The Hollywood Book of Death: The Bizarre, Often Sordid, Passings of More than 125 American Movie and TV Idols

by Parish, James Robert

  Although she was not active in Hollywood in the 1960s, Loretta occasionally made headlines when she sued a network or studio for what she considered misuse of her filmed performances. In 1971 she relocated to Phoenix, Arizona, announcing that she would found the Loretta Young Youth Project of Phoenix, a charitable organization devoted to underprivileged youth. She sold her jewelry and her Los Angeles home to finance the project.

  By the 1980s, Loretta was back in Los Angeles and had new priorities. She surprised her fans by starring in two TV movies: Christmas Eve (1986) and Lady in the Corner (1989). She also narrated a TV documentary called Life Along the Mississippi (1994). By the early 1990s she was a full-time resident of Palm Springs, California.

  On September 10, 1993, Loretta, 80 years old and a great-grandmother, married for the third time. (She explained, “I just can’t see living with a man I’m not married to.”) Her groom was longtime friend Jean Louis, age 85, who had designed many of the trademark gowns she wore on The Loretta Young Show. His previous wife, Maggy, had died in 1987. The ceremony was held at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills.

  Loretta’s new mate was on hand to console her when she had to cope with her daughter Judy’s blunt account of life with a movie-star mother in Uncommon Knowledge. (In Joan Weston Anderson’s authorized biography Forever Young: The Life, Loves and Enduring Faith of a Hollywood Legend, published in November 2000, Young finally acknowledged publicly that Judy was indeed her natural child with Clark Gable.) But then on Sunday, April 20, 1997, just as Jean Louis and Loretta were leaving their Palm Springs home to attend Sunday mass, he collapsed and died from a stroke. Also in 1997, two of Loretta’s sisters (Polly Ann and Sally Blane) passed away.

  In 2000, Loretta was diagnosed with ovarian and stomach cancer. She expired early on Saturday, August 12, 2000, at the Los Angeles home of her sister Georgiana and Georgiana’s husband, veteran actor Ricardo Montalbán. On Wednesday, August 16, some four hundred family members, friends, and fans attended a requiem mass held at St. Louis Roman Catholic Church in Cathedral City, California. Bishop Gerald Barnes was in charge of the service, officiating along with another bishop and a dozen priests. (Loretta’s instructions for the occasion had been, “Open the doors, let everyone in. Fill the church. I need all the prayers I can get.”)

  The sanctuary was filled with white flowers: mostly Loretta’s favorite, white Casablanca lilies. Among those attending the service were actresses Jane Wyman and Carol Channing. Two of Loretta’s children, Peter Lewis and Judy Lewis (she and Loretta had finally made peace with one another), spoke at the memorial. (Peter, a musician, sang an original song that Loretta had requested him to perform. Judy recited a verse from the New Testament and the poem “Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep.”)

  Loretta reportedly directed her activities right up to the end, instructing a friend, “Get me a rent-a-casket. I’m going to be cremated anyway, so figure out the difference and give it to the church.” As Young ordered, her remains were placed in her mother’s grave in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, a suburb of Los Angeles.

  After nearly a lifetime in the public eye, one of the last major stars of Hollywood’s golden era was gone. Besides her many films and TV episodes, she left behind other legacies, including advice. Among her recommendations were, “If you want a place in the sun, you have to expect a few blisters,” and “The easiest way to crush your laurels is to lean on them.”

  Robert Young

  February 22, 1907–July 1, 1998

  For generations of TV viewers, America’s most archetypal father was certainly Robert Young of Father Knows Best (1954–60). After starring in that hit TV show, Young went on to headline Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969–76), playing the avuncular physician we all wish we could have in our lives. These two rock-of-Gibraltar portrayals ensured the actor of a place in the pantheon of role models that the media gave us in the twentieth century.

  Young’s two memorable characterizations were not lucky accidents. He had been performing onstage since the 1920s, and on-screen as a leading man since the early 1930s. Young honed his craft over the decades, specializing in playing the congenial, soft-spoken type. Yet he occasionally enjoyed a change of pace by playing the bad guy, as in the film noir They Won’t Believe Me (1947). Much more surprising to the general public, who thought they “knew” Robert Young, was his late-in-life admission of his longtime battle with alcoholism, or the recurrent bouts of depression that led him to attempt suicide in 1991. Young was indeed a man of many layers.

