Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries

by Paul Donnelley

  CAUSE: He had been diagnosed with cancer some time after working on the Howard Hughes film The Conqueror (1956) – in fact, an inordinately large number (around half) of cast and crew were stricken with the disease. The movie had been shot in St George, Utah, near the site of atom bomb tests. At the start of 1963 Armendáriz was diagnosed with lymph cancer and his scenes as Karim Bey in the Bond film From Russia With Love (1964) were completed at breakneck speed. In June 1963, 51-year-old Armendáriz was admitted to Los Angeles’ UCLA Medical Center with neck cancer. On the 18th he shot himself through the heart with a gun he had brought with him to the hospital.

  Billy Armstrong

  Born January 14, 1891

  Died March 1, 1924

  Bristolian comedian. Armstrong was among the first English comedians to travel to America with Fred Karno and in 1915 signed with the Essanay Studios. He appeared in The Bank (1915) and By The Sea (1915). At the end of the year he joined Cub Comedies where he starred in The Twin Trunk Mystery (1916). He then joined Mack Sennett to appear in Black Eyes And Blue (1916). He also worked with Oliver Hardy and Harry Langdon. He was married to the actress Marion Parker who died in November 1920.

  CAUSE: Armstrong died aged 33 in Sunland, California.

  Desi Arnaz

  (DESIDERIO ALBERTO ARNAZ Y DE ACHA III)

  Born March 2, 1917

  Died December 2, 1986

  Mr Lucy. Born in Santiago, Cuba, the scion of a wealthy family Arnaz arrived in America aged 16 and broke because of the Battista revolution in Cuba. He was a talented musician and soon had his own band. In 1940 he made his film début in Too Many Girls (1940) and also married his co-star Lucille Ball. He was to make only ten films but gained immortality as the male lead of the I Love Lucy television show and co-founder of the Desilu Studios.

  CAUSE: He died in Del Mar, California, aged 69, of lung cancer. He was cremated.

  Peter Arne

  (PETER ALBRECHT)

  Born September 29, 1918

  Died August 1, 1983

  Suavey. Peter Arne was one of those rare actors who never really made it to stardom although he was rarely short of work. Born in Kuala Lumpur, Arne began his acting career in the theatre in 1937. During World War II he became a fighter pilot and was shot down over the Channel. As he swam ashore he was greeted with shouts from scores of people on the shore who had watched the dogfight. Thinking they were lauding him as a hero, he was later horrified to find out the crowd were trying to warn him that he was swimming through a minefield. After the war Peter Arne appeared in more than 50 films, including Ice Cold In Alex (1957), Khartoum (1966), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), Straw Dogs (1971), Antony & Cleopatra (1972), Return Of The Pink Panther (1975) and Victor/Victoria (1982). On television he worked on The Avengers, Man In A Suitcase, The Saint, To Serve Them All My Days and Secret Army. Like many actors Peter Arne was a homosexual and, like many homosexuals, he was a witty raconteur much in demand at society parties. However, Arne was ashamed of his sexuality and sought to hide it. He dared not venture to gay clubs lest he be recognised and publicly exposed. In order to find sexual partners Arne would dress as a tramp and hang around the arches of London’s Charing Cross and Victoria Embankment. If he met some vagrant who took his fancy he would invite the man to his home, offer him a bath and a meal and then suggest sex. Arne’s flat in Hans Place, Knightsbridge, was decorated with art deco glassware and other antiques, a subject on which he was well versed.

