CAUSE: He died in Westwood, California, of pneumonia. He was 88.
FURTHER READING: Vanity Will Get You Somewhere: An Autobiography– Joseph Cotten (New York: Avon Books, 1988).
Sir Noël Coward
Born December 16, 1899
Died March 26, 1973
Gay icon. Born in Waldegrave Road, Teddington, Middlesex, 5́ 11˝ Noël Peirce Coward was responsible for some of the best light comedies ever written in the English language, such as Private Lives, Hay Fever and Tonight At 8.30, as well as being a pungent wit and keen aphorist. Nicknamed ‘The Master’, he was asked why. In a rare fit of modesty he replied, “Oh, you know, jack of all trades, master of none.” He wrote, produced, co-directed and starred in the war epic In Which We Serve (1942), based on the life of his friend Lord Mountbatten, for which he was nominated for the Best Writer Oscar. He was also fêted for his humorous songs such as ‘Mad Dogs & Englishmen’, ‘There’s Always Something Fishy About The French’ and ‘Don’t Put Your Daughter On The Stage, Mrs Worthington’ (written about the grandmother of actors Edward and James Fox). As a boy he showed a remarkable precocity. On September 7, 1910, his mother, Violet, saw an advert placed by Lila Field in the Daily Mirror for boys to appear in a play called The Goldfish. On September 13 Violet took Noël along and he sang Liza Ann from The Orchid and, because there was no piano, she la-la’d as he danced. Miss Field was suitably impressed and told Mrs Coward the fee would be a guinea and a half per week. Mrs Coward was embarrassed and blushed, saying she could not afford that kind of money. No, no, no, Miss Field replied, that was Noël’s fee. Coward left school without much of a formal education. Patrick Garland interviewed him for an Arena profile on BBC TV in 1969. He asked Coward how he educated himself and received the following reply from the homosexually inclined Master: “Reading. I belonged to the Battersea Park Public Lavatory. Erm, library, a Freudian slip.” Claudette Colbert, appearing in a performance of Coward’s Blithe Spirit in New York, was experiencing difficulty remembering her lines. She apologised to Coward: “I’m so sorry, Noël, this morning I knew the lines backwards.” “That’s how you’re saying them now, dear,” came the waspish retort. (This story is also told about Coward and Dame Edith Evans.) Towards the end of her long life, Lady Diana Cooper was best remembered as a society beauty and engaging eccentric. She had spent a good deal of her early career on the stage but came off second-best in a battle of wits with Noël Coward. She had starred as a non-speaking statue in the religious play The Miracle when she bumped into the Master. “Didn’t you write Private Lives ?” Lady Cooper asked Coward. “I saw it and didn’t think it was very funny.” Coward retorted, “Didn’t you appear in The Miracle ? I saw it and absolutely screamed.” Once, on leaving a hotel in New York, Coward was accosted by a woman who gushed, “You remember me? I met you with Douglas Fairbanks.” “Madam,” replied Coward, “I don’t even remember Douglas Fairbanks.” Occasionally, he was bested. One day he bumped into the American playwright Edna Ferber who was fetchingly clad in masculine attire. “Why Edna,” said the Master, “you almost look like a man.” To which she responded, “So do you.” Coward and Bea Lillie were staying in Paris one night in separate rooms when she felt the inclination to be naughty. She assumed a deep voice, knocked on Coward’s hotel room door and asked, “Have you got a gentleman in there, sir?” Without missing a beat, Coward replied, “Just a minute, I’ll ask him.” Every great performer and writer sometimes has a failure. Noël Coward’s was Sirocco, which was booed by the audience. Coward’s mother, who was slightly deaf, mistook the jeers for cheers. The producer of the play, Basil Dean, made the same mistake and kept raising and lowering the curtain. Coward was linked romantically with Gertrude Lawrence but he told interviewer Gore Vidal that he had never had sex with a woman. “Not even with Gertie Lawrence?” persisted Vidal. “Particularly not with Miss Lawrence,” came the reply. Coward’s godson, Sheridan Morley, wrote one of the first biographies of him although Morley was forbidden from mentioning his subject’s homosexuality. Morley pleaded with Coward, arguing that it would make no difference to the public’s perception of him. He cited the case of the critic T.C. Worsley, who had recently (1966) come out. Coward was adamant. “There is one essential difference between me and Cuthbert Worsley. The British public at large would not care if Cuthbert Worsley had slept with mice.” Anyway, despite the lack of indiscretion in his posthumously published diaries, we know of some of Coward’s conquests. One was Prince George, the Duke of Kent, the father of the present Duke. Another was the actor Tom Tryon and a third was the writer Michael Thornton. Among his films were Brief Encounter (1945) which he wrote, Around The World In 80 Days (1956), Our Man In Havana (1959), Boom (1966) and The Italian Job (1969).