  He was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1907, the fourth of five children of Irish Protestants Thomas and Margaret (Fyfe) Young. That same year, Thomas (a carpenter) moved his clan to Seattle, Washington. In 1919, the Youngs relocated again, this time to Los Angeles, where Thomas established his own contracting business. Because their father was frequently out of town, the children learned early to be self-sufficient. Robert had odd jobs from the age of eight onward, starting by selling newspapers. While in high school, he worked as a bank clerk, debt collector, and haberdashery salesman. Thanks to an older brother who worked as a stuntman and extra in the movies, Robert also got jobs as an extra in assorted movies of the 1920s.

  Because he couldn’t afford to attend college, Robert worked at a bank after graduating from high school. Meanwhile, his school drama coach urged him to try evening classes at the famed Pasadena Playhouse. Over the next several years, he would appear in 45 productions there, finally going on a touring edition of The Ship. From this venue he was spotted by a talent agent who arranged an MGM screen test; soon Robert was signed to a $150-a-week contract. His first job was on loan to Fox Films for The Black Camel (1931), an early Charlie Chan screen adventure. Robert’s next feature, The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931, featuring Helen Hayes in an Oscar-winning role), gave Young good screen exposure.

  Although MGM’s leading-man roster boasted rugged Clark Gable, debonair William Powell, smart-alecky Robert Montgomery, and burly Wallace Beery, the studio still needed a solid utility male player like Young to handle assignments in prestigious stage adaptations like Strange Interlude (1932), courtroom melodrama such as Unashamed (1932), and futuristic dramas like Men Must Fight (1933). Meanwhile, the now-established screen star married his high school sweetheart, Betty Henderson, on March 6, 1932. Their marriage, one of Hollywood’s longest-lasting, would produce four children: Carol Ann (in 1933), Barbara Queen (in 1937), Betty Lou (in 1943), and Cathleen Joy (in 1945).

  Whether on loan to another studio or playing on the home lot, Young could be counted on to give a more-than-competent performance in an assortment of movies. (He was often teamed with his good friend Joan Crawford.) He even found time to go to England to make It’s Love Again (1936) with Jessie Matthews, and to join Madeleine Carroll in Alfred Hitchcock’s Secret Agent (1936). He ended the decade in such diverse fare as the heavily dramatic Three Comrades (1938, with Margaret Sullavan) and Maisie (1939), the first entry in Ann Sothern’s very popular MGM budget series.

  One of Young’s most impressive assignments came in 1940 when he replaced Robert Taylor as the comrade of Spencer Tracy in Northwest Passage, a rugged historical drama filmed in color. The next year, playing Bostonian H. M. Pulham, Esq. won Robert his best reviews to date at MGM. After The Canterville Ghost (1944), which found little Margaret O’Brien—not Bob—in the focal role, he ended his tenure at MGM.

  Robert Young and his wife, Betty, at the polo matches in 1949 Hollywood.

  Courtesy of JC Archives

  Young moved over to RKO Studios. Because of the scarcity of available leading men (due to World War II military service), Young, in his late 30s, was much in demand. One of his greatest successes was on loan to Twentieth Century-Fox for Sitting Pretty (1948) with himself and Maureen O’Hara as well-meaning parents and Clifton Webb as an acerbic babysitter. Young’s role set the precedent for the next major step of an already lengthy career.

  On August 25, 1949, Bob debuted in a new weekly radio series, Father Knows Best, ge
ared to appeal to listeners who embraced the values of wholesome family life. It ran for five years on radio before transferring over to television in 1954, where it enjoyed an even longer tenure with an all-new supporting cast.

  When Father Knows Best came to an end in 1960, Young tried a brand-new series, Window on Main Street (1961–62), but the public wouldn’t accept him in his new role. Young went into semi-retirement until 1966, when he toured in a comedy called Generation. While on the road, Young collapsed from exhaustion and had to rest for several months. It was during this period that he made the public acknowledgment—quite shocking at the time—that for decades he had been a severe alcoholic. As he told the New York Times, “I’ve been sick. . . . Sick all my life. As far back as I can remember, I was afraid of some imagined disaster that never did eventuate. . . . When I became an actor I constantly felt I wasn’t worthy, that I had no right to be a star.” Besides his family, Bob also turned to Alcoholics Anonymous for support, as well as to Science of the Mind (a form of spiritual metaphysics).

