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

by Parish, James Robert

  In the summer of 1942, Mario made his Tanglewood debut in the opera The Merry Wives of Windsor; he then went on concert tour. His promising career, however, was cut short when he was drafted into World War II duty the next January. Because of his singing abilities, he was assigned to the U.S. Army’s Special Services unit and was cast in their productions of On the Beam and Winged Victory. Mario toured with the latter show in California, where actress Irene Manning was so impressed with his talent that she had him audition for Jack Warner. Because Lanza then weighed over 250 pounds, the Warner Bros, mogul dismissed his screen potential. Later, Lanza sang at a party hosted by Frank Sinatra, where he found a talent agent who would negotiate an RCA Victor recording contract for him. In early 1945, Lanza was discharged from the service, and that April, he married Betty Hicks, the sister of an army friend. (They would have four children: Colleen, Elisa, Damon, and Marc.)

  In 1947 Lanza performed a breathtaking concert at the Hollywood Bowl. After enjoying the performance, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio head Louis B. Mayer signed Lanza to a seven-year film contract, with salary starting at $750 a week. Mario’s screen debut was in That Midnight Kiss (1949), followed by The Toast of New Orleans (1950), both opposite Kathryn Grayson. His ego inflated by the tremendous progress of his multimedia career, Mario demanded that his next vehicle be the story of the legendary Caruso. (Lanza proclaimed frequently that he was the reincarnation of the Great Voice.)

  At this point, what Lanza wanted, he usually got. The Great Caruso (1951) grossed $4.5 million at the box office, a very tidy sum at that time. By now, however, Lanza was becoming increasingly volatile and so crude at times that actresses shuddered at the thought of working with him on the soundstages.

  The studio announced that Lanza would next be showcased in the Sigmund Romberg operetta The Student Prince (1954). But after prerecording his songs, Mario got into an argument with MGM and walked away from the project. Metro sued him, but a new studio regime came onto the lot, a compromise was reached, and Lanza returned. Filming began, only to be plagued by more disputes over Mario’s growing obesity, and the star soon quit again. Eventually, Mario agreed to permit his singing voice to be used on the sound track while handsome, trim Edmund Purdon mouthed the words on-screen. Lanza’s studio contract was terminated, and the hot-tempered star pouted, “I rebelled because of my sincerity to the public and my career.”

  In October 1954, Lanza made his dramatic debut on TV in Lend an Ear. His attempts to lose weight (through a diet of grapefruit and booze) had caused his voice to grow weak, and the producers decided to dub him using his own recordings. When news of this dubbing circulated around the industry, Lanza lost out on the starring role in The Vagabond King (1956) and suffered the humility of being replaced by Oreste, a relative unknown. Mario’s reputation was not helped when he suddenly canceled a Las Vegas club engagement in the mid-1950s because his unhealthy habit of mixing champagne and tranquilizers had gotten the best of him and he needed to recuperate.

  Needing a fresh supply of cash to support his luxurious lifestyle, the now-“reformed” Lanza convinced Warner Bros, to hire him at $150,000 a picture. After Serenade (1956) was only moderately successful, the studio felt it could do without Lanza and canceled plans for the remaining pictures. Mario went on concert tours, but they weren’t sufficient to support both him and his family.

  Even though the Hollywood studios had washed their hands of him, Lanza’s name was still magic in Europe. He signed a two-picture deal with an Italian company and rented a sumptuous Rome villa, reasoning, “I’m a movie star and I think I should live like one.” Seven Hills of Rome (1958) had gorgeous, colorful scenery plus Mario singing “Come Prima” and “Arrivederci Roma.” Ironically, Lanza’s next picture, For the First Time (1959), was handled for U.S. distribution by his old studio, MGM.

  Mario had learned very little from the highs and lows of his flashy career and self-indulgent personal life. He was certain he could continue his eating and drinking binges and then compensate by going on crash diets, aided by appetite-suppressant drugs. But the cumulative strain on his heart was becoming serious. (In addition, he suffered from phlebitis and gout.)