  CAUSE: On July 29, 1983, Arne made himself up, donned his tramp’s rags and set out for Victoria Embankment. There he met Tom Jackson, a 24-year-old Nottingham man and, discovering he was homeless, Arne took Jackson to Hans Place. There the vagrant took a bath and ate a meal but Arne made no sexual approaches. The next night Arne stayed in with Jackson and the two men chatted. Again, Arne did not make any advances. On July 31 Arne made his move and Jackson allowed himself to be seduced. The next day Jackson went to sign on and gave Arne’s flat as his address. Arne had recently achieved one of his dearest ambitions, to appear in Dr Who. That morning, after going to the dole office himself, Arne went for costume fittings. He had arranged to meet Jackson at the flat at 2pm. Arne returned to the flat early – at 12.30. Sometime during the next 80 minutes Peter Arne was murdered. At 1.50pm neighbours heard what was later described as “a commotion” although none of them thought to go and investigate. Jackson arrived back at 2pm and rang the doorbell but was unable to elicit a reply. He waited outside, occasionally going to a telephone and ringing Arne’s number. Just before 4pm a maid from an upstairs flat discovered a bloodstained log in the communal hall and summoned the police. Jackson was still waiting outside when the police arrived and he was arrested. Forty-eight hours later, he was released. Police discovered Arne’s bloody, beaten body just inside the door of his flat. He had been savagely attacked with a log from his own fireplace. The flat was not ransacked and none of Arne’s valuable antiques were missing. Police assumed that Arne had been murdered by a former boyfriend. Three days later, the body of one of Arne’s ex-boyfriends, 32-year-old Giuseppe Perusi, was found floating in the Thames. It is only supposition – Arne’s murder is still unsolved – but a theory holds that Arne was murdered by Perusi after a sex act and then the Italian committed suicide. Another theory has it that Arne’s interest in antiques had led him to be unwittingly caught in an international smuggling operation that led to the deaths of a Milanese cocaine dealer and Jeanette May, an Englishwoman who disappeared in Italy in 1980. Whoever killed him robbed the acting profession of a fine professional, society of a witty raconteur and Peter Arne of his most treasured ambition and his life. A waste.

  Cecile Arnold

  (CECILE LAVAL ARNOUX)

  Born 1895

  Died 1931

  Keystone supporting actor. Born in New York to a French father and American mother she worked alongside Charlie Chaplin, although a claim that she also worked with Fatty Arbuckle cannot be substantiated. She made her début in Such A Cook (1914) and the following year she began to appear in Keystone films but her career came to an end in 1917 after she holidayed in Honolulu. She then travelled to China where she met her future husband, a British banker. A son was later born in America but she preferred to live in the Far East.

  CAUSE: She died of the flu while visiting Hong Kong. She was 36.

  Dorothy Arnold

  (DOROTHY ARNOLDINE OLSON)

