CAUSE: On November 23, 1974, Diana fell ill and the next day collapsed into a coma with meningitis. However, within seven weeks she was well enough to rehearse a new play. In June 1982 she was rushed to hospital with severe stomach pains. An operation revealed that an ovarian cyst had burst and had been malignant. Diana Dors had cancer. On September 3, 1983, she underwent yet another operation for cancer. She was put on a course of tablets. On April 30, 1984, an operation discovered that the cancer had spread throughout her body, even to her bone marrow. She never left the hospital in Windsor, Berkshire and died at 9pm four days later. After the funeral back at Orchard Manor Alan Lake removed the mourning suit he had worn and, going into the garden, burned it. At 1.45pm on October 10, 1984, 16 years to the day of his meeting with Diana, Alan Lake blew his brains out in their son Jason’s bedroom. Diana Dors left £208,000. Alan Lake left £132,702.
FURTHER READING: Swingin’ Dors – Diana Dors (London: WDL Books, 1960); Dors & Diana: An Intimate Biography – Wolf Rilla (London: Everest Books, 1977); Diana Dors: Only A Whisper Away – Joan Flory & Damien Walne (London: Javelin Books, 1988); Come By Sunday: The Fabulous, Ruined Life Of Diana Dors – Damon Wise (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1998).
Marie Dressler
(LEILA MARIE KOERBER)
Born November 9, 1868
Died July 28, 1934
Hefty star. Born in Coburg, Canada, she began her career on stage when she was 14 before moving into opera for a time. By 1892 she was a vaudeville and Broadway star and in 1910 played the comedic character Tillie on stage to great acclaim. She made her film début at a salary of $2,500 a week in the title role in Tillie’s Punctured Romance (1914), the first American full-length comedy. Mack Sennett learned that his former director D.W. Griffith was making a feature film (Birth Of A Nation) so he determined to get in first. The film was shot in 14 weeks from April to July 1914 and the cast included Charlie Chaplin, Mabel Normand, Edgar Kennedy, Chester Conklin, Minta Durfee (Mrs Fatty Arbuckle) and Al St John. The film was released in America on November 14, 1914, to tremendous acclaim and in Britain in spring 1915. A sequel, Tillie’s Tomato Surprise (1915), was made and that was also successful so a third film went into production, Tillie Wakes Up (1917). Despite the fact that he was the one who signed her in the first place Dressler sued Sennett claiming that her husband (George Hoppert) had been promised the distribution rights to the film but the suit was dismissed. Her career had its ups and downs but was not affected by the advent of the talkies. She appeared with Greta Garbo in Anna Christie (1930) and that same year won the Best Actress Oscar for Min And Bill (1930) playing opposite Wallace Beery. She worked with Beery three times and said of him, “He never struck me, except in self-defence.” She was nominated again as Best Actress for her role as Emma (Thatcher Smith) in Emma (1932). Dressler stood 5́ 7˝ tall and “homely” was one of the kinder descriptions about her bulk. One critic said that she had “an ample figure like a rain barrel and a face that fell into folds like those of a St Bernard”.
CAUSE: She died in Santa Barbara, California, of cancer. She was 65.
