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

by Parish, James Robert

  David Gordon Strickland Jr. was born in 1969 in Glen Cove, an affluent Long Island town. His parents, Gordon (an executive) and Carolyn (a director of Find the Children, a social welfare group), raised him in Princeton, New Jersey. When David was 16, the family moved to Pacific Palisades, California. The preppy-looking teenager attended the local high school, where he was the resident prankster. In later interviews, he would describe himself during this period as disruptive, the kind of guy who partied way too much. But he also happened to take an acting class during high school. To his surprise, he found that he liked acting—almost as much as alcohol (for which he was developing a real taste).

  Strickland graduated from high school in 1987. Instead of following the usual middle-class path to college, the 18-year-old David decided to break into show business. He devoted a great deal of time to writing sketches, both solo and with friends. He joined an improv-comedy group called It’s Funny Until Someone Loses an Eye and often performed with them at the Melrose Theatre in West Hollywood. To hone his skills and make professional connections, the ambitious, impatient young performer took nonpaying acting jobs in various student films. He made almost five dozen of them in a relatively short period of time. David also appeared in several local stage productions ranging from Biloxi Blues to Bye Bye Birdie.

  In 1990, Strickland made his first big professional project. He wrote and starred in a sitcom pilot, New Used Cars. It didn’t sell, but he loved the experience. He kept making the rounds of casting calls and finally, in the early 1990s, his efforts paid off. David got bit parts on such TV sitcoms as Dave’s World, Sister, Sister, and Rosearme. In 1995, he almost became a star when he played the lead character in a sitcom pilot from Dream Works called Max. However, it didn’t get picked up by the network. In early 1996, David had a recurring role in a few episodes of the popular sitcom Mad About You.

  In the summer of 1996, Strickland’s career finally took off. He had been hired for a new NBC sitcom, Suddenly Susan, starring Brooke Shields. The plot had Brooke working at The Gate, a hip San Francisco-based magazine. Strickland was cast as Todd Stites, the publication’s horny but sweet music editor. The series debuted in September; it was slow to catch on, but eventually became a hit with TV viewers. By the spring of 1997, it was the number-three show on the air. According to cast members, David was a very hard worker, always anxious to do his best and help keep the show on the top of the ratings.

  This should have been the best time of David’s life. He was in a successful series, earning a lucrative salary, and getting very good word-of-mouth reviews for his performance. (Granted, he was privately unhappy that his character was not one of the show’s focal points.) Only a few other cast members and close friends knew about the hellish emotional pain that David was enduring. For many years he had been going on heavy drinking binges and, eventually, abusing drugs as well. This was something he tried hard to hide from others.

  During the summer hiatus from Suddenly Susan, Strickland signed on for a leading role in the dark comedy Delivered (1998). Again, other cast members would say later that they had rarely seen anyone work as hard or as responsibly as David, especially given the demands and limitations of a low-budget quickie film (in which hours are long and the amenities few).

  In the fall of 1997, Suddenly Susan returned for its second season. By October of that year, David had been persuaded to start seeing a psychologist to deal with his substance-abuse problems. He lasted only a month in therapy before returning to his old habits. One evening he disappeared on an all-night binge, and no one knew where to find him. Those who didn’t perceive his escalating problems thought it was unlike the dependable David. It didn’t help matters that by the spring of 1998, Suddenly Susan was experiencing rating declines. This put a lot of pressure on the cast regulars to get the show back into the running.

  After the second season ended, David accepted an offer for a supporting role in Forces of Nature (1999), starring Sandra Bullock and Ben Affleck. It was a major production and an excellent chance for Strickland to showcase his talent. The romantic comedy was filmed on location in Georgia and North Carolina.

  By the time Suddenly Susan began its third season in the fall of 1998, David’s problems were snowballing. On Halloween night he was pulled over and arrested for driving erratically. When the police searched his car, they found a stash of crack cocaine. At his court hearing on December 21, 1998, David pleaded no contest. He was put on a 36-month probation and ordered to enter a drug rehab program. If he didn’t do as the court instructed him, he could go to jail.