  In 1959, he became acquainted with the exiled gangster kingpin Lucky Luciano, who “suggested” that Mario should sing at an upcoming charity gala in Naples. When Lanza failed to attend a scheduled rehearsal, two menacing thugs visited him to convince him not to back out. Angry at this pressure and now determined not to perform, Mario checked into a clinic in Rome, ostensibly to try a new weight-loss regimen.

  Doctors at the clinic stated to the press that Lanza was having heart trouble, while his wife was informed that he was suffering from the combined effects of pneumonia and the troublesome phlebitis. Some days later, when Lanza’s driver came to visit on October 7, 1959, he found the singer comatose, an empty intravenous tube pumping air into his veins. Lanza died later that day. The official cause was listed as a heart attack, but no one was certain (and if they did know for sure, they weren’t saying) if that was the true cause of death. No official autopsy was performed. Lanza was only 38 years old.

  An open-casket funeral service was held on Saturday, October 10, at the Immaculate Heart of Mary church in Rome. For the procession to the church, the president of Italy lent the carriage—drawn by four horses—that was normally used only for presidential funerals. Father Paul Maloney of Santa Susanna Church officiated at the high mass. The pallbearers for the occasion included actors Robert Alda and Rossano Brazzi.

  Rome, Italy—September 10, 1959: the open casket of singer and movie star Mario Lanza.

  Courtesy of Photofest

  On March 11, 1960, Betty Lanza died of asphyxiation brought on by a self-destructive regimen of alcohol and pills. She had been suffering from depression ever since Lanza’s death. She was buried at Los Angeles’ Holy Cross Cemetery together with Mario, whose body had previously rested at Calvary Cemetery in Los Angeles.

  After their parents’ deaths, the four Lanza children were cared for temporarily by Kathryn Grayson, who had sung duets with Mario and costarred with him in several movies, and then were made wards of Lanza’s parents. As it turned out, they were actually raised by Lanza’s personal manager, Terry Robinson. Lanza’s daughter Colleen was the only one of Mario’s children to become a singer. The Lanzas’ youngest child, Marc, died in Los Angeles of an undisclosed cause on June 27, 1991 at the age of 37.

  In recent years, there has been a surge of interest in the tormented tenor. In June 1998 a huge crowd turned out in Grant Park in Chicago for a tribute to the legendary singer. (Fifty years earlier—a few weeks before Hollywood discovered him—Lanza had given an open-air concert in Grant Park with his recently formed Bel Canto Trio.) Also in the late 1990s, writer and performer Charles GaVoian began presenting his one-man tribute to the late artist, The Mario Lanza Story. Various compilations of Lanza’s recordings remain popular with the still-intrigued public.

  Bruce Lee

  [Lee Jun Fan]

  November 27, 1940–July 20, 1973

  Becoming a master of the martial arts requires tremendous dedication, focus, and discipline. The handsome Bruce Lee (promoted as the Asian Clint Eastwood) displayed all these qualities during his meteoric television and movie career. Besides his good looks, his athletic acumen, and his intensity, he also had a charismatic way of conversing, using direct language to express his passionate feelings.

  Lee always had a premonition that his life would be short; it drove him to push for his goals all the faster and to live each day as if it was his last. As he predicted, his international success was cut short by his untimely death. But, as with other twentieth-century icons such as Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe, the cloudy circumstances of Bruce’s passing only fueled his mystique. A hero in his lifetime, the magnetic martial-arts expert became a legend in death.

  He was born Lee Jun Fan in San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1940, the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese calendar. He was the fourth child of Li Hoi
-chuen and his Shanghai-born wife, Grace Li. His father was a veteran of the Cantonese Opera (which specialized in vaudeville). At the time of Bruce’s birth, Li was touring the West Coast as a singer and comedian. When the boy—soon nicknamed Li Siu-lung (Little Dragon)—was three, the family relocated to Hong Kong. Having already made his movie debut (playing a baby) in the San Francisco-filmed Golden Gate Girl (1941), it wasn’t long before the precocious, already ambitious Li Siu-lung was acting in Hong Kong feature films. He was usually cast as a short-fused, scowling ruffian. Offscreen, the teen actor had a reputation as a tough guy perpetually in search of the next street fight. But later, while attending Saint Francis Xavier College, he studied martial arts. The peace of mind he found within the ancient discipline helped to end his years as a troublemaking punk.

