CAUSE: Rod Cameron died of cancer in Gainesville, Georgia. He was a fortnight past his 73rd birthday.
Gerald Campion
Born April 23, 1921
Died July 9, 2002
Yaroo! Forever Bunter. Gerald Theron Campion was born in the Bloomsbury district of London, the son of Cyril Campion (1893–1961), the scriptwriter. One of his godparents was Sir Gerald du Maurier. Educated at University College School, Hampstead, he went to RADA aged 15. At the age of 16 he was cast as Billy Bunter in a film but the company went bust and the production was never made. At the outbreak of the Second World War, he joined up and served as a wireless operator with the RAF in Kenya. On demob he went back to acting, but he also began a separate life as a club owner. In 1950 he opened The Buckstone, a theatrical club opposite the stage door of the Haymarket Theatre. Once he was furious to discover that a visiting artist had doodled on one of the tablecloths; Campion threw it away, only to discover later that the vandal was Pietro Annigoni. Six years later, Campion started The Key Club – to which each member had his own key – in Dean Street. This was followed by Gerry’s, in Shaftesbury Avenue, whose members included Michael Caine, Keith Waterhouse, Tony Hancock and Graham Hill. It is as Billy Bunter, the Fat Owl of the Remove of Greyfriars School that Gerald Campion is best remembered. When the show first aired on February 19, 1952 with the episode The Siege Of The Remove, Campion, far from being a teenage schoolboy, was a 29-year-old father of two. He was also not especially overweight. Campion, who stood 5˝ 5˝ weighed 11st 12lb, having recently been dieting. “He simply isn’t fat enough in the tummy,” the producer of the series, Joy Harrington, said. Campion later claimed that, to regain weight, he had gorged himself on home-made jam tarts. The rest was padding which also protected Campion from the regular beatings that Bunter received. Billy Bunter was screened twice, once for the children and once for their parents. Campion was simultaneously running his own club and later claimed that he could only cope with the schedule by taking amphetamines. The first reviews for the show, which was broadcast at 5.40pm for younger viewers and then again at 8pm for the more mature, were not good. The Daily Sketch said the show was “dull, dated, boring” but children loved it. The programme ran for 120 episodes and ended in 1961 and Bunter suffered at the hands of the sadistic Mr Quelch (the first was played by Kynaston Reeves; “Bend over, you wretched boy”) and his own schoolmates who included Michael Crawford, David Hemmings, Anthony Valentine and Melvyn Hayes. The show finished following the death of Bunter’s prolific creator Frank Richards (who was born Charles St John Hamilton at 15 Oak Street in Middlesex on August 8, 1876 and died on Christmas Eve 1961 at his home, Kingsgate in Kent, and who entered The Guinness Book Of Records as the world’s most prolific writer with a weekly output of 80,000 words and a lifetime total estimated at 75,000,000. Compilers Norris and Ross McWhirter commented drily, “He enjoyed the advantage … of being unmarried.”) who also wrote all the television scripts. The programme made Campion one of television’s earliest celebrities. He didn’t always enjoy the attention: “Sweet shops were the worst,” he moaned later. “I’d be in them and blokes would manhandle their kids round to face me, and point at me and shout: ‘Look there – that’s Billy Bunter!’” However, Campion was not so put off playing the Fat Owl that he didn’t try to resurrect the show himself and sent scripts to the BBC. One featured Bunter in a cooking pot and being force fed garlic by cannibals. The corporation did not reply. His professional life post-Bunter was not as successful. His films included Carry On Sergeant (1958) as Andy Calloway, the first of the series but he wasn’t retained for the series, a fireman in Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines (1965), Half A Sixpence (1967) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968). He also appeared in television series such as Minder, Dr Who and Sherlock Holmes. Away from acting, Campion became an expert on French cuisine and opened a number of establishments in the south-east including Froops, in north London, Bassetts, in Tunbridge Wells, and The Woodman’s Arms Auberge, a hotel/restaurant at Hastingleigh in Kent which he ran with his second wife Suzie. He once said, “I suppose it is fitting that the man who played Billy Bunter should end up in the Good Food Guide.” He was twice married, firstly in 1947 to Jean Symond by whom he had one son and two daughters, Anthony, Anthea and Angelica and, secondly, in 1972 to Suzie Marks, a former dancer at Gerry’s. In 1991 they retired to France.
CAUSE: Campion died aged 81 of heart problems in St Hilaire Clinic, Agen, France.