  To everyone’s surprise, Strickland began attending AA meetings. He also started a relationship with Tiffani-Amber Thiessen (of Beverly Hills 90210 fame). On the surface, he seemed to be making a complete turnaround. But, as events would later prove, the reality was very different. Strickland was just being a good actor, putting on a show for those around him. He let the people who cared about him see the good, responsible David and hid from them his depressed, drug-addled side. As later analyzed, these were all manifestations of someone suffering from manic depression and depressive disphoria.

  Unknown to everyone except close friends such as Brooke Shields, David slit his wrists in January 1999. He was rushed to St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, where he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Doctors prescribed lithium and other treatment. For a time it seemed to work, and David returned to his “normal” self. With the greatest willpower, he continued to keep his problems away from the set.

  By the spring of 1999, things were looking up for David. He had already directed a feature, Greenwich Mean Times. He was writing a script for another film, and he had plans to direct a few episodes of Suddenly Susan. With all his various acting jobs, he was earning close to $1 million a year. But then everything fell apart for David Strickland. For some reason, he stopped taking his lithium. He immediately swung out of control.

  On Friday, March 19, 1999, Forces of Nature opened to big box-office acclaim. The film was a good showcase for David; it undoubtedly would have led to more big-screen assignments. (However, Strickland’s part in the movie had been cut slightly during the picture’s last edit. This was standard moviemaking practice, done to balance out a picture’s running time, but Strickland took the diminished role very personally.) The next day, David had lunch with Tiffani-Amber Thiessen to discuss going to the upcoming Academy Awards ceremony together. According to tabloid newspaper accounts, he was excited about their future together, but she said that before they could plan anything, he must get his life under control and be clean and sober. David reportedly left their meeting depressed, angry, and very hurt.

  That Saturday night, Strickland met friends to go out for a night on the town. The group included comedian Andy Dick and actor Jason Bateman. They went to one of their favorite strip clubs, Fantasy Island, in West Los Angeles. When the club closed at 2:00 A.M., they went to a friend’s house, and then on to an all-night party at the Mondrian Hotel, on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. The next morning, around 9:30 A.M., Jason Bateman and most of the others went home. David and Andy Dick decided to take the party on to Las Vegas.

  They flew to the gaming capital that day and started bouncing around from club to club. The two fast-moving friends stopped in at a lap-dance club called the Glitter Gulch, on Freemont Street downtown. Next, they headed on to Cheetahs, a 24-hour strip club. David was chugging down beers at each of these destinations.

  Around 4:00 A.M. on Monday morning, March 22, David and Andy went their separate ways. David headed to the Sin City part of town, well known for its assortment of drug dealers and prostitutes. He found a hooker and gave her money to register (so he would not be caught on the surveillance camera) at one of the sleazy rent-by-the-hour motels on the 1700 block of Las Vegas Boulevard South. They were assigned to room #4. After the hooker left, David went back to the lobby and checked into room #20, paying $55 with a credit card. Next, he went to a nearby convenience store and bought a six-pack of beer.


  After returning to his room, David placed his wallet and pager neatly on the bedside table. As he finished each of his beers, he set the cans down in a row on the table. Next, he carefully removed the top sheet from the bed and tied one end over the ceiling rafter. He stood on a chair and tied the other end of the sheet around his neck. Then he kicked the chair out from underneath him.

  When David had not checked out by 11:00 A.M., the night clerk’s wife used her master key to get into the room. She found David dead, hanging from the rafters. He was wearing jeans, a khaki shirt, and black high-top running shoes. When the police investigated the scene of the suicide, they found a phone number in David’s pants pocket. They called and reached Andy Dick—the comedian was asked later to identify the body. It was March 22, 1999, ironically the day that David Strickland was supposed to have made a court appearance in Los Angeles to prove that he was dealing with his problems; it was part of his drug rehab program.

  A grief-stricken Brooke Shields issued the following statement: “I am devastated by the loss of my best friend, whose talent and humor graced all who knew him. I pray to God David’s pure heart is now at peace.”

