Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries

by Paul Donnelley

  CAUSE: Harry Carey, who appeared in over 230 films, died in Brentwood, California, of coronary thrombosis and cancer. He was 69 years old. The John Ford film The Three Godfathers (1949) was dedicated “To the memory of Harry Carey – bright star of the early western sky”.

  Martine Carol

  (MARYSE LOUISE MOURER)

  Born May 16, 1920

  Died February 6, 1967

  Femme fatale. Born in Saint-Mande, France, she was the premier European love goddess of the Fifties. Blonde and beautiful she usually portrayed loose women in even looser clothing, encouraged by her husband (he was the director Christian-Jaque [b. 1904, d. 1994]). She played Martine in Le Désir Et L’Amour (1951), Minouche in Adorables Créatures (1952), Edmee in Les Belles De Nuit (1952), the leads in Lucrèce Borgia (1953), Nana (1955) and Lola Montès (1955). She attempted to break into Hollywood with disastrous results. Her only major film was Around The World In 80 Days (1956) and even then she only played a tourist. Her star was quickly eclipsed by the younger Brigitte Bardot and Jeanne Moreau, who took her mantle.

  CAUSE: She died aged 46 of a heart attack in Monte Carlo, Monaco.

  Johnny Carpenter

  (JASPER CARPENTER)

  Born June 25, 1914

  Died February 27, 2003

  Charitable cowboy. If there was money to be saved, corners to be cut, Johnny Carpenter was the man to do it. Born in the small Ozark mountain town of Debinsville, Arkansas, the son of a butcher, Carpenter learned to ride while still a child. He was educated at the University of Arkansas and showed such sporting promise that he was set to play for the Chicago White Sox in 1936 when, during spring practice, he was run over by a car in a hit and run accident. He suffered a broken back, internal injuries and broke his left leg in seven places. He was in a body cast for 119 days and lost his chance at a baseball career. It took him eight years to recover fully and he used that time to perfect his horse riding and shooting skills. In the early Forties he travelled to Hollywood with his brother, Frank ‘Red’ Carpenter. It is believed that his first film was a bit part in Thundering Trails (1943) with the 3 Mesquiteers at Republic, although some insist that he had appeared as a concessionaire in Dante’s Inferno (1935). Carpenter became a stuntman and rode the Grand National course for Mickey Rooney in National Velvet (1944). He didn’t star in a film until Badman’s Gold in 1951 and his work never progressed above B-picture rating. In the mid-Fifties he wrote, produced and starred in four Westerns that made his name among aficionados of that genre – Son Of The Renegade (1953), Yakima Canutt’s The Lawless Rider (1954), Outlaw Treasure (1955) and Richard Talmadge’s I Killed Wild Bill Hickok (1956). For reasons unknown, on the last two, Carpenter listed himself as writer/producer but billed himself when acting as John Forbes. Away from the screen Carpenter was a tireless worker for handicapped children. He said that he had made a deal with God in 1936 that if He allowed him to walk again, he would spend his time helping the disabled. He opened a ranch called Heaven On Earth in the mid-Forties in Glendale, California, and had ranches in different locations until he was evicted in January 1994 to make way for a housing development. Thousands of children from Los Angeles schools and groups such as the United Cerebral Palsy/Spastic Children’s Foundation were greeted at the gates by Johnny as they spent the day touring the Western town set and riding horseback, with Carpenter’s help if need be. Johnny’s motto, emblazoned on a sign at the ramshackle ranch, read, “The service we render to others is really the rent we pay for our room on this earth. Dedicated free forever to the handicapped.” In 1982 he said, “The Bible says, ‘As you sow, so shall ye reap.’ Well, I’ve reaped two-hundredfold. I’ve gotten more satisfaction out of this ranch than anything else I’ve ever done. Everything I own is on my back. Yet because of the ranch, I can get up every morning and walk down the street like a king. If I get to Heaven, it’ll be on the coat-tails of these kids.”

  CAUSE: Johnny Carpenter died in a Burbank nursing home, aged 88. He had been suffering from cancer. Johnny was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery, Forest Lawn Drive, Los Angeles.

  Sunset Carson

  (WINIFRED MAURICE HARRISON)

  Born November 12, 1918?