John Candy
Born October 31, 1950
Died March 6, 1994
Funny fatman. John Franklin Candy was born in Toronto, Canada. He began acting in school and continued while training to become a journalist at the Centennial Community College. He changed tack and joined the Second City comedy troupe, appearing with them on television. On September 25, 1983, he won an Emmy for Outstanding Writing In A Variety Or Musical Program for his work with them. Weighing a whopping 26st, his films included: Hercules In New York (1970), It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time as Kopek, Find The Lady as Kopek, 1941 (1979) as Private Foley, The Blues Brothers as Burton Mercer, Stripes as Ox, Splash (1984) as Freddie Bauer, Summer Rental (1985) as Jack Chester, Sesame Street Presents Follow That Bird (1985) as state trooper, Brewster’s Millions (1985) as Spike Nolan, Little Shop Of Horrors as Wink Wilkinson, Spaceballs as Barf, Planes, Trains And Automobiles (1987) as Del Griffith, Uncle Buck (1989) as Buck Russell, Who’s Harry Crumb? (1989) as Harry Crumb, Home Alone (1990) as Gus Polinski, Only The Lonely (1991) as Danny, JFK (1991) as Dean Andrews and Cool Runnings (1993) as Irwin Blitzer. He was married with two children.
CAUSE: Candy was in Durango, Mexico, almost one hundred miles north-west of Mexico City, filming the movie Wagons East at the time of his death. He was staying in room 128 of the Camino del Perque hotel. The room contained a king-sized bed with a large crucifix over it. On March 5, 1994, the cast and crew worked long hours, only stopping at 10pm. Candy decided he was hungry (he had often said eating was his hobby) and ate spaghetti. Around 11pm he went for a shower and then to bed. At 8am the next morning his bodyguard, Gustavo Populus, called to wake him up but received no reply. A quarter of an hour later he let himself into the room. Candy, wearing a long red and black nightshirt, was lying half in and half out of the bed. He was cold. A doctor was called who pronounced death, from a mammoth heart attack, had occurred at 7.30am. No autopsy was performed, at the specific request of Candy’s widow, Rosemary. His funeral took place on March 9 at St Martin of the Tours Church, Brentwood, California. The eulogy was delivered by Dan Aykroyd and the mourners included Jim Belushi, Chevy Chase, Tom Hanks, Ed Harris, Rick Moranis, Bill Murray, Rhea Perlman, Martin Short and George Wendt. Candy was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery & Mausoleum, 5835 West Slauson Avenue, Culver City, California 90230.
Esma Cannon
Born December 3, 1892
Died October 18, 1972
Diminutive character actress. Born in Australia, Esma Cannon became one of the best-known faces, if not names, in British comedy films of the Fifties and Sixties, but also appeared in several dramatic roles playing an interfering spinster or some such character. Emigrating to Britain in the Thirties she appeared on the stage before making the transition to films in 1937. Her movies included The £5 Man (1937) as Lucy, It’s In The Air (1938), Poison Pen (1939) as Mrs Warren, I Met A Murderer (1939), The Young Mr Pitt (1941), Asking For Trouble (1942) as Ada, English Without Tears (1944) as Queenie, Here Come The Huggetts (1948), The Huggetts Abroad (1949) as Brown Owl, Fools Rush In (1949) as Mrs Atkins, Trouble In Store (1953), The Dam Busters (1954), Three Men In A Boat (1956), Jack The Ripper (1959) as Nelly, I’m All Right Jack (1959) as Spencer, Expresso Bongo (1959), Carry On Constable (1960) as the deaf old dear helped across the road by Kenneth Williams, Doctor In Love (1961), Carry On Regardless (1961) as Miss Cooling, Carry On Cruising (1962) as Bridget Madderley and Carry On Cabby (1963) as Flo Sims. Esma Cannon was also well known on television, appearing in shows such as The Rag Trade
playing Little Lil. She retired in 1963.
CAUSE: She died aged 79 of natural causes.