Bobby Driscoll
Born March 3, 1937 Body found March 30, 1968
Tragic child star. Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Robert Cletus Driscoll and his family moved to California in 1943 when he was 6 years old. After being told by a barber that their son ought to be in pictures the Driscolls took young Bobby for an audition at MGM. The studio was suitably impressed and he made his film début in Lost Angel (1943) playing a character called Bobby opposite Margaret O’Brien, another child star who was not destined for adult stardom. He was able to learn lines like a pro and Bobby was soon fêted as the leading child star earning $500 a week. He appeared with Anne Baxter in Sunday Dinner For A Soldier (1944) as Jeep Osborne; he was in The Sullivans (1944) as Al Sullivan, The Big Bonanza (1944) as Spud Kilton, the tragically ironically entitled Identity Unknown (1945) as Toddy Loring, a boy with a wounded dog in Miss Susie Slagle’s (1946) and From This Day Forward (1946) as Timmy Beesley. He appeared in the Alan Ladd vehicle O.S.S. (1946) as Gerard, and bowled over his co-stars Myrna Loy and Don Ameche in So Goes My Love (1946) for Universal in which he played Percy Maxim. Ameche commented, “He’s got a great talent. I’ve worked with a lot of child players in my time but none of them bore the promise that seems inherent in young Driscoll.” When he was signed to appear in Song Of The South (1946) as Johnny, he became the first “live” star to be given a contract with the Disney studios. Driscoll made five more films for Disney – all successful. His portrayal of Jim Hawkins, the cabin boy, in Treasure Island (1950) was masterful. He told reporters that he was going to save his money, go to college and become a G-man. On March 23, 1950, he was presented with a special Oscar by Donald O’Connor for his work in The Window (1949) as Tommy Woodry and So Dear To My Heart (1949) as Jeremiah ‘Jerry’ Kincaid. At the ceremony Driscoll who as a teenager was plagued by severe acne thanked “God for giving me such a wonderful mother and father”. His was the voice of Peter Pan (1953) in the film of the same name. He also appeared in If You Knew Susie (1948) as Junior, When I Grow Up (1951) as Josh/Danny Reed, The Happy Time (1952) as Bibi, The Scarlet Coat (1955) as Ben Potter. In 1956 he married Marilyn Brush and they had a son before they separated unamicably. Within a few short years his career would be over. Like many child actors Driscoll found it difficult to obtain work once he reached his late teens. He also found it difficult to mix with his peers and when they ignored or rejected his friendship he “fought back [and] became cocky and belligerent”. By the time he was 16 he was a heroin addict. His last film, and also the last for his co-star Frances Farmer, was The Party Crashers (1958) in which he played Josh Bickford. The following year he was arrested for possession of heroin and jailed. In 1960 his troubles worsened and he was arrested on a charge of possession of a deadly weapon after he pistol-whipped some youths who were verbally abusing him. In 1961 he was arrested for breaking into a vet’s and then for forging a cheque and later on more drugs charges. He was sentenced to six months in the Narcotics Rehabilitation Center of Chino State Penitentiary. On his release he moved to New York and dropped from view. His mother blamed the drugs for destroying her once handsome son. “Drugs changed him. He didn’t bathe, his teeth got loose. He had an extremely high IQ but the narcotics affected his brain. We didn’t know what it was. He was 19 before we knew.”
CAUSE: A body was discovered by two children playing in an abandoned tenement on New York’s Avenue A on the Lower East Side in Greenwich Village on March 30, 1968. The cause of death was hardening of the arteries, a heart attack and hepatitis due to drug abuse. The unidentified corpse was fingerprinted and then buried in a pauper’s grave on Hart Island off the Bronx. In September 1969, Driscoll’s mother contacted the Disney Organisation. Driscoll’s father was dying and wanted to find her missing son. She had been to the FBI but J. Edgar Hoover’s G-men were unhelpful. The powerful Disney Organisation intervened to put pressure on various authorities. It was then discovered that the corpse found in New York was that of Driscoll, the one-time Oscar winning actor. The find came a fortnight after the death of Driscoll’s father. He was less than a month past his 31st birthday. He once complained bitterly, “I was carried on a satin cushion and then dropped in a garbage can.”
Joanne Dru
(JOANNE LACOCK)
Born January 31, 1923
Died September 11, 1996
Gutsy heroine. Born in Logan, West Virginia, the sister of American TV personality Peter Marshall, Joanne Dru began her career on stage in New York in 1940. In September 1941 she married singer Dick Haymes (b. Buenos Aires, Argentina, September 13, 1916, d. March 29, 1980) and had three children: Dick, Jr (b. 1942), Helen (b. 1944) and Barbara (b. 1949). They were divorced in 1949 and she married actor John Ireland in the same year. That marriage lasted seven years and produced two sons John and Peter. In 1972 she married C.V. Wood, Jr. He died in 1993. She began in films with Abie’s Irish Rose (1946) playing Rosemary Murphy but it was ap
pearing in Westerns such as Red River (1948) as Tess Millay, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon (1949) as Olivia Dandridge and Wagonmaster (1950) as Denver that made her name. Oddly, she hated horses. Her other films included: All The King’s Men (1949) as Anne Stanton, 711 Ocean Drive (1950) as Gail Mason, Mr Belvedere Rings The Bell (1951) as Miss Tripp, The Pride Of St Louis (1952) as Patricia Nash Dean and Sylvia (1965) as Jane Phillips.
