan Hollister, Three-Cornered Moon (1933) as Dr Alan Stevens, Alice In Wonderland (1933) as the Cheshire Cat, Mutiny On The Blackhawk (1939) as Captain Robert Lawrence, Mutiny In The Arctic (1941) as Dick Barclay, Wildcat (1942) as Johnny Maverick, Buffalo Bill Rides Again (1947) as Buffalo Bill Cody, Sex And The College Girl (1964), Apache Uprising (1966) as Captain Gannon and Won Ton Ton, The Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976). He married Ruth Austin in 1923 and had a daughter, Rosemarie. His second wife was his Wings co-star Jobyna Ralston (b. November 24, 1902, d. January 22, 1967) on January 28, 1927 at the Mission Inn, Riverside, California. Their son, Richard Ralston Mattimore, was born in Los Angeles on May 18, 1933. The couple was divorced in Los Angeles on September 5, 1945. His third wife was Margaret Kinsella.

  CAUSE: He died of emphysema aged 77 in North Hollywood, California.

  Arletty

  (ARLETTE -LéONIE MARIE JULIE BATHIAT)

  Born May 15, 1898

  Died July 24, 1992

  Latecomer. Born in Courbevoie, Hauts-de-Seine, France, the daughter of a miner, Arlette-Léonie left school aged 13 to work in a munitions factory. She went on to become a model (for Matisse and Braque) and chorus girl. Following the death of her lover in World War I, she became a devout pacifist. She came to cinema relatively late. She was in her early thirties when she first appeared in front of the cameras and knocking 40 when she played the prostitute Raymonde in Marcel Carné’s Hôtel Du Nord (1938). Her name was made playing the courtesan Garance in Carné’s Les Enfants Du Paradis (1945). However, her star was soured when it was revealed she had slept with a German Luftwaffe officer during the Second World War. “My heart is French but my arse is international,” she was reputed to have said in mitigation. Her head was shaved and she spent four months in Fresnes prison for collaboration following her trial in Algiers in 1944. In December of that year she was placed under house arrest for two years and was forbidden from working for three years. An accident in 1963 gradually wrecked her eyesight (she went blind in 1966) and her last film was Les Petits Matins (1962).

  CAUSE: She died in Paris aged 94 from natural causes.

  George Arliss

  (GEORGE AUGUSTUS ANDREWS)

  Born April 10, 1868

  Died February 5, 1946

  ‘The first gentleman of the talking screen.’ Born in London, the son of a printer and publisher, he first appeared on stage at the Elephant and Castle Theatre in September 1886. In 1901 he went to America with Mrs Patrick Campbell and played to great acclaim. He made his film début in The Devil (1921) playing Dr Muller and followed that up with his portrayal of the dandy Prime Minister, Disraeli (1921), a role he had played on stage. His co-star was his wife, Florence Montgomery Arliss (b. 1871, d. March 11, 1950), and he reprised the part in a talkie version in 1929, a film that won him a Best Actor Oscar, although he didn’t turn up to collect his statuette in person. He was on holiday in France but knew he had won because the Academy had asked him to pose for celebratory pictures on November 3, 1930, two days before the prize-giving. He tended to play great men on stage and reprise them on film and his roles included the leads in Alexander Hamilton (1931) and Voltaire (1933), the Duke of Wellington in The Iron Duke (1934) and the title role in Cardinal Richelieu (1935). He was nominated for another Best Actor Oscar for The Green Goddess (1930), a remake of his 1923 film. His contract at Warner Bros stipulated that he did not have to work after 4.30pm. The 5́ 9˝ Arliss retired from movie making in 1937 when his wife (whom he married at Harrow Weald on September 16, 1899) went blind. Contrary to several reference books, the director Leslie Arliss was not their son.

  CAUSE: He died in London aged 77 of a bronchial ailment. He left an estate valued at £136,000.


  Pedro Armendáriz

  (PEDRO GREGORIO ARMENDáRIZ HASTINGS)

  Born May 9, 1912

  Died June 18, 1963

  Mr Swarthy. Born in Churubusco, Mexico, the son of a Mexican man and an American woman (who both died in 1921), the family moved to Laredo, Texas. Armendáriz was educated at the Polytechnic Institute of San Luis Obispo, California, where he read journalism and business studies. Back in Mexico City, he found work as a tourist guide, insurance salesman and on the railways. Bizarrely, his big break came when director Miguel Zacarias spotted him declaiming Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy to a tourist. He rapidly became a massive star in Mexico and was much in demand north of the border as well. Among his films were Rosario (1936), María Elena (1936) as Eduardo, El Indio (1939), Simón Bolívar (1940), Ni Sangre, Ni Arena (1941), Guadalajara as Pedro, María Candelaria as Lorenzo Rafael, Enamorada (1946) as General José Juan Reyes, Fort Apache (1948) as Sergeant Beaufort, Three Godfathers (1948) as ‘Pete’ Pedro Roca Fuerte, Vuelve Pancho Villa (1950) as Pancho Villa, Lucrèce Borgia (1953) as César Borgia, The Big Boodle (1957) as Colonel Mastegui and Captain Sinbad (1963) as El Kerim. One film he would regret making was The Conqueror (1956) in which he played Jamuga. The film starred his close friend John Wayne as an unintentionally hilarious Genghis Khan. During filming his horse stumbled and threw Armendáriz, who broke his jaw. The long-term consequences were to be even more horrific. He married Carmelita Bohr on June 19, 1938, and their son is the actor Pedro Armendáriz, Jr.