  But most of all, Robert relied on his steadfast wife, Betty, for emotional support. As he admitted, “She was my guardian angel. Without her, I might have ended up a destitute drunk.” For the next few years, they became near-recluses at home; with her encouragement, he talked out his problems. Said Young, “It was even better than if I’d been talking to a trained professional therapist, because Betty had been through the experiences with me.”

  With renewed courage, he returned to TV in 1968 on an episode of Name of the Game. This led to Young being hired to star in Marcus Welby, M.D., which began as a two-hour TV-movie pilot on March 26, 1969. With James Brolin cast as Welby’s maverick young partner, the show built a strong following over its seven seasons on the air. Young always called the show “the cap on my career.” No sooner was the series over than he underwent cataract surgery on both eyes. Upon recovery, he found time to continue as a TV guest star, do Sanka coffee commercials, and engineer two 1977 Father Knows Best reunion movies.

  The next decade began ominously for Robert, when in 1980 he entered the Franciscan Medical Center located in Rock Island, Illinois. He was suffering from biogenic amine deficiency, which caused slowness of all his metabolic processes. According to his doctor, this made the actor seem “dispirited, decelerated, joyless, unmotivated.” Betty Young also entered the hospital, since she had become depressed trying to cope with her spouse’s ailment. His youngest daughter Cathy told the media, “When he was doing Father Knows Best, he had headaches that were so bad he couldn’t even put his head on the pillow. . . . During his periods of depression, which lasted about four weeks at a time, he was nervous, uptight, and didn’t know what was wrong. He looked happy-go-lucky on the TV screen, but we knew what his agony was at home.” In addition, Young had been suffering from hypertension so acute that there was always a helper on the set to monitor his blood pressure and make sure that he took his medication. Thanks to the use of synthetic amines, Young’s medical problems were eventually diagnosed as controllable.

  Once recovered, the 77-year-old Young returned to TV with (among other projects) two Marcus Welby reunion movies in 1984 and 1988. By then he was in his 80s, and after making the two movies he chose to withdraw from acting. Robert spent most of his time at his four-bedroom home in Westlake Village near Thousand Oaks in Ventura County, west of the San Fernando Valley.

  By the early 1990s, Robert’s health was failing and he required live-in care. On January 12, 1991, he attempted to kill himself with car exhaust fumes in the garage of his home. The effort failed when the car engine stalled and the battery died. In 1994, Betty, his spouse of 61 years, passed away at the age of 84. The shock of her death sent Young into an emotional tailspin, accelerated by his advancing Alzheimer’s disease. Occasionally, shots of a pathetically feeble Robert, forced by now to use a walker, would appear in the tabloids, reminding the public of what the ravages of time can do. In late February 1997 he celebrated his 90th birthday at home, joined by his four daughters and their families, as well as by former cast members Jane Wyatt, Billy Gray, and Elinor Donahue from Father Knows Best, and fellow actors Roddy McDowall, Margaret O’Brien, and Dorothy McGuire.

  In 1998, the retired star, who suffered from a heart condition, underwent surgery. It stabilized his condition, but he no longer had the will to live. He reportedly told a friend, “Every night when I go to sleep, I pray for God to take me away from this life of hell. Many days I wake up crying because I’m still alive.” His one consolation was that in death he would be reunited with his beloved wife.

  On July 21, Robert Young, age 91, passed away in his sleep from respiratory failure. On Monday, July 28, approximately one hundred friends and relatives gathered at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, for Young’s private funeral service at the Church of the Flowers. (Among the attendees were Jane Wyatt, Billy Gray, Margaret O’Brien and Roddy McDowall. Absent was Young’s Marcus Welby costar, James Brolin, who had wed Barbra Streisand earlier that month.) Betty Lou Gleason, one of his daughters, said, “He gave so many millions so many hours and a legacy that will live on. And what’s so wonderful is the thought that my grandchildren, my grandchildren’s grandchildren, will still enjoy Papa.”

  Puzzling Deaths

  Mount Sinai Memorial Park in Los Angeles, California 2001 By Albert L. Ortega

  Russ Columbo

  [Ruggerio Eugenio di Rodolpho Colombo]

  January 14, 1908–September 2, 1934

  Sometimes the factors leading to a particular death are so unbelievable that it is difficult to accept it as an accident—even years afterward. Such was the case in the shooting death of singer Russ Columbo, who rivaled Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallee as America’s most popular crooner in the early 1930s.