CAUSE: In the early hours of March 26, 1973, Coward suffered a heart attack in the bathroom of his home Firefly in Kingston, Jamaica. His servants helped him into bed but he refused to let them call his close friends and sometime lovers Cole Lesley (b. Farningham, Kent, 1909, as Leonard Cole, d. January 3, 1980, of a heart attack) and Graham Payn (b. Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, April 25, 1918), nicknamed ‘Little Lad’. He fell asleep on the bed and died. On May 24, 1973, a service of thanksgiving for the life of Coward was held in St Martin-in-the-Fields in London.
FURTHER READING: Present Indicative – Noël Coward (London: William Heinemann, 1937); The Life Of Noël Coward – Cole Lesley (London: Penguin, 1979); Noël – Charles Castle (London: Abacus, 1974); Noël Coward – Clive Fisher (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1992); My Life With Noël Coward – Graham Payn with Barry Day (London & New York: Applause, 1994); Noël Coward: A Biography– Philip Hoare (London: Sinclair Stevenson, 1995); Genius And Lust: The Creativity And Sexuality Of Cole Porter And Noël Coward– Joseph Morella & George Mazzei (London: Robson Books, 1996).
Wally Cox
Born December 6, 1924
Died February 15, 1973
Marlon’s best pal. Wallace Maynard Cox was born in Detroit, Michigan, but his family moved to Evanston, Illinois, where he was befriended by the young Marlon Brando. The 5́ 6˝ Cox was a weedy bespectacled specimen, very much the opposite of the brawny Brando but nonetheless the two became virtual lifelong friends. After the Second World War Brando piqued Cox’s interest in becoming an actor and he began appearing on television in the late Forties and early Fifties. His role as science teacher Robinson Peepers in the sitcom Mr Peepers (July 3, 1952–June 12, 1955) brought him fame but not happiness. Despite two Emmys Cox hated the character and insisted that he was nothing like the man he called ‘Mr Goodboy’. He was the voice of the cartoon superhero Shoeshine Boy a.k.a. Underdog in The Underdog Show (October 3, 1964–September 1, 1973). On June 7, 1954, he married Marilyn Gennaro. He played a shoe salesman in Marilyn Monroe’s unfinished last film Something’s Got To Give (1962).
CAUSE: Cox was found dead at his home on Roscomare Road in Bel Air. The Bel Air Patrol was called at 7.30am by his wife, Pat. The authorities found an almost empty bottle of the sleeping pill Placidyl on the nightstand and also a partially finished note in the typewriter. Despite the likelihood of suicide, coroner to the stars Thomas Noguchi listed death as being due to “severe coronary disease due to arteriosclerosis”. Cox was 48. He was cremated but his ashes remained at his lover Marlon Brando’s home until Brando’s own death in 2004 when their ashes were scattered together at Death Valley.