  Died May 1, 1990

  The mystery cowboy. 6́ 6˝ Sunset Carson was born probably in Gracemont, Caddo County, Oklahoma, the son of Maurice Greely Harrison (b. Georgia, 1897) and Azalee Belle ‘Dot’ McAdams Harrison (b. Texas, 1898). The Harrisons had six children and one, Dale, appeared with Carson in some films. The year of Sunset Carson’s birth is a subject of some dispute. No birth certificate exists and Carson seems to have been educated at the Zsa Zsa Gabor school of numeracy. On June 30, 1937, he filled in a social security application and gave his birthday as November 12, 1918 and his place of birth as Plainview, Texas. His death certificate states he was born in 1926 in Texas. The family Bible says that he came into the world on November 12, 1920, in Gracemont, Caddo County, Oklahoma. His driver’s licence showed his birthplace as Plainview, Texas and birthdate as November 12, 1927. A family friend claimed that “Sunset was born in 1924”. A census of April 1, 1930 gives his age as 9 and his birthplace as Oklahoma. Whatever the truth of his birth, the family apparently moved to Plainview, Texas, when he was eight or nine years old. Carson claimed that his father was a rodeo performer in the Tom Mix Circus but again this is open to question. In 1941 and 1942, Carson was named All Around Champion Cowboy of South America and he claimed that Tom Mix suggested he try film acting. Presumably Mix suggested this when Carson’s father worked for him and not when Carson was All Around Champion Cowboy of South America, Mix being dead by that time. Carson made his début in Stage Door Canteen (1943) playing Tex, using the name Michael Harrison – presumably because Winifred Harrison didn’t sound too macho a name for a cowboy. The following year he was signed to Republic Studios and his name was changed to Sunset Carson, supposedly after studio president Herbert Yates saw a car dealership called Sunset Boulevard Cars. He used the name Sonny ‘Sunset’ Carson for the first time in the film Call Of The Rockies (released July 14, 1944) in which he co-starred with Harry Woods, Ellen Hall and Kirk Alyn. From then on he was just Sunset Carson in Bordertown Patrol (released August 11, 1944), Code Of The Prairie (released October 6, 1944), the Western comedy Firebrands Of Arizona (released December 1, 1944), Yakima Canutt’s Sheriff Of Cimarron (released February 28, 1945) the first film in which he topped the bill, Santa Fe Saddlemates (released June 2, 1945), Bells Of Rosarita (1945) which co-starred Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Oregon Trail (released July 14, 1945), Bandits Of The Badlands (released September 14, 1945), Rough Riders Of Cheyenne (released November 1, 1945), The Cherokee Flash (released December 13, 1945), Days Of Buffalo Bill (released February 8, 1946) which despite its title had nothing to do with Bill Cody, Alias Billy The Kid (released April 17, 1946) like its predecessor had nothing to do with the name in the title, The El Paso Kid (released May 22, 1946), Red River Renegades (released July 23, 1946) and his last outing for Republic, Rio Grande Raiders (released September 9, 1946). Carson would endure a two-year absence from the screen before he was signed by Astor Pictures, also known as Yucca Productions, for more low budget Western fare. His first effort for that studio was Fighting Mustang (released February 10, 1948). That was followed by Deadline (released March 12, 1948) and Sunset Carson Rides Again (released September 10, 1948). He made Rio Grande (1949) and his final “Sunset Carson” film, Battling Marshall (released January 15, 1950 although it was actually filmed in 1947), for other studios. It would be 22 years before Carson was seen again on the big screen, playing the lead in The Marshal Of Windy Hollow (1972). Five years later, he played Sheriff Deese in Seabo and his last film was playing a character called Sunset in the low-budget sci-fi flick Alien Outlaw (1985). Carson was married four times. On August 22, 1938, in Yuma, Arizona he married Canadian-born Patricia Eleanor Hussey by whom he had one daughter, Ann Caleen Harrison (b. Vallejo, California, March 29, 1940). He married secondly around 1947 to Betty Jo Price (d. 1993), by whom he
had a son, Michael (b. 1948, killed in a tractor accident on his farm in Autauga County, Alabama, November 16, 2003). On August 15, 1969, he married Margaret J. Nesbitt, by whom he had a son and daughter. On June 17, 1989, he married Jean J. Davis.

  CAUSE: He died in Reno, Nevada, aged 71 or 69 or 54 or 53. He was buried at Highland Memorial Gardens, Madison County, Tennessee.