  Columbo was born in Camden, New Jersey, in 1908, the youngest of 12 children. When he was five, his parents, Nicola and Giulia, moved their family to Philadelphia. Some three years later they transferred to California, first living in the San Francisco area and then moving down to Los Angeles. By then, the precocious Russ (as he was now called) had learned to play the violin and had begun studying opera. During his years at Belmont High School in Los Angeles, he earned money as a violinist, often playing the background music that would appear in various “silent” pictures. He caught the attention of exotic screen star Pola Negri, who was attracted by his resemblance to Rudolph Valentino. She found more work for the young musician, both musical jobs and bit parts in movies. After graduating from high school, Russ joined George Eckhart and His Orchestra and then moved on to other performing groups, occasionally getting to vocalize.

  His big break came in 1928 when he was signed to join Gus Arnheim and His Orchestra at L.A.’s swank Cocoanut Grove Club. He played violin and was the backup singer for Bing Crosby; sometimes he and Crosby did duets. These appearances gave Russ great visibility, and he began to win small roles in talkies, starting with Street Girl (1929). He had a nonmusical acting part in Wolf Song (1929), which starred Latin bombshell Lupe Velez—she took a romantic interest in Russ as well as in her costar Gary Cooper. In Cecil B. DeMille’s Dynamite (1929), Russ was a Mexican prisoner who sang the soon-to-be-popular song “How Am I to Know?” In 1930 he made his recording debut and toured the East Coast with Arnheim’s group. More screen roles followed.

  Always anxious to improve himself, Columbo formed his own band and opened a nightclub in Los Angeles for them to play at, the Club Pyramid on Santa Monica Boulevard. This exposure led to an RCA recording contract, and Russ shortly landed his own NBC network radio program. Soon the popular performer was dubbed “The Romeo of Radio.” His recordings, including his theme song, “You Call It Madness (But I Call It Love),” became bestsellers, and his personal-appearance tours sold out their venues. The rumor mill had him dating Greta Garbo; his management concocted a romance with actress Dorothy Dell (who would die in a car crash in 1934), then another with Sally Blane, and later one with Carole Lombard. His supposed romance with Carole blos
somed (he dedicated another popular song to her, “Save the Last Dance for Me”), and by now he was frequently earning $7,500 a week. For his first major feature-film role, Broadway Thru a Keyhole (1933), Russ received very positive notices (more for his vocals and pleasing personality than for his dramatic abilities).

  Columbo formed a music-publishing company, appeared in his own Sunday night NBC radio program, and signed a long-term deal with Universal Pictures to make a string of musicals (including a remake of Show Boat). As fate would have it, though, he made only one—Wake Up and Dream (1934). By the time it was released, Russ Columbo was dead.

  Russ Columbo in a relaxed pose in 1934. At the time, he rivaled Bing Crosby as America’s top crooner.

  Courtesy of JC Archives

  As the most accepted version of the event has it, on Friday night, August 31, 1934, he and pal Carole Lombard dressed in disguise to attend a sneak preview of Wake Up and Dream. During the weekend, he and Carole supposedly argued. On Sunday, September 2, Columbo went to 584 Lillian Way in West Hollywood to visit a close friend, Hollywood portrait photographer Lansing V. Brown Jr. About 1:45 P.M., the two were chatting and examining Brown’s prized collection of Civil War dueling pistols. (Brown’s parents, who were visiting that day, were in the kitchen at the time.) Brown supposedly struck a match on one of the firearms, which (unknown to him) had been loaded many years before. A bullet exploded from the pistol. It ricocheted off a nearby desk and bounced back to hit Columbo in the left eye. Russ collapsed, screaming, as the corroded pellet lodged in his brain. When the police arrived, they initially assumed that he was dead, but the singer was still alive. He was first rushed by ambulance to Hollywood Receiving Hospital and later transferred to the Hospital of the Good Samaritan, where he underwent emergency surgery. Meanwhile, Carole Lombard, who was vacationing in Lake Arrowhead, was notified; she immediately drove down to Los Angeles. By the time she arrived, Russ was dead, never having regained consciousness. Another girlfriend, Sally Blane, was at the hospital when he passed away at 7:30 P.M. He was 26.