Buster Crabbe
(CLARENCE LINDEN CRABBE)
Born February 17, 1907
Died April 23, 1983
Born in Oakland, California, Crabbe was raised in Hawaii, where he became an expert swimmer. He represented his country in the 1928 Amsterdam Olympic Games, coming fourth, but four years later in Los Angeles he won the 400m freestyle gold. After retiring from competitive swimming he became an actor. Best known for his portrayal of sci-fi hero Flash Gordon beginning in 1935 (Mars Attacks The World [1938], Flash Gordon’s Trip To Mars [1938], Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe [1940], etc.) he appeared in over 100 films i
ncluding King Of The Jungle (1933) as Kaspa The Lion Man, Tarzan The Fearless (1933) as Tarzan, King Of Gamblers (1937) as Eddie, Murder Goes To College (1937) as Strike Belno, Billy The Kid Wanted (1941), Billy The Kid’s Roundup (1941), Sheriff Of Sage Valley (1942), The Mysterious Rider (1942), Law And Order (1942), Billy The Kid Trapped (1942), Billy The Kid’s Smoking Guns (1942), The Kid Rides Again (1943), Fugitive Of The Plains (1943), Cattle Stampede (1943), The Renegade (1943), Blazing Frontier (1943) all as William H. ‘Billy The Kid’ Bonney. He also appeared in another long series as Billy Carson. When he left full-time acting, he became a swimming pool salesman.
CAUSE: He died of a heart attack in Scottsdale, Arizona, aged 75.
Joan Crawford
(LUCILLE FAY LESUEUR)
Born March 23, 1905
Died May 10, 1977
The ultimate Hollywood star. “I love to play bitches,” Joan Crawford once said. From what her daughter has told the world it seems as if she behaved in a similar way off-screen as well. In the Forties Hedda Hopper stated: “Joan Crawford is the only Hollywood star I know who manufactured herself.” That process began in San Antonio, Texas where Crawford was born the second daughter and youngest child of a French-Canadian labourer who deserted the family before she was born. Nicknamed ‘Billie’ by her elder brother, Hal, the family took the surname Cassin when Joan’s mother began a relationship with impresario Henry Cassin who also ran a bail bond company. In 1911 the Cassins moved to Lawton, Oklahoma, where Henry owned a theatre. Young Billie was something of a tomboy, preferring the company of boys to playing with girls. Cassin allowed his stepdaughter Billie to spend time around his theatre and she was taught dance and make-up by the dancers. Billie received little or no affection from her mother who much preferred Hal and made no secret of it. Aged eight Billie cut an artery in her foot and was told she would walk with a limp for the rest of her life. Showing a steely determination beyond her years, she underwent two operations and still kept her ambition of being a professional dancer. When Billie discovered some money hidden by Henry Cassin she and Hal were sent off to Phoenix, Arizona, while the matter was sorted out. It seemed that a criminal had put his surety in gold coins and Cassin decided to keep them thinking no one would doubt his word against that of a criminal. He probably returned the money since the charges were dropped. Reunited, the family moved to Kansas City, Missouri. Billie was sent to the local Catholic school. Joan Crawford always claimed she was a Papist until around the middle of her life when she announced via countless interviews that she was a Christian Scientist. In 1919 Henry Cassin died and Billie began work in a local laundry run by her mother. In 1923 she entered the prestigious Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, but stayed only four months, feeling out of her depth. Back home she entered dancing competitions and won many trophies for the Charleston, eventually getting a job dancing at the Oriole Terrace nightclub in Detroit, although at 5́ 1˝ (she claimed 5˝4˝) she was considerably shorter than the other chorines. The girls who didn’t have regular boyfriends would often accept dinner from one or other of the “stagedoor johnnies” who hung around after the show. After dinner the men would propose a nightcap in their motel room. At first Lucille (she had dropped Billie thinking Lucille would look better on marquees) refused but soon saw no harm in it. After one show she had been in the man’s room no longer than half an hour when the police raided the motel and she was arrested for prostitution. The incident shocked Lucille, although later her police record was destroyed on the personal orders of her friend, the FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover. Lucille may also have got married. According to Patricia Fox-Sheinwold in her 1981 book Gone But Not Forgotten, Lucille secretly married saxophonist James Welton. The story also appeared in The New York Post of January 29, 1982. They were supposedly divorced in the late