  Allan Carr

  (ALLAN SOLOMON)

  Born May 27, 1937

  Died June 26, 1999

  Tubby extrovert. Born in Chicago, Illinois, the flamboyant movie producer Allan Carr’s career was made with just one film – the megahit Grease (1978), which he wrote and co-produced. Two years later, that career was virtually wrecked with another musical. Carr stood out in a world of eccentrics in Tinseltown. He wore multi-coloured caftans that would have put Demis Roussos to shame, and would often turn up to a swanky event dressed in a full-length mink coat, training shoes and little else. Unsurprisingly, or perhaps not, he never married. In 1979 he attended a pop concert given by Village People, the incredibly successful disco group, who had begun as an idea in a Moroccan-born music producer’s head in a gay disco called the Anvil in New York’s Greenwich Village in the mid-70s. Jacques Morali, for that was the producer’s name, spotted clerk Felipé Rose dancing dressed as a Red Indian. Morali immediately saw the potential for a group to appeal to homosexual men. He advertised for “gay singers and dancers, very good-looking and with mustaches [sic]” and from the response put together Village People. To Morali’s amazement the group appealed to straight people and teenage girls as well as his targeted audience. Soon Village People were a world-wide phenomenon, scoring massive international hits such as ‘Y.M.C.A.’ (number 1 in the UK, number 2 in the US), ‘In The Navy’, ‘Go West’ and ‘Can’t Stop The Music’. Carr was so impressed by what he saw at the gig he decided to star the group in his next film – to be called Discoland: Where The Music Never Stops. He hired a young actor called Steve Guttenberg to play Morali (renamed Jack Morell) and described him to the press as “a Jewish John Travolta”. “A teenaged Tennessee Williams” called Bronte Woodward was commissioned to write the film. Carr approached his Grease star Olivia Newton-John, but balked at her demand for $1 million to appear. His second choice was the beautiful 39-24-35 Valerie Perrine and, as her love interest, he chose Olympic decathlete Bruce Jenner, whom he labelled “the Bob Redford of the Eighties”. Directing her first movie was Nancy Walker who was well known for her role as the housekeeper Mildred in McMillan & Wife. “I’ll say I’m lucky! My first movie, and it’s a big-budget musical! It’s got everything … the Village People, hit songs, male nudity, Valerie Perrine and her cleavage, Bruce Jenner and his legs … My producer thinks it will be another Grease !” was her opinion. Unfortunately, by the time the film was released in the summer of 1980, under the new title Can’t Stop The Music, the Village People bubble had burst and the film was an unmitigated disaster … except, strangely, in Australia, where it was a smash and broke box-office records wherever it played. Elsewhere, however, straight audiences didn’t take it seriously and the group’s original core fans – the gay community – hated the film because it had been “heterosexualised”. All the Village Persons were assigned girlfriends. Carr commented, “You don’t spend $20m to make a minority movie.” Newsweek sniped, “The first all-singing, all-dancing horror film … chilling … a celebration of greed, narcissism, unbridled ambition and the triumph of mediocrity … If this is the movie musical event of the Eighties, we’ve got nine grim years ahead.” Carr took his stars on the publicity junket to promote the film but one by one they all found other pressing engagements until only Guttenberg and June Havoc appeared with the producer. Carr was undeterred and set out to make Grease 2 (1982). Without the catchy songs of the original and without Travolta, Newton-John et al, it, too, was a flop. You can’t keep a good man down though, and two years later Allan Carr was back with his last two movies, Cloak And Dagger (1984) and Where The Boys Are ’84 (1984). The first was about an imaginative boy (played by Henry Thomas) who plays spying games with a fantasy friend only to get caught up in a real-life espionage situation; it was a success. Sadly not so the second film, a remake of the 1960 hit version that starred Dolores Hart, George Hamilton, Yvette Mimieux, Jim Hutton and Connie Francis. The remake cast the beautiful Lisa Hartman and Judy Garland’s lesser-known daughter Lorna Luft. It bombed. Like many fat people who struggle to maintain a happy exterior while fighting raging demons within, Carr was unhappy about his size. In a desperate bid to lose weight he once had his jaws wired shut. It didn’t work. He pulled out the wires with pliers.

  CAUSE: He died of cancer in Beverly Hills, California aged 62, not the 57 he would have people believe.

  John Carradine

  (RICHMOND REED CARRADINE)