  In 1958, the slight but muscular young man returned alone to San Francisco. Bruce attended the Edison Vocational School in Seattle and then the University of Washington, where he studied philosophy for three years before dropping out. To support himself, Bruce taught dance and martial arts, and soon he was able to open his own martial-arts academy. One of his pupils, Linda Emery, became his wife in 1964. Their son, Brandon, was born in February 1965, and their daughter, Shannon, in 1969.

  Hoping to break into films in Hollywood, Bruce competed in several martial-arts tournaments. He was spotted by TV producers at a competition in Long Beach, California, and won a role in the action series The Green Hornet (1966-67). Now known professionally as Bruce Lee, he played Kato, the faithful manservant who employed martial arts and Nunchaku (fighting sticks) to subdue villains.

  When The Green Hornet was canceled, Bruce opened another kung fu school; his celebrity clientele included James Coburn, James Garner, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Lee Marvin, and Steve McQueen. It was Garner who got him a small role in Marlowe (1969). Another student, scriptwriter Sterling Silliphant, wrote Lee into a new TV show, Longstreet (1971-72), starring James Franciscus. Bruce campaigned hard for the role of Kwai Chang Caine in the TV series Kung Fu (1972-75), but a Caucasian actor, David Carradine, won the part—it was felt at the time that an Asian-American would not draw a large enough audience.

  Frustrated by the racial discrimination he was facing in Hollywood, Bruce’s ambition became even greater. Determined to prove to the industry that he could be a box-office commodity, Lee accepted an offer from Hong Kong filmmaker Raymond Chow to star in the low-budget The Big Boss (1971). The slam-bang action picture did very well in its U.S. release. Always eager to improve himself physically, Lee began to study other forms of self-defense, which he would use in his future movies. Seeing the increased worldwide profits of each new Lee picture, Warner Bros, signed Bruce (who was billed as “the fastest fists in the East”) to star in the American-produced Enter the Dragon (1973) with John Saxon and Jim Kelly. Years earlier Lee had said, “Hollywood is like a magic kingdom. It’s beyond everyone’s reach.” Now, with his fourth consecutive starring role, he was fulfilling his dream.

  By this point, Bruce, Linda, and their two children were living in a luxurious Hong Kong mansion. Lee traveled to India with James Coburn and Sterling Silliphant to work on the concept of their upcoming film Silent Flute (which eventually would be made in 1979 as Circle of Iron, with David Carradine). Back in Hong Kong, in May 1973, Bruce collapsed on the set of Game of Death. Physicians determined that he had suffered a mild seizure as the result of an epilepsy-like disorder.

  The tombstones in Lake View Cemetery in Seattle, Washington, of martial-arts star Bruce Lee and his son, actor Brandon Lee.

  Courtesy of Lee Mattson

  Several weeks later, on July 20, 1973, Bruce experienced a severe migraine headache while visiting actress Betty Ting Pei to discuss her role in Game of Death. The actress offered him Equagesic, a prescription painkiller containing aspirin and meprobamate that she often took herself. He took it and lay down to rest. Later, Betty tried to awaken Lee—when she couldn’t, she phoned Raymond Chow. He rushed over and, in turn, summoned a physician. Bruce was taken to Queen Elizabeth Hospital, where he died that night. He was only 32 years old.

  Many people thought it seemed odd—to say the least—that the world’s fittest man had just died. Some sources theorized that Lee’s strict “health diet” (including eggs, raw beef, and cattle blood) had finally shocked his system into giving up. Other rumors exploded when initial newspaper accounts of Bruce’s final hours (which claimed he was found at home or at the studio, instead of at Betty Ting Pei’s apartment) were discovered to be a cover-up. An autopsy revealed that for some unknown reason, Lee’s brain had swollen abnormally, although a brain hemorrhage was ruled out. When traces of cannabis were detected in his stomach, the media hyped the drug-abuse theory. (Actually, Bruce took a form of steroids to compensate for a debilitating back injury he had suffered once.) Some insisted that he had been poisoned (with an untraceable drug) or had been the victim of the Vibrating Hand, a legendary martial-arts “touch of death.” The murder hypothesis was based on the rationale that Bruce had angered martial-arts lords by revealing too many trade secrets of the ancient fighting arts to Westerners.