Twenties in Los Angeles. There is also a rumour that she appeared in a pornographic film, although no copy has ever surfaced. There was a film called The Casting Couch but it was made in 1918, seven years before Lucille arrived in Hollywood and when she would have been just 13. Stories vary depending on who is telling them, but somehow Lucille wangled a screen test for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer along with a dozen other girls. On Christmas Day 1924 a telegram arrived offering her a $75-a-week five year contract with MGM. The contract was certainly strict – it even stipulated what time she had to be in bed. She made her film début in a bit part in Pretty Ladies (released July 14, 1925) and in the middle of that year publicity man Pete Smith decided his newest starlet needed a name change. A competition to “Name A Star” was held in Movie Weekly magazine and the winning entry was Joan Arden. However, an actress already existed with that name and, unsurprisingly, she complained. The second choice was Joan Crawford. Lucille hated her new name with a passion. MGM began to groom Joan Crawford for stardom and placed her in a number of silent films including The Boob (1926), The Taxi Driver (released March 8, 1927), The Unknown (June 13, 1927), Spring Fever (released October 18, 1927) and West Point (released January 2, 1928). She was loaned out to First National to make Tramp, Tramp, Tramp (May 24, 1926) with Harry Langdon. No one really picked up on Joan Crawford until she showed her terpsichorean talent in Our Dancing Daughters. The day of its release (October 8, 1928), a month before she began shooting a sequel, Our Modern Maidens (released September 7, 1929), she got engaged to the actor Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. They married at St Malachy’s Roman Catholic Church, New York, on June 3, 1929. Both said that they were 21 years old (she was, in fact, 24). That same year Joan appeared in her first talkie, Jack Conway’s Untamed (released November 30, 1929), and a further sequel, Our Blushing Brides (August 2, 1930). She appeared with her lover Clark Gable for the first time in Harry Beaumont’s Dance, Fools, Dance (March 21, 1931) and went on to star with him in Laughing Sinners (July 4, 1931, also directed by Harry Beaumont) and Clarence Brown’s Possessed (November 28, 1931) before appearing as Flaemmchen in Grand Hotel (April 12, 1932), the first film with an all-star cast. Directed by Edmund Golding, it featured Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Lionel Barrymore, Lewis Stone and Jean Hersholt and won the Best Picture Oscar. She followed that up by playing Sadie Thompson in Lewis Milestone’s Rain (October 13, 1932), an adaptation of a Somerset Maugham story. The following year she and Fairbanks were divorced. She appeared opposite Franchot Tone (whom she would marry on October 11, 1935 and divorce less than four years later on April 11, 1939) in Today We Live (April 15, 1933) and Fred Astaire in his film début Dancing Lady (December 1, 1933). Joan Crawford became a reliable but not spectacular actress appearing in, among others, Sadie McKee (May 19, 1934), Chained (September 1, 1934), Forsaking All Others (December 21, 1934), The Gorgeous Hussy (September 5, 1936), Love On The Run (November 28, 1936), The Bride Wore Red (October 15, 1937), Mannequin (January 21, 1938), The Women (September 22, 1939), Strange Cargo (April 26, 1940), A Woman’s Face (May 16, 1941) and Above Suspicion (August 6, 1943). Her career waned and on May 3, 1938, she was labelled “box office poison” by The Independent Film Journal in an advertisement created by Harry Brandt, the president of the Independent Theater Owners Association. “Among those players whose dramatic ability is unquestioned, but whose box office draw is nil, can be numbered Mae West, Edward Arnold, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Katharine Hepburn, Marlene Dietrich and Fred Astaire.” Joan, who kept a very careful eye on her press coverage, was devastated by the attack. In 1939 she adopted a baby girl who became Christina Crawford and two years later adopted a baby boy named Christopher. In Hidden Valley, Ventura, California, on July 21, 1942, she married Frederik Kormann, better known as the actor Phillip Terry, six weeks after meeting him. Her home life may have been happy but her professional one was assuredly not. In 1943, MGM chief Louis B. Mayer released her from her contract. “The consensus of opinions among the top brass,” she said, “was that I was washed up again.” Apart from a cameo appearance as herself in Hollywood Canteen (released December 16, 1944) Joan Crawford was absent from the screen for two years. When she learned that Barbara Stanwyck had turned down the part