  Born February 5, 1906

  Died November 27, 1988

  Cinematic villain. Born in Greenwich Village, New York City, the son of a lawyer who wrote poetry and a surgeon, Carradine was educated at the Episcopal Academy and the Graphic Art School, both in Philadelphia. He first trod the boards in 1925 at the St Charles Theater in New Orleans but after a little while he became a portrait painter before being hired by Cecil B. DeMille as a designer. He made his film début in 1928 (using the name John Peter Richmond; he became John Carradine in 1935 after signing a contract with Fox) appearing in innumerable films, many unworthy of his talent, particularly those of Al Adamson. Among his 200+ films, made over 60 years, were: Tol’able David (1930) as Buzzard, Forgotten Commandments (1932), The Invisible Man (1933), Cleopatra (1934), She Gets Her Man (1935), The Man Who Broke The Bank At Monte Carlo (1935), Cardinal Richelieu (1935), Bride Of Frankenstein (1935), Alias Mary Dow (1935), Clive Of India (1935), White Fang (1936) as Beauty Smith, Dimples as Richards, Daniel Boone (1936) as Simon Girty, Mary Of Scotland (1936) as David Rizzio, The Garden Of Allah (1936), Thank You, Mr Moto (1937) as Periera, Nancy Steele Is Missing! (1937) as Harry Wilkins, Laughing At Trouble as Deputy Sheriff Alec Brady, Ali Baba Goes To Town (1937) as Ishak, Captains Courageous (1937) as Long Jack, Of Human Hearts (1938) as Abraham Lincoln, Kidnapped (1938) as Gordon, Alexander’s Ragtime Band (1938), Stagecoach (1939) as Mr Hatfield, Drums Along The Mohawk (1939) as Caldwell, Jesse James (1939) as Bob Ford, Mr Moto’s Last Warning (1939) as Danforth aka Richard Burke, The Hound Of The Baskervilles (1939) as Barryman, Brigham Young – Frontiersman (1940) as Porter Rockwell, The Grapes Of Wrath (1940) as Reverend Jim Casey, The Return Of Frank James (1940) as Bob Ford, Northwest Rangers (1942) as Martin Caswell, Son Of Fury (1942) as Caleb Green, Hitler’s Madman (1943) as Reinhardt Heydrich, The Adventures Of Mark Twain (1944) as Bret Harte, House Of Frankenstein (1944) as Dracula, The Ten Commandments (1956) as Aaron, Around The World In 80 Days (1956) as Colonel Proctor Stamp, Half Human: The Story Of The Abominable Snowman (1957) as Dr John Rayburn, Tarzan The Magnificent (1960) as villainous Abel Banton determined to rescue his son from Tarzan and justice, The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn (1960), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) as Major Cassius Starbuckle, Cheyenne Autumn (1964) as Major Jeff Blair, Psycho A Go-Go (1965) as Dr Varnard, House Of The Black Death (1965) as Andre Dessard, Night Train To Mundo Fine (1966), Billy The Kid vs. Dracula (1966) as Count Dracula, Blood Of Dracula’s Castle (1967) as George, Autopsia De Un Fantasma (1967) as Satan, The Mummy And The Curse Of The Jackals (1969), Astro-Zombies (1969) as Dr DeMarco, Horror Of The Blood Monsters (1970) as Dr Rynning, Five Bloody Graves (1970) as Boone Hawkins, Blood Legacy (1971) as Christopher Dean, Blood Of Ghastly Horror (1972) as Dr Van Ard, Terror In The Wax Museum (1973) as Claude Dupree, Silent Night, Bloody Night (1973) as Charlie Towman, Won Ton Ton, The Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976), Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary (1976) as Mary’s dad, Satan’s Cheerleaders (1977), Vampire Hookers (1979) as John Peter Richmond, Satan’s Mistress (1981) as Father Stratten, Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) as Leo and Bikini Drive-In (1995). In 1944 he was jailed for a week for failing to pay alimony to his first wife. He did not neglect his stage wor
k, appearing as Jonathan Brewster in Arsenic And Old Lace (October 1946), Brutus in Julius Caesar (1951), Sir Robert Morton in The Winslow Boy (1951), Mephistopheles in Doctor Faustus (January 1955), Lycus in A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum (1966) a part he played on tour for nearly two years, Fagin in Oliver! (1970) and Jeeter Lester in Tobacco Road (1973). Away from the stage and screen Carradine would walk along the streets declaiming Shakespeare and was something of an eccentric loner, a trait picked up by his son, David. He was married four times. The first Mrs Carradine was Ardanelle McCool Cosner, whom he married in 1935. They had two sons: actor Bruce (b. 1935) and John Arthur (b. Hollywood, California December 8, 1936) who achieved fame as Shaolin monk Kwai Chang Caine in the hit TV show Kung Fu under the name David Carradine. The couple was divorced in 1941; wife number two was Sonia Henius and they married on August 13, 1944. They had three sons: architect Christopher (b. 1947) and actors Keith (b. San Mateo, California August 8, 1949, he is the father of actress Martha Plimpton) and Robert (b. Los Angeles, California March 24, 1954). That marriage ended in divorce in May 1957; the third wife (also in 1957) was Doris I. Rich who died in a blaze on May 18, 1971, and the final Emily Cisneros on the Fourth of July 1974. They divorced before Carradine’s death.