  Born November 21, 1917

  Died November 13, 1984

  The first Mrs Joe DiMaggio. It must be bad enough to lose your husband to another woman, but when the other woman is Marilyn Monroe it must be doubly distressing. Born in Duluth, Minnesota, her father worked for the local railway and she had three sisters. 5́ 5˝ Dorothy Arnold was an athletic blonde who wanted to become a big star. She appeared in a few productions at Denfield High School in Duluth and when she left education at the age of 15 she joined a travelling theatre troupe. Yet a life on the road was not the glamorous show business life she expected and she returned home but her ambitions remained undiminished. By the age of 17, she was living in New York, eking out an existence as a singer. Spotted by a talent scout she was signed to Universal Pictures on a small retainer. She was to tell reporters that she fell in love with 6́ 2˝ Joe DiMaggio (b. Martinez, California, November 25, 1914) in August 1937 on the set of Manhattan Merry-Go-Round (1937) “before I even knew who he was”. However, many close to her believe she knew exactly who the world’s biggest baseball star was and set her cap at him, knowing that an association with him would help with her own cinematic ambitions. Dorothy announced their betrothal on April 25, 1939, at a press conference where reporters noticed the absence of a ring on the third finger of her left hand. She explained, “Oh, I haven’t got a ring or anything. It’s just understood between Joe and me. We’ll get married this summer and go on holiday after the baseball season.” In fact, although DiMaggio had popped the question, he had not even thought about a date let alone a honeymoon and knew nothing of the announcement. H
e confirmed the engagement but denied that he would be married that summer. To Dorothy’s disappointment Universal did not capitalise on her fame or rather her boyfriend’s fame by putting her in big pictures. She played a barmaid in The Storm (1938), a secretary in Secrets Of A Nurse (1938), both films starring Edmund Lowe. She played the lead, Jean Drew, in The Phantom Creeps (1939) but it did not set the box office alight and no print remains. She appeared in Risky Business (1939), Gambling Ship (1939), Pirates Of The Skies (1939) and You Can’t Cheat An Honest Man (1939) but did not receive on-screen billing in any of them. A Universal executive commented, “She isn’t anybody special. To tell you the truth, we doubt if she ever will be.” Dorothy made four more films in that momentous year of 1939: The Family Next Door, The House Of Fear, Unexpected Father and Hero For A Day. On Sunday, November 19, 1939, two days before her 22nd birthday and after she had converted to Catholicism, she married DiMaggio at the Church of St Peter and St Paul in San Francisco,. Huge crowds thronged the streets around the church to see the sporting hero and his bride. The mayor placed plain-clothes policemen among the congregation to ensure their safety and the church doors were locked early resulting in Vince DiMaggio almost missing his brother’s wedding. The ceremony began 30 minutes behind schedule. The guests ate and quaffed $1,500 worth of food and drink at the reception. However, DiMaggio had been used to being pampered by his mother and five sisters and expected his new wife to be subordinate to his whims and his career. Dorothy insisted they move to New York whereas he preferred San Francisco. In New York he preferred nights out with the boys to nights in with his wife. Like many couples on the verge of splitting, the DiMaggios thought that perhaps a baby might bring them closer together. Their only child, Joseph Paul DiMaggio, Jr was born on October 23, 1941, in San Francisco. Within a year Dorothy had moved to Reno, Nevada, with her young son to establish residency rights and file for divorce. On January 13, 1943, the couple attempted a reconciliation and on February 17, DiMaggio joined the military (he was discharged on September 14, 1945, having never fired a shot in anger). On October 11, 1943, Dorothy filed for divorce in Los Angeles, charging her husband with cruelty. The marriage ended in 1944 but DiMaggio carried a torch for his ex-wife. That torch was extinguished two years later when she married New York stockbroker, George Schubert. That same year DiMaggio had a poor season and his team mates put it down to him pining for his ex-wife. In 1950 the Schuberts were divorced and Dorothy spent that Christmas with her son and Joe DiMaggio in a ski chalet in Reno. In 1951, Dorothy told gossip columnist Hedda Hopper that “just between us, I am thinking of getting back with Joe”. On December 2, 1951, DiMaggio announced his retirement from professional baseball. But the possible reconciliation was scuppered when DiMaggio met the world’s greatest sex symbol of all time. Their first date was at a restaurant called The Villa Nova on Sunset Boulevard in March, 1952. When DiMaggio’s romance with Marilyn Monroe became serious, Arnold began to badmouth him to the media claiming that he was a bad father who was exposing his son to unsuitable people and places. However, naturally, she insisted that she was only speaking out for everyone’s benefit and not, heaven forbid, because she was a woman scorned. DiMaggio hit back by claiming that his ex-wife was spending some of the child support payments on herself. The matter could only be settled in court and on October 16, 1952, Judge Elmer Doyle in Los Angeles found for DiMaggio and even told Dorothy she had been foolish to divorce the ball player eight years earlier. DiMaggio married Monroe on January 14, 1954, at San Francisco Town Hall but the match was punctuated with violence and the couple separated after nine months. Dorothy married again (to Gary Peck) and in 1957 made another film Lizzie but her career and her life in the spotlight were over. Joe DiMaggio outlived his first wife by 15 years, dying of lung cancer in Hollywood, Florida, on March 8, 1999. Joe Jr married Sue Adams, an attractive divorcée with two daughters, but the couple divorced in 1974 after Joe became involved with drugs and beat up his wife. In 1976 a car accident resulted in surgery to remove a blood clot from his brain. The operation saved his life but left him short-tempered. He found it difficult to live in his father’s shadow and the two men were estranged at the elder DiMaggio’s death, not least due to the younger DiMaggio’s continued closeness to Monroe after Joe Sr fell out with her. DiMaggio Sr left his son just a $20,000 annual trust while leaving the two girls he regarded as his granddaughters much more. Five months after his father died, Joe DiMaggio Jr died on August 6, 1999 in a hospital in Antioch, northern California. A hospital spokesman ascribed the death to natural causes.

  CAUSE: She died in Palm Springs eight days before her 67th birthday. She had been suffering from cancer.