  On March 26, 1999, a memorial service was held for David in Glendale, California. After cremation, his ashes were given to his family. Suddenly Susan dedicated the May 24, 1999 episode (“A Day in the Life”) to the late David Strickland. In the installment, Susan learns about several positive sides of her coworker’s life that she hadn’t guessed at before. Her closing lines are: “It’s the things you had a chance to say every day and didn’t that you end up regretting.” Suddenly Susan would last one more TV season before going off the air in the spring of 2000.

  Lupe Velez

  [Guadalupe Velez de Villalobos]

  July 18, 1908–December 14, 1944

  Petite screen star Lupe Velez was an exotic fireball with tremendous self-confidence, a knack for self-promotion, and a vulnerability masked by sexual aggressiveness. Variously known as the Hot Tamale, the Mexican Wildcat, and the Queen of the Hot-Cha, the madcap Velez ended her life as turbulently as she had lived it—in a blaze of scandalous headlines.

  Lupe was born in 1908 in San Luis de Potosi, a suburb of Mexico City. Her father was an officer in the Mexican Army; her mother had been an opera singer. Lupe had three siblings: Emigdio, Mercedes, and Josefina. Lupe’s parents sent her to a convent school in San Antonio, Texas, because she was “too rambunctious.” When her father died a few years later, Lupe returned home to help support the family. Given her beauty and shapely figure, it was perhaps natural that she soon turned to show business; in 1924 she was cast in the musical revue Ra-Ta-Plan.

  Lupe arrived penniless in Hollywood in 1926, but soon found work dancing in the local Music Box Revue, which starred Fanny Brice. This stint led to Broadway offers, but Lupe rejected them, wanting to break into movies instead. Producer Hal Roach put her in a comedy short in 1927, but she did much better as the wild mountain girl in The Gaucho (1928, costarring Douglas Fairbanks). The role had originally been thought of for another Mexican actress, Dolores Del Rio (who would remain Velez’s screen rival for years). Lupe made an accented talkie film debut in the badly received Lady of the Pavements (1929), codirected by former screen great D. W. Griffith.

  While filming Wolf Song (1929), the irrepressible Lupe (who was five feet, one-half inch) began a passionate romance with her handsome costar Gary Cooper (who was six feet, two inches). For a time they lived together in a Spanish-style house on Laurel Canyon Boulevard in the Hollywood Hills. When Cooper’s studio and his parents broke up their romance, the volatile Velez turned to other stars, including John Gilbert, and then fixated on the muscular swimmer-actor Johnny Weissmuller, whom she married in October 1933. Meanwhile, Lupe played fascinating spitfires of various races on-screen in East Is West (1930), The Squaw Man (1931), and Cuban Love Song (1931).

  Velez went to Broadway for two musicals, Hot-Cha! with Bert Lahr (1932) and Strike Me Pink with Jimmy Durante (1933). She then returned to Los Angeles and signed a contract with MGM, the studio where her husband was making Tarzan jungle adventures. Her resultant pictures were tame, but she made wild headlines for her ongoing spats and dramatic separations and reunions with Weissmuller (whom she would divorce in 1938).

  Lupe Velez in a delicate moment with Albert Conti in Lady of the Pavements (1929).

  Courtesy of JC Archives

  RKO rescued Lupe’s career from its slow decline by starring her in the tailor-made Girl from Mexico (1939). With rubber-legged comedian Leon Errol as her costar, the comedy set the tone for seven later episodes in the popular Mexican Spitfire series, which ran until 1943. That year, she met the 27-year-old Harold Ramond, an unemployed French actor. Lupe cooed, “I’ve always been used to controlling men, but I try it with Harold and he tells me where to go.” After the Mexican-made Nana received poor reviews in June 1944, Lupe announced plans to return to the stage that fall, but they fell through.

  On November 27, a very excited Lupe announced that she and Harold Ramond would wed. By December 10, however, the temperamental actress had called off the planned nuptials. Unknown to the public at the time, the movie star was already four months pregnant and in a desperate quandary. A devout Catholic, she dreaded the thought of her child being born illegitimate, but she was unconvinced that Harold truly loved her for herself. In desperation, Velez even thought of giving birth to the child and then having one of her sisters (who lived with her) claim the infant as her own. Given her religion and the moral climate of the times, Lupe never considered the option of an unlawful abortion.