Eddie Cantor
(EDWARD ISRAEL ISKOWITZ)
Born January 31, 1892
Died October 10, 1964
Better on radio. Born in New York, New York, the son of Russian immigrants who died when he was young, 5́ 8˝ Cantor began working as a pro at 14. He became a singing waiter at Coney Island and then moved into vaudeville and burlesque. He made his film début as himself in A Few Moments With Eddie Cantor (1924) and his acting début proper two years later as Samuel ‘Kid’ Boots in Kid Boots (1926). His subsequent films included Glorifying The American Girl (1929), Insurance (1930) as Sidney B. Swieback, Getting A Ticket (1930), Whoopee! (1930) as Henry Williams (Samuel Goldwyn’s first musical and the first to contain dances choreographed by Busby Berkeley), Palmy Days (1931) as Eddie Simpson, Roman Scandals (1933) as Eddie, Kid Millions (1934) as Edward Grant Wilson, Jr, Ali Baba Goes To Town (1937) as Al Babson and If You Knew Susie (1948) as Sam Parker. It has to be said that none of his films was especially satisfactory, although he was very successful. In Thirties America radio shows were prominently sponsored by various companies. One of the most popular radio shows was Eddie Cantor’s Chase And Sanborn Hour on NBC. It was estimated that half of America tuned in on Sunday nights to listen to the show. One night the announcer Jimmy Wallington said that lexicographer Samuel Johnson drank 24 cups of coffee every day and would have drunk more if he could have bought the products made by Chase and Sanborn. The NBC switchboard was jammed by better informed listeners who knew Johnson actually drank tea. A biopic was made of his life starring Keefe Brasselle. The Eddie Cantor Story (1953) features a scene set in 1904, yet Eddie sings ‘Meet Me Tonight In Dreamland’ which wouldn’t be written for another five years. In 1952 Cantor went into semi-retirement following a heart attack and four years later was presented with a special Oscar. He married Ida Tobias on June 9, 1914, in New York City. He had five daughters: Marjorie (b. March 31, 1915, d. May 17, 1959, of cancer), Natalie (b. April 27, 1916), Edna (b. June 10, 1919), Marilyn (b. September 16, 1921) and Janet (b. October 8, 1927). Ida died of a heart attack on August 8, 1962. The song ‘Ida Sweet As Apple Cider’ was inspired by her.
CAUSE: Cantor died in Beverly Hills, California, aged 72 from a heart attack.
Truman Capote
(TRUMAN STRECKFUS PERSONS)
Born September 30, 1924
Died August 25, 1984
Social gadfly. Born in Touro Infirmary, New Orleans, Louisiana, Truman Garcia Capote (as he became after taking his stepfather’s name) was a short, alcoholic, drug-addicted, gossipy socialite and author whose name was made internationally famous in January 1966 when his book In Cold Blood was published. It was a fictionalised account of the murders of four members of the Clutter family by Richard E. Hickok and Perry E. Smith at River Valley Farm, Holcombe, Kansas on November 15, 1959. The two men were hanged in Lansing Prison, Kansas, on April 14, 1965. It was filmed in 1967, starring Robert Blake. Capote’s previous work, Breakfast At Tiffany’s (1958), had also been made into a successful film. His other books included A Christmas Memory (1966), The Thanksgiving Visitor (1968), Music For Chameleons (1980), One Christmas (1983) and, posthumously, Answered Prayers: The Unfinished Novel (1987). On November 28, 1966, he threw one of the most famous parties of modern times, the Black & White Ball, “an international list for the guillotine,” at Manhattan’s Plaza Hotel Grand Ballroom, Fifth Avenue at 59th Street. The event only cost him around $16,000 and he was able to recoup part of that on tax deductibles. Capote turned to interviewing and elicited remarkable confessions from the people he spoke to, often to their later chagrin. One such subject was Marlon Brando who confessed his numerous homosexual affairs. “The little bastard spent half the night telling me his problems,” moaned Brando. “I figured the least I could do was tell him a few of mine.”
CAUSE: Capote died of a drug overdose in Los Angeles, but whether it was deliberate or accidental no one knows. He was 59.
FURTHER READING: Capote A Biography- Gerald Clarke (London: Cardinal, 1988)
Frank Capra
Born May 18, 1897
Died September 3, 1991
Director of the common man. Born in Bisacquino, Sicily, one of seven children, the family moved to California in 1903. In 1925 5́5½˝ Capra landed a job as a joke writer for Harry Langdon who was so impressed he hired Capra to direct his subsequent films: The Strong Man (1926) and Long Pants (1927). When Langdon’s star waned, Capra was hired by Harry Cohn’s Columbia Pictures. Over the next decades Capra made some of the best, most memorable ‘feelgood’ movies anyone in Hollywood has produced. They included: It Happened One Night (1934) starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, Mr Deeds Goes To Town (1936) starring Gary Cooper (for which Capra won an Oscar), the Oscar-nominated Mr Smith Goes To Washington (1939) starring James Stewart and Claude Rains and the Oscar-nominated It’s A Wonderful Life (1946) starring James Stewart and Henry Travers. The last did not achieve any real measure of success until 1974 when its copyright expired and it began to be shown on television. The RKO film had originally been a vehicle for Cary Grant and Jean Arthur was intended to play the Donna Reed part. The film was also colourised, against the director’s express wishes. Capra, also Oscar nominated for Lady For A Day (1933), admitted “I made some mistakes in drama. I thought drama was when the actors cried. But drama is when the audience cries.”