of Mildred Pierce, she persuaded Warner Brothers to cast her in the maternal role. It was said that Bette Davis also declined the part, although Davis denied that. Normally, Crawford shunned motherly parts because she did not want to be typecast in them. Director Michael Curtiz wasn’t so sure. “She comes over [to Warners] with her high-hat airs and her goddamn shoulder pads. Why should I waste my time directing a has-been?” Crawford dumped the shoulder pads and even made a screen test for Curtiz. The New York Daily News enthused, “She gives the best performance of her career.” Mildred Pierce (released September 29, 1945), the story of a woman who sacrificed everything, even committing murder for her daughter (Ann Blyth), won Joan Crawford her only Oscar. However, Crawford deemed herself too ill to attend the ceremony at Grauman’s Chinese Theater on March 7, 1946, telling her publicist Henry Rogers, “Henry, I can’t do it, I’m so frightened. I know I’m going to lose.” However, she had her make-up artist and hairdresser on stand-by at her Bristol Avenue home. Cameras were also stationed outside thanks to Rogers. When Charles Boyer announced the winner, Michael Curtiz stepped up to receive the statuette. Joan made a remarkable recovery and was able to receive the Oscar later that night from Curtiz. Pictures of her in bed clutching the gold trophy pushed every other winner off the front page the next day. Mildred Pierce also received nominations for Best Film, Best Supporting Actress (Eve Arden and Ann Blyth), Best Screenplay and Best Black & White Cinematography. The only blot on the landscape was her divorce from Phillip Terry, who was playing the part of Ray Milland’s brother in The Lost Weekend (1945). (Milland picked up Best Actor and the film won Best Picture.) Joan Crawford was a star once again, signing a seven-year deal paying $200,000 per film. In 1947 she was nominated for another Oscar for Possessed (released Christmas Day, 1947) although Loretta Young won for The Farmer’s Daughter. A third nomination came five years later for Sudden Fear (released August 8, 1952) but Shirley Booth triumphed for Come Back, Little Sheba (1952). Crawford made her first film in colour in 1953 for MGM, Torch Song (October 13, 1953), co-starring Michael Wilding and Gig Young. India Adams dubbed Crawford’s singing voice. On May 10, 1955, Crawford married for the fourth (or was it the fifth?) time to Pepsi chairman Alfred Steele. He died on April 19, 1959, but she remained on the company’s board of directors. By this time Crawford was 54 years old and her career seemed to be over. Despite the opinions of her detractors she was far from finished. In August 1962 she began to film Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? (released November 7, 1962) co-starring with her great rival Bette Davis. It was the story of two ageing sisters – Baby Jane Hudson (Davis) and the crippled Blanch Hudson (Crawford) – and their animosity for each other, something that was carried over into real life. Davis was to say, “The best time I ever had with Joan Crawford is when I pushed her down the stairs.” Crawford got her revenge. One scene called for Davis to lift her crippled sister and Crawford placed weights under her clothing which put Davis’ back out. “Christ, you never know what size boobs that broad has strapped on! She must have a different set for each day of the week! She’s supposed to be shrivelling away, but her tits keep growing. I keep running into them like Hollywood Hills.” (In 1985, Davis donated her scrapbooks to Columbia University and in every picture Joan Crawford’s teeth were blacked out.) Crawford was paid $30,000, $1,500-a-week expenses plus 15 per cent of the worldwide gross profits. The movie was completed in just 21 days, was a box office smash and a critical hit and a sequel was lined up, Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1965), but Crawford dropped out and Davis starred opposite Olivia De Havilland. Davis was nominated for an Oscar, much to Crawford’s disgust, and she actively campaigned against her co-star, even offering to collect the other nominee’s award if they were unable to attend. On the big night the Oscar went to Anne Bancroft and Joan stepped up to receive it. Davis was later to remark, “Why am I so good at playing bitches? I think perhaps it’s because I’m not a bitch. Maybe that’s why Miss Crawford always plays ladies.” Joan Crawford was to make only five more films and she began to drink heavily. The Pepsi bottle that she always carried with her was full of vodka. Her last films were Strait Jacket (released January 23, 1964), I Saw What You Did (released July 22, 1965), Berserk (released January 11, 1968) and Trog (1970).
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