  On Wednesday, December 13, Lupe attended the Hollywood premiere of Nana. She told her good friend, actress Estelle Taylor, “I am getting to the place where the only thing I am afraid of is life itself. . . . People think that I like to fight. I have to fight for everything. I’m so tired of it all. . . . I’ve never met a man with whom I didn’t have to fight to exist.”

  Later that evening, Velez returned alone to her Beverly Hills mansion at 732 North Rodeo Drive. (Her sisters were away at the time.) Putting on her favorite blue silk pajamas, she sat down on her oversized bed and swallowed an overdose of sleeping pills. The next morning, when her housekeeper couldn’t awaken her, a physician was summoned; he pronounced Lupe dead.

  Two notes were found by the bed. One was addressed to Ramond:

  * * *

  You know the facts for the reason 1 am taking my life.

  * * *

  The other letter was to her housekeeper and companion, Mrs. Beulah Kinder:

  * * *

  My faithful friend,

  You and only you know the facts for the reason 1 am taking my life. May God forgive me, and don’t think bad of me. . . . Say goodbye to all my friends and the American press that were always so nice to me.

  * * *

  A postscript begged her pal to take care of her pet dogs, Chips and Chops.

  (A much-circulated apocryphal account of Lupe’s final day had her trying to exit in a grand manner. According to this narrative, after having her hair styled and makeup applied, she put on a flamboyant dress and ate a solitary banquet. Later, having dismissed the servants, she went to the master bedroom, where she swallowed several dozen Seconal tablets and lay down to await the end. But the mix of the Seconal and spicy food brought on an upset stomach. As Lupe raced to the bathroom toilet, she slipped on the marble tiles. She fell headfirst into the commode and broke her neck, killing herself in a terribly undignified manner. The unconfirmed report states that she was found later, half submerged in the bowl.)

  After a dispute between the Beverly Hills coroner and the city’s district attorney, it was decided that an autopsy would not be performed. A nondenominational church service was provided for Lupe at Forest Lawn Memorial Park’s Church of the Recessional in Glendale, California. Over four thousand friends, fans, and curiosity-seekers passed by her casket. The pallbearers included Johnny Weissmuller, Gilbert Roland, and Arturo de Cordova. Later, Lupe was buried at
the Pateon Delores Cemetery in Mexico City.

  The worth of Lupe’s estate was estimated at $160,000 to $200,000. She bequeathed approximately one-third of her assets to Mrs. Kinder (the will’s executrix), with the remainder placed in a trust fund for her family. One of Lupe’s sisters unsuccessfully contested the will and at the hearing, proudly told the judge how she had saved the estate more than $20,000 by vetoing her sister’s burial in an expensive bronze casket and not permitting a $16,000 diamond ring nor a $15,000 ermine cape to be interred with the body. In mid-1945, Lupe’s Beverly Hills home was sold at auction. The highly publicized oversized deathbed went for a mere $45.

  Such was the end of Lupe Velez, who had said shortly before her needless death, “I just want to have a little fun! I know I’m not worth anything. I can’t sing well. I can’t dance well. I’ve never done anything like that [well] . . .”

  Hervé Villechaize

  April 23, 1943–September 4, 1993

  It is Hollywood superstition that celebrity deaths occur in clusters of three, each death hard on the heels of the other. In this instance, the trio of show-business passings were separated by several years. Yet the three dead men shared several distinct similarities: each celebrity died suddenly, each was only three feet, eleven inches tall, and each fought to forge a career as a respected, nonstereo-typical actor in the entertainment industry.

  When Oklahoma-born Michael Dunn, whose feature films included Ship of Fools (1965), No Way to Treat a Lady (1968), Justine (1969), and The Abdication (1974), died in London in 1973, it was listed as a “possible suicide.” On the other hand, there was no question about the abrupt passing of British-born David Rappaport, who was featured in such movies as Time Bandits (1981) and The Bride (1985). One day in May 1990, he took his Labrador dog, Rickie, for a walk in Laurel Canyon Park (in the San Fernando Valley of southern California). The next day Rappaport’s body was found there. He had shot himself in the chest with a .38-caliber pistol.