Frances had bigger things on her mind than getting divorced, so while very definitely separated, she decided to stay legally married to Irving while carving out a career first as a hula dancer and then a singer in a band. Hollywood soon beckoned and after moving there in September 1936 to begin her modelling and film career, she decided to change her name to Carole Landis, in tribute to her idol, Carole Lombard. The young woman was determined to make it as a star, though her career did not take off in the way she hoped and she very quickly found herself in nothing but uncredited bit parts, playing the likes of “The girl in the beret” or “The blonde at the airport”. Still, Carole had been through much in her life so a little thing like bad parts was not going to stop her fulfilling her dream. Instead of giving up she carried on fighting for parts throughout the late 1930s, always hoping and dreaming that her big break was just around the corner.
By May 1938, Carole was a busy but still relatively unknown actress, though she was becoming very well known as a model and cover girl. It was at this time that she experienced her first sniff of scandal when she became involved briefly with dance director Busby Berkeley. Her estranged husband, Irving Wheeler, got wind of this and decided to construct a story which said that his wife had been persuaded to leave the family home after being seduced by Berkeley. It made no difference to him that he had actually split with the actress some years before, and decided to take the strange decision to sue the dance director for $250,000. Because Berkeley was well known, the story was splashed all over the papers and Carole found her photograph printed for all the wrong reasons. Irving lost the case, of course, but the scandal prompted Landis to end the marriage once and for all, the divorce becoming final in 1939.
But as they say, no publicity is bad publicity, and the Berkeley scandal had at least got Carole noticed; in 1940 she was cast in the movie One Million BC, which succeeded in propelling her into nationwide stardom. Nicknamed “The Ping Girl”, Carole hated the tag so much that she even took out adverts in newspapers to request that people not call her that. Still, apart from that minor detail, she was very happy with the way her career was going, and after marrying and divorcing a yacht salesman by the name of Willis Hunt, she began a relationship with the head of Twentieth Century Fox, Darryl F. Zanuck.
Suddenly Carole began appearing in a string of successful films and acted opposite Betty Grable in Moon over Miami and I Wake Up Screaming. Some sceptics may say that her relationship with Zanuck ensured that she was offered such good roles, and sadly it would seem they were correct, as unfortunately for Carole, when she ended her relationship with Zanuck her career started to suffer. Once again she found herself in a variety of B-movies amid whispers that if she had not parted with the studio head, she would still have been on her way to the very top.
Carole was famous enough to have her presence requested to entertain the troops during World War II, though she suffered a great deal of illness while touring, almost dying as a result of amoebic dysentery and malaria. She also married once again, this time pilot Tommy Wallace, though as with all her previous relationships, the pairing was not a happy one. In May 1944 – a matter of months before the break-up of this marriage – the actress became so despondent that she was hospitalized after a suicide attempt. A broken engagement to producer Gene Markey followed the breakdown of her marriage to Wallace, and she began another unhappy, short marriage to producer W. Horace Schmidlapp in 1945. Another suicide attempt came in 1946 when she finally lost her contract with Twentieth Century Fox.
The threat of losing her career, coupled with the fact that she was unable to have children, had been too much for the young actress to bear. She was saved on this particular suicide attempt, though her private life remained complicated when she began an affair with married actor Rex Harrison. She fell hard for the British actor and began divorce proceedings against Schmidlapp in March 1948 so she could be with him permanently, but unfortunately Harrison was not so obliging. He refused point blank to abandon his wife for the actress, and left Carole heartbroken.
Several days before her death, all seemed relatively fine in Carole’s world, and the actress recorded a two-minute tape for Hollywood Star Records which described her life and career as very satisfying. However, it was all an illusion. Carole was desperately unhappy with most aspects of her life; her love for Harrison was on the rocks; her marriage was broken; and added to that, she had almost never been satisfied with her career. Yes, there had been a time when she was given many good roles, but in the last few years she had been cast in nothing but B-movies and her confidence had taken a very definite blow.
Landis spent most of the 4 July 1948 celebrations at her home on Capri Drive, which she had recently sold because she felt it was far too big for just one person. She also attended a Fourth of July celebration and was seen playing in the pool and in good spirits, before later dining with old flame Rex Harrison at her home. He later claimed that during the course of the evening they had been discussing a possible project in England, but rumour has it that the actor actually gave her the news that he was breaking off their relationship once and for all, as he wished to renew his affection for his wife. This left Carole in absolute turmoil, and while she was painfully aware that her love life had always been difficult, this particular news was just too much to bear. After he left the house shortly after 9 p.m., Carole was in such a state that she decided to write a note to her mother.
“Dearest Mommie,” it said. “I’m sorry, really sorry to put you through this but there is no way to avoid it.” The actress then went on to say how much she loved her, and that she had been the most wonderful mother ever before adding, “that applies to all our family. Everything goes to you. Goodbye my angel, pray for me, Your Baby.”
The distraught actress then placed the note on top of her dressing-room table; took an overdose of sleeping pills; staggered to her bathroom; and collapsed some time on 5 July. Fully clothed, in a frilly shirt and checked skirt, the actress expired with her head resting on a jewel box and her hand holding a satin ribbon with the words of the Lord’s Prayer in gold letters. The position of her body looked as though she were trying to pick herself back up from the floor. There was an empty bottle nearby, with a variety of pills found around the bathroom and dressing areas.