CAUSE: He died in La Quinta, California, of natural causes. He was 94 years old.
Capucine
(GERMAINE LEFEBVRE)
Born January 6, 1931
Died March 17, 1990
Glacial actress. Born in Toulon, France, the daughter of an industrialist, she became a fashion model on leaving school and married, very briefly, by the time she was 20. She renamed herself Capucine (pronounced Kap-oo-seen), the French word for nasturtium, her favourite flower. She revealed “I hated my real name. In France it’s as common as Gladys” and made her film début in 1949 in Les Rendez-Vous De Juillet, following this up with Bertrand Coeur De Lion (1950), but it would be another five years before her next screen appearance, in Frou-Frou (1955), and then another five years before she went to America. Because of her height (5˝7˝) and exotic grey-eyed look she was immediately hailed as ‘the new Garbo’. (Perhaps her sexuality had something to do with the comparison.) Her first film in America, Song Without End (1960) playing Princess Carolyne, was cruelly dubbed by wags as ‘Without End’. It was a biopic of the rampantly heterosexual composer Franz Liszt, who was played by Dirk Bogarde (!). Gay director George Cukor also had a hand in the production. He opined: “She didn’t have much range. Capucine was a Look. Bacall and others were launched as a Look. However, Capucine was rather wooden on screen and inhibited. She posed … Movies were her passport and her means, but she put more energy into her life, into travelling and living it up on both continents in-between film assignments. That’s just what they were to her.” Capucine’s cause was taken up by agent-turned-producer Charles K. Feldman. Although the media painted the couple as an item, there was no romance between them. In 1962 she appeared as Hallie in Walk On The Wild Side with Anne Baxter, Jane Fonda, Barbara Stanwyck and Laurence Harvey. The film revolved around a love triangle – Harvey, Stanwyck and Capucine. The Lithuanian-born Harvey was not impressed by his love interest. He told her: “Kissing you is like kissing the side of a beer bottle.” Her most prominent part was in The Pink Panther (1963) as Simone, the wife of the bumbling Inspector Clouseau. For a time William Holden left his wife for Capucine and they appeared together in The Lion (1962) and The Seventh Dawn (1964) with Capucine playing Dhana. (Holden left her $50,000 in his will.) In an interview, when asked whether the affair was ever consummated, the predominantly lesbian Capucine replied: “He desired me more than I desired him. I have had romantic or sexual liaisons with women, and one or two with men … it happened … because I was so strongly attracted.” She reprised her Mme Clouseau role in Tr
ail Of The Pink Panther (1982) and Curse Of The Pink Panther (1984) but began to suffer from loneliness and depression as parts dried up. Her other films included: What’s New, Pussycat? (1965) as Renee Lefebvre, Fräulein Doktor (1969) as Dr Saforet, Satyricon (1969) as Trifena, Ciao, Federico! (1970), Soleil Rouge (1971) as Pepita, Per Amore (1976), Ritratto Di Borghesia In Nero (1977) as Amalia Mazzarini, Jaguar Lives! (1979) as Zina Vanacore, Balles Perdues (1982) as Madam Teufminn and I Miei Primi Quarant’Anni (1987) as Massimiliano.
CAUSE: She died by her own hand, jumping from the eighth-floor window of her Swiss attic home. She was 59.
Harry Carey
Born January 16, 1878
Died September 21, 1947
Early superstar. Born in The Bronx, New York, Henry DeWitt Carey II joined Biograph Pictures in 1909 (first film Bill Sharkey’s Last Game [1909]) and appeared in many films produced by D.W. Griffith before finding his true vocation as the star of early Westerns with John Ford. They worked together on 26 films including A Knight Of The Range (1916), Cheyenne’s Pal (1917), The Soul Herder (1917), Straight Shooting (1917) (the first John Ford feature), The Secret Man (1917), A Marked Man (1917), Bucking Broadway (1917), Wild Women (1918), Thieves’ Gold (1918), Three Mounted Men (1918), Roped (1919), Bare Fists (1919), Riders Of Vengeance (1919), Ace Of The Saddle (1919), Marked Men (1919) and Aces Wild (1937). More often than not he would play a cowboy called Cheyenne Harry Henderson. As well as acting, (6)߰Carey also wrote, directed and produced. He was nominated for an Oscar for his performance as the President of the Senate in Frank Capra’s Mr Smith Goes To Washington (1939). He married actress Olive Fuller Golden (b. January 31, 1896, d. March 13, 1988) in 1920 and their son, Harry Carey, Jr (b. Saugus, California May 16, 1921), was also in the business.
Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries Page 45