  Jean Arthur

  (GLADYS GEORGIANNA GREENE)

  Born October 17, 1900

  Died June 19, 1991

  Reclusive star. Jean Arthur guarded her privacy so well she made Greta Garbo look like the life and soul of the party. Like Garbo, she, too, was lesbian. Born in Plattsburgh, upstate New York, about 20 miles south of the American-Canadian border, the brown-haired, blue-eyed daughter of a photographer, Arthur grew up in Manhattan. A stint as a teenage model led the 5́ 2˝ Arthur to film work and an appearance in Somebody Lied (1923) and John Ford’s Cameo Kirby (1923) as Ann Playdell. Arthur appeared in over 20 silent films, including The Temple Of Venus (1923), Case Dismissed (1924), Wine Of Youth (1924), Biff Bang Buddy (1924) as Bonnie Norton, Bringin’ Home The Bacon (1924) as Nancy Norton, The Drug Store Cowboy (1925) as Jean, Thundering Through (1925) as Ruth Burroughs and Born To Battle (1926) as Eunice Morgan, but never seemed to show any real star potential. In 1927 she signed to Paramount, where she began an affair with producer David O. Selznick. She appeared in Warming Up (1928) as Mary Post, Brotherly Love (1928) as Mary, Sins Of The Fathers (1928) as Mary Spengler, The Mysterious Dr Fu Manchu (1929) as Lia Eltham, The Greene Murder Case (1929) as Ada Greene, Halfway To Heaven (1929) as Greta Nelson and The Return Of Dr Fu Manchu (1930) reprising her portrayal of Lia Eltham. In 1928 she married photographer Julian Anker but the marriage lasted just one day – it was annulled when Arthur claimed her studio contract forbade any match. In April 1931 she was dropped by Paramount and returned to the stage. On June 11, 1932, she married singer (later producer) Frank Ross, Jr. They divorced on March 14, 1949. (Ross then married Joan Caulfield who, by a bizarre coincidence, died on the same day as Jean Arthur.) Later (1933) she signed with Columbia and appeared in Whirlpool (1934) as Sandra Morrison, The Defense Rests (1934) as Joan Hayes, If You Could Only Cook (1935) as Joan Hawthorne, Frank Capra’s Mr Deeds Goes To Town (1936) as Babe Bennett, Cecil B. DeMille’s The Plainsman (1936) as Calamity Jane, History Is Made At Night (1937) as Irene Vail and Capra’s Mr Smith Goes To Washington (1939) as Clarissa Saunders. Capra admitted she was his favourite actress but said of her: “You can’t get her in front of the camera without her crying, whining, vomiting, all that shit she does. But when she does get in front of the camera, and you turn on the lights – wow! All of that disappears and out comes a strong-minded woman. Then, when she finished the scene, she runs back to the dressing room and hides.” She also had a reputation for being difficult with her co-stars and insisted her face was only ever shot from the right side. “I am not an adult. Except when I am actually working on the set, I have all the inhibitions and shyness of the bashful, backward child.” On December 17, 1938, she screen-tested, unsuccessfully, for the part of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With The Wind (1939). During the early war years she appeared in Arizona (1940) as Phoebe Titus, The Devil And Miss Jones (1941) as Mary Jones, The Talk Of The Town (1942) as Nora Shelley, The More The Merrier (1943) as Connie Milligan, for which she was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar (losing out to Jennifer Jones for The Song Of Bernadette [1943]), and The Impatient Years (1944) as Janice Anderson before jettisoning Hollywood for a second time. When her contract with Columbia ended she ran through the streets yelling, “I’m free! I’m free!” She returned to the stage and made just two more films before leaving Hollywood f
or good. She was Phoebe Frost in Billy Wilder’s A Foreign Affair (1948) and Marian Starrett in George Stevens’ Shane (1953). From September 12 until December 5, 1966, she appeared on television in the CBS sitcom The Jean Arthur Show playing Patricia Marshall, the best defence lawyer in town. She never returned to the big screen and rarely talked about her previous life. “I hated [Hollywood] – not the work, but the lack of privacy, those terrible prying fan magazine writers and all the surrounding exploitation.” When asked by one television station for an interview, she replied, “Quite frankly, I’d rather have my throat slit.” She taught drama at Vassar from 1968 until 1972 and other colleges.

  CAUSE: In 1989 she suffered a stroke that invalided her. She died in Carmel Convalescent Hospital, Carmel, California, of heart failure aged 90. No funeral service was held, at her own request, and she was cremated. Her ashes were sprinkled at sea off Point Lobos, California.

  Johnny Arthur