The next day her housekeeper, Fannie Bolden, knocked on the actress’s bedroom door but received no response. Rex Harrison phoned to see how she was and was told that she was still sleeping. He went about his business, but when he called again at 3 p.m. and was given the same answer, he became concerned enough to rush over to the home immediately. Unknown to the maid, Harrison went straight to the actress’s bedroom to see what was wrong, and on opening Carole’s door, he was sick to discover that she was collapsed on the bathroom floor. Sprinting over, he tried to wake her up: “I felt her pulse,” he later told the coroner. “It must have been purely my imagination but I thought there was a little beat.”
It was indeed his imagination because Carole was dead and had been that way for quite some time. Harrison then went to find Mrs Bolden to tell her the news.
“Have you been into Miss Landis’s bedroom?” he asked.
“No,” she answered.
The actor then broke the news to the shocked woman and took her into the bedroom to see for herself. It was at that point, Bolden said, that the suicide note was found and Harrison, on reading it, exclaimed, “Oh darling, why did you do it, why did you do it?”
The actor was in such a state that it was later said that he waited at least a couple of hours before calling the police, and did not think to ring the woman’s mother, Clara, who found out about her daughter’s death on the radio. “Why didn’t somebody call me?” the mourning woman demanded to know, but nobody seemed to have an answer. Carole’s estranged husband Horace Schmidlapp was just as shocked, crying, “Oh My God!!” when told of her death by reporters.
The police began asking Rex Harrison questions, with the first being, what had happened during Carol
e Landis’s last evening? He told officers that they had been dining together but he had left some time around 9 p.m., as Carole was feeling ill after a recurrence of the amoebic infection she had suffered from before. Otherwise, he said, she was in good spirits. He declined to tell them that the two had been lovers and no doubt hoped that neither the press nor the police would probe any further.
He was – of course – sorely mistaken if he believed the entire episode would just fade away, and reporters wasted no time in asking about the exact nature of their relationship. “She was a very close friend of my wife’s and mine,” he told them. “While my wife was in New York I saw Carole quite frequently. We were planning a picture we were to make together in Europe. Immediately after her death, however, I called Lilli in New York and she flew home.”
Several days later, more controversy came when newspapers reported that the actress’s last will and testament were being sought, and though a number of would-be documents were brought forward, no one could confirm at that point whether Landis had a more up-to-date will than the one she had written four years earlier. This was further complicated when her lawyer, entertainment heavyweight Jerry Giesler, told the press, “Miss Landis was a person who was most meticulous about her business matters and the keeping of her records”, and the police disclosed that she had made reference to the will in her suicide note. It was in a file, she had said, though at that point, neither the file nor the will could be found.
In the end, they did indeed go with the 1944 will, with everything going to her mother, Clara. As with most things in Hollywood, however, it was not a straightforward affair, with estranged husband Horace Schmidlapp later deciding to reject a former property settlement and thereby locking horns with Clara in a dispute over an equity of $35,000 which he said was owed to him from the sale of Carole’s home on Capri Drive.
Another element that caused controversy was talk of a second suicide note, which was rumoured to have been in the room at the time Carole died. The story around Hollywood was that Rex Harrison had destroyed the letter in order to deter people thinking they were having an affair, and Carole’s friend and former stand-in, Florence Wasson, put her two cents in when she declared that she specifically remembered seeing a letter that asked for someone to take care of her cat.
Since the official note had not mentioned any pets, the word was that another note must surely have been written, though Wasson was quick to point out that if it had disappeared, she had absolutely no idea where it could possibly have gone. “I don’t even remember what the rest of the contents were,” Wasson said, “but it did not relate to motive or anything like that.” This revelation confused things even more – if the second note really had just been about the care of a pet, then why would Harrison have destroyed such a thing? It was quite a mystery.
Denying to the coroner that he knew anything about the second note, the British actor wasted no time in trying to quell rumours of a relationship by announcing once again that his wife Lilli Palmer and Carole were “great friends”, before adding that the tragedy should not be clouded by sensational innuendoes. Humorously, he also said that he wished the scandal to stop as he wanted to clear Carole’s name. The fact that if the rumours did subside, it would take the heat off his name, too, was not missed by the eager columnists and reporters.
If onlookers at the inquest were hoping to hear the nitty-gritty of the actress’s “friendship” with Harrison, they must have been sorely disappointed, but the actor’s testimony did shed some light on Carole’s state of mind at the time of her death. He disclosed that they had not argued in any way on the evening before her death, and while she had been embarrassed by some financial problems, she did not seem too depressed about them.
“Was she worried about her divorce?” the coroner asked.
“I don’t think so,” replied the actor. “I can’t give any explanation for [her death] at all.”
Meanwhile, the other party in the divorce, Horace Schmidlapp, had flown into California and was stopped by reporters at the airport.
“Do you know why Carole might have taken her own life?” they asked.