  On July 25, 1973, Bruce was given a royal funeral in Hong Kong where hysterical fans (some twelve thousand) massed the streets in the hope of getting into the funeral parlor to see the star in his open coffin. Six days later, Lee’s body was flown to Seattle, where he was buried at the Lake View Cemetery. Pallbearers at the Washington funeral included James Coburn and Steve McQueen. At the by-invitation-only service, Coburn said, “As a friend and teacher you brought my physical, spiritual, and psychological being together. Thank you and peace be with you.”

  When several parcels containing messages pointing to Betty Ting Pei as the holder of vital information came to the attention of the Hong Kong police, they conducted an inquest, which began on September 3, 1973. The actress admitted that Bruce had been in her apartment on the fatal day. When she explained that she’d given him Equagesic, the coroner brought in a verdict of “death by misadventure,” concluding that Lee had died from a severe allergic reaction to some ingredient in the medication, which caused the sudden brain swelling. Many fans—then and now—have refused to acknowledge the coroner’s verdict as the truth and hold firmly to their speculations.

  Bruce’s untimely death only increased his box-office appeal, and the entertainment industry was happy to use it to turn a profit. His earlier movies were reissued, TV appearances were edited into feature films, and the general merchandising of memorabilia was enormous. Specious documentaries were hastily assembled about Lee’s amazing life. Several imitation kung fu stars (including Bruce Li) appeared out of thin air to star in rip-off kung fu entries, with promotional campaigns that trumpeted, “Bruce Lee Lives!” Lee’s footage from the interrupted Game of Death, which supposedly totaled more than 100 minutes, was used in the 1978 release of that name. But in the revamped plotline, Bruce was only seen in a few minutes of fight footage, with obvious-looking stand-ins padding out his long-delayed “last appearance.” There had been only about 20 minutes of footage.

  In the years following Bruce’s death, his fame as a mythical icon grew stronger and more entrenched in global culture. When his son Brandon died accidentally from a gunshot while making a film in 1993, the Lee clan—father and son—was seemingly forever enmeshed into a legend of tragic greatness that continues to intrigue and fascinate.

  Marilyn Monroe

  [Norma Jeane Mortensen Baker]

  June 1, 1926–August 5, 1962

  Few personalities from the twentieth century—or from any era—have inspired as much enthusiasm, analysis, and worship as Marilyn Monroe. She is an icon among icons; the facts, legends, and rumors about her life and death have been memorized by generations of fans.

  Marilyn was a vulnerable little girl who became a legendary screen star, blessed with a startling figure, a captivating walk, and—on camera—a whispery, childish voice that spoke volumes. Her hectic life was full of contradictions. Marilyn was a fabulous s
ex symbol who had grave misgivings about the extent of both her sex appeal and abilities, and would rather have been a mother than just another screen siren. Some of the sharpest commentary on this confusing blond bombshell came from fellow artists and from Monroe herself:

  For what you finally got on the screen she was worth every hour you had to wait for her. I wish she was around today. How often do you have a face like hers that lights up a screen?

  —BILLY WILDER [DIRECTOR]

  What she wanted most was not to judge but to win recognition from a sentimentally cruel profession, and from men blinded to her humanity by her perfect beauty. She was part queen, part waif, sometimes on her knees before her own body and sometimes despairing because of it.

  —ARTHUR MILLER [PLAYWRIGHT AND EX-HUSBAND]

  I always felt insecure and in the way—but most of all I felt scared. I guess I wanted love more than anything else in the world.

  —MARILYN MONROE

  Certainly a portion of Marilyn Monroe’s enduring fame stems from her sudden death at age 36. At first, most people agreed with the official verdict that her passing was most likely a suicide. It was simpler to accept that this love goddess was a victim of career and personal insecurities, and, thus, label her a casualty of her profession.

  But, as the years passed and the persistent questions about Marilyn’s clouded passing refused to disappear, an increasing number of individuals have come to believe that her romantic relationships with Kennedy clan members (first with then-Senator John F. Kennedy and later with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy) might well have been the cause of her “self-induced” death from a drug overdose. Many people who believe Marilyn Monroe was murdered also think that a conspiracy existed to cover up the secret homicide.