CAUSE: She died aged 76 in Beverly Hills, California, of lymphedema.
Pete Duel
(PETER ELLSTROM DEUEL)
Born February 24, 1940
Died December 31, 1971
The frustrated stage actor. To outsiders it seemed that Pete Duel had everything to live for – a loving girlfriend, a nice home, money and a hit TV series. Yet, it was not enough. He was born in Rochester, New York, the eldest child of Dr Elsworth Shault Deuel and Lillian Marcella Ellstrom, a Swedish-American. Brother Geoffrey, born in 1942, and sister Pamela, born three years later, completed the family. Peter Deuel grew up wanting to be a pilot but discovered he had 20/30 eyesight and changed his plans to medicine. During two years studying to be a doctor at St Lawrence University, Watertown, New York, the college attended by both his father and grandfather, Deuel appeared in every play staged by the drama department. Deciding a life of medicine was not after all for him, Deuel joined the American Theatre Wing where he spent a further two years studying Shakespeare, restoration comedy, elocution, fencing, dancing and body movement. In 1962 Deuel landed his first paid job as an actor, a small part in an off-Broadway production of Electra at the Players’ Theater in Greenwich Village where he also served as Assistant Stage Manager. Deuel made his TV début in a one hour production from the Armstrong Theater and then went on tour with Tom Ewell in the Broadway hit Take Her, She’s Mine. On his return he decided to find his fortune in Hollywood. Arriving in the movie capital Pete Deuel was cast in mainly villainous roles before landing a part, John Cooper, in the TV series Gidget, which premièred on September 15, 1965. This led to his casting in one of the lead parts, David Willis, in Love On A Rooftop the following year. This vehicle gave him the opportunity to show off his talents in both comic and tragic situations. In 1967 Deuel made his film début as Mike Brewer in The Hell With Heroes and impressed so much that he was signed to a seven-year contract by Universal. Appearing as a guest star in a number of shows including The Fugitive, The Virginian, A Man Called Ironside, (6)߰Deuel was signed to play the role of Hannibal Heyes (alias Joshua Smith) in a new ABC TV series entitled Alias Smith & Jones about two Kansas train robbers who have been promised an amnesty if they can stay out of trouble for one year. The series débuted in Britain in April 1971 on BBC2 and was an instant hit. For the sake of simplicity Pete had by now altered the spelling of his surname to Duel. However, filming a weekly series was a hard slog and Duel did not really relish the demands put upon him. In August 1971 he collapsed on set with the flu and was sent home. A reputation for being difficult followed, although Pete claimed he was not hard to work with, merely a perfectionist. It is thought he was hoping another less strenuous series would rescue him from Alias Smith & Jones and then allow him to return to ‘proper’ acting on Broadway. Of acting in a series Pete had said, “The quantity of work is Herculean and the quality is often non-existent.” A salary increase quietened him temporarily. “Contractually, I have to do this series,” he told a journalist friend, “or some other trash.” Duel was a politically active Democrat and was vocal in his support for Eugene McCarthy. In November 1971 Duel stood for election to an executive post in the Screen Actors’ Guild, the union, and was bitterly disappointed when he lost. When the telegram arrived informing him of his defeat he tacked it to a wall and then, taking his revolver, blasted a hole through it. A keen environmentalist and 20 years ahead of his time, Pete loved to picnic far from civilisation, but he always tried to leave the countryside tidier than when he had arrived. Pete refused to buy containers that could not be recycled and campaigned to persuade everyone else to do the same. When he signed an autograph, more often than not he would preface his signature with the words “Peace and Ecology Now”. A poet as well as an actor, Pete Duel was a typical man of the Sixties. However, he found his release in alcohol rather than drugs. Thrice arrested for drink-driving, he lost his licence but escaped jail by promising the judge he would give up the bottle. Pete received a $1,000 fine and was sentenced to 180 days jail, suspended for two years. Just a week after his plea to the judge, Pete Duel would die by his own hand. In December he volunteered to spend two weekends working for a charity telethon – Toys for Tots. A picture taken at the time shows Duel holding a toy gun to his head. Often, while in the make-up chair for the show, Duel would place his prop gun to his head.
Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries Page 64