“No, no,” he answered. “I can’t think of any reason. She was certainly all right financially; her career was in excellent shape . . .”
“Have you seen her recently?”
“I talked to her over the phone last week and she was like she’d always been – gay and happy. The last time I saw her was in January in Europe. She was in good spirits then – and beautiful.”
Reporters then asked if the marriage had still been on the rocks, to which he replied that the divorce action had certainly been continuing at the time of death. He then went on to say that he was sure the suicide was not as a result of finances, since his ex-wife never worried about money at all. “She wasn’t that kind,” he said.
This observation was backed up by lawyer Jerry Giesler who added, “I had just completed a property settlement with Schmidlapp. Miss Landis was very satisfied with it.” He then went on to deny that his client must have been concerned about her finances, stating, “I believe that if Carole had been worried about money, she would have been found dead in bed. When a person worries about finances they lie awake at night and the worry continues to mount until it seems almost insurmountable.”
But there were definitely at least some money issues, as testified by Giesler while talking to the press. In his comments the lawyer stated that Carole had personally written to her creditors to assure them of her intention of paying bills as soon as the house had been sold. But he also added, “With her Eagle-Lion contract for two films and another deal to make pictures in England, she had a bright future ahead of her.”
So it would seem that money was not an issue that could have caused Carole Landis to suddenly commit suicide. With that in mind, could the lawyer shed any light on why the actress would have wanted to take her own life?
“It is difficult to understand,” he told the press. “I knew Carole was a person of impulse. This must have been an impulsive thing. She was fully dressed. Alone in that big house.”
The run-up to Carole’s funeral was a heart-breaking affair, made more so because she had been so young, and her death sudden and tragic. She lay for several days at the Wilshire Funeral Home, where hundreds of mourners, including family, friends and fans, all filed past in order to see her one more time. There were so many flowers that the funeral home had to direct most of them to Forest Lawn; such was the public outcry for a life cut so terribly short.
When it was time for the funeral, Carole’s coffin was carried into the chapel by pall-bearers that included actors Cesar Romero and Willard Parker, as well as Carole’s personal makeup man, Ben Nye. Although the formalities were brief, they still came with a fair share of drama, when the actress’s mother, Clara, collapsed on to the shoulder of her granddaughter, Diane, just as they were making their way to the chapel. Then during the service she collapsed again on the stairs, sobbing loudly at the sight of her daughter’s coffin. The whole thing was extremely dramatic and by the time Rex Harrison arrived with his wife Lilli, the crowds were so frantic that the funeral assistants had to hold them back so that the couple could enter the venue safely.
Once inside, the service consisted of a short prayer and Carole’s favourite song, “In a Garden” before Bishop Fred Pyman addressed the congregation. “Life is a dress rehearsal for the greater play which comes after,” he said. “Actors all believe they will play their roles again . . . and perfectly.”
Carole was buried on a hillside overlooking the city, just as the coroner announced that no further action would be taken in regards to the investigation into her death. In a statement he said that he could find no criminal action in connection with her passing, and was therefore closing the case. Shortly before the announcement, Francis Kearney from the homicide squad told reporters that “If there were any suspicions of foul play, then motive would be important, but since all evidence shows the death without doubt to be suicid
e, then the search for motive is hardly a police matter.”
Although her family had opted not to confront Rex Harrison about the death of Carole Landis, and had told reporters that they had not heard anything about the existence of a second suicide note, rumours started to circulate that they were not entirely convinced of the story of her final hours, and even suspected that Harrison had something to do with the death and was somehow covering up what he knew. There was even talk of them hiring a private detective to find out exactly what had happened on the fateful evening, but if indeed that story was true, it seems that nothing was found.
The autopsy showed that Carole had five milligrams of barbiturate per 100 grams of liver tissue, and her blood contained a high level of alcohol. This showed that the actress had drunk a great deal prior to her collapse, and with that in mind, it is the belief of many that after Harrison left that evening, she drowned her sorrows before taking her final, fatal overdose. In the end, while some people may have had their doubts, it seems that Carole Landis’s death was very definitely a suicide, though why she did it remains unclear. Public consensus would seem to suggest that it was as a result of Harrison ending their relationship, and Carole’s lawyer, Jerry Giesler, hinted as much when talking to reporters shortly after the death.
“I think Carole suffered a sudden great shock from which she did not recover sufficiently to undress and retire,” he said. “But perhaps she regretted her impulsive action at the last moment, and was going to get help so she could recover.”
As for Harrison himself, while he denied anything other than friendship with the actress, Hedda Hopper shed more light on the situation when she wrote her 9 July 1948 column. In it she said that she had asked him about Carole just four months prior to her death, mentioning the rumours that his marriage was ending because of her.
“That’s just Hollywood gossip – and you know what that is,” Harrison replied. He then added that his wife Lilli had arrived back at the family home and they were “trying to work things out”. With that in mind, he asked Hedda not to print anything about the rumours of his relationship with Carole. She did as he requested and later Harrison sent her a bouquet of flowers, thanking the columnist for “your cooperation. It is very, very much appreciated. Many, many thanks.”
The Mammoth Book of Hollywood Scandals Page 26