Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries

by Paul Donnelley

  CAUSE: She was appearing on Broadway in 1969 in 40 Carats when she was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. She died in her New York home. She was 66. She was buried in Section 7, Row D, Grave 211 at the US Military Academy Post Cemetery, West Point, Orange County, New York. Her first husband’s service in the First World War allowed Farrell to be buried in a military cemetery.

  Rainer Werner Fassbinder

  Born May 31, 1945

  Died June 10, 1982

  Deutsche wunderkind. Born in Bad Wörishofen, Bavaria, the son of a doctor-cum-slum landlord who became wealthy on the rents of others, Fassbinder was sent to collect the rent from the mostly immigrant tenants. As a boy Fassbinder spent much of his time watching movies. Deciding to make them his career, he was turned down by the prestigious Berlin Film Institute. Barely out of his teens he began making amateur films. He became an actor in 1967, joining the Munich Action Theatre and two years later made his first feature. Between 1969 and 1982 he directed over 30 films, usually using the same cast and crew, who flourished under his autocratic control. His corpus included: Der Stadtsreicher (1965), Das Kleine Chaos (1966), Katzelmacher (1969), Warum Laüft Herr R Amok? (1970), Wildwechsel (1972), Die Bitteren Tränen Der Petra Von Kant (1972), Angst Vor Der Angst (1976) and Querelle (1982). Fassbinder never achieved worldwide fame and in later years became paranoid due to his overindulgence in drugs and alcohol. A homosexual, he nonetheless married Ingrid Caven who had appeared in many of his films.

  CAUSE: He died by his own hand of a drug overdose aged 37, four years to the day after his boyfriend hanged himself in the Munich home he and Fassbinder shared.

  Alice Faye

  (ALICE JEANNE LEPPERT)

  Born May 5, 1912

  Died May 9, 1998

  Thirties sweetheart. Born in New York City’s notorious Hell’s Kitchen, the daughter of a policeman, she began her showbiz career as a 13-year-old dancer. She took her name from a star of the time, Frank Fay. In 1934 Rudy Vallee gave her a job as a singer on his radio show and persuaded his film studio to cast her in his latest venture, Scandals (1934). Judging by her appearance in her first nine films, the 5́ 5˝ Faye seemed destined to be the new singing Jean Harlow. However, in 1936 her parts changed and she appeared in a more gentle, subtle light in Poor Little Rich Girl and Sing, Baby Sing. Henry King, who directed her in In Old Chicago (1937), attributed her success to “a deep-seated human warmth, so genuine, so real that everyone felt it. It’s truly a gift.” On September 4, 1937, she eloped to Yuma, Arizona, with tenor Tony Martin. (On March 22, 1940, they were divorced on the grounds of his mental cruelty.) On May 12, 1941, she eloped again. This time her beau was bandleader Phil Harris and they were to remain married for over 50 years. They had two daughters: Alice (b. May 19, 1942) and Phyllis (b. April 26, 1944). Alice Faye’s star shone brightly for eleven years in over thirty films. She retired from movie making after Fallen Angel (1945), following the rise of Betty Grable. Her comeback in 1962, to make State Fair, was a disappointment to her. She commented, “I don’t know what happened to the picture business. I’m sorry I went back to find out. Such a shame.” Her last film was The Magic Of Lassie (1978).

  CAUSE: She died of stomach cancer in Rancho Mirage, California, five days after her 86th birthday. She was buried in Palm Springs Mausoleum, Palm Springs, California.

  Marty Feldman

  Born July 8, 1934

  Died December 3, 1982

  Bug-eyed comedy genius. Born in Canning Town, east London, the son of a Jewish dressmaker, Feldman left grammar school aged 15 determined to be a jazz trumpeter. (He and actress Fenella Fielding were not siblings, although a number of reference books state that they are.) Feldman became part of a comedy trio called Morris, Marty & Mitch, but they were not especially good. In 1955 he met comedian Barry Took at the Empire Theatre, York. The two men quickly became close friends, finding they had much in common. In 1959 they began writing comedy to amuse themselves, but soon found themselves much in demand writing for The Army Game and Bootsie & Snudge; Feldman also compiled scripts for Educating Archie. In 1961 he became ill with a hyperthyroid condition, an ailment that brought about his famous ‘bug-eyed’ appearance. His behaviour also became erratic. He told Took he could only write during the hours of darkness and to the strains of jazz music. Of course, in effect that meant he didn’t write at all. However, following an operation, he returned to normal. In late 1964 the pair were approached by the BBC to write what was to become one of the funniest radio shows of all time – Round The Horne. At first they demurred but had second thoughts and produced a hilarious script, featuring characters such as Rambling Syd Rumpo, J. Peasmold Gruntfuttock, Julian and Sandy, Dame Celia Molestrangler and ageing juvenile Binkie Huckaback, Chou En Ginsberg, M.A. (Failed) and Charles and Fiona. In 1967 Feldman left Round The Horne and began appearing on television in At Last The 1948 Show (from February 15 until November 7, 1967) and his own show, It’s Marty (from April 29, 1968, until January 13, 1969). He moved to Hollywood and began appearing in movies such as Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein as Igor and Silent Movie (1976) as Marty Eggs, The Adventure Of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother as Orville Sacker, To See Such Fun (1977), The Last Remake Of Beau Geste (1977) as Digby Geste, In God We Tru$t (1980) as Brother Ambrose, Slapstick (Of Another Kind) (1982) as Sylvester and Group Madness (1983) as himself. He was chosen to present the Oscar for Best Short Film on March 29, 1977, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles. Feldman decided he would play a joke on the night. He had a plaster replica of the statuette made so that he could pretend to drop it as he presented it to the winner. Then, in a moment of triumph, he could produce the real prize. Not a great gag, one must admit, but vaguely amusing. However, things didn’t go according to plan. The fake Oscar refused to break and so Feldman threw it on the floor and jumped up and down on it. The watching audience, not in on the joke, was horrified at this strange-looking Englishman sacrilegiously vandalising this symbol of American cinema. Feldman lost many friends that night. The only saving grace was that the show was watched by the smallest TV audience ever. He married Lauretta Sullivan. There were no children.

  CAUSE: He died of a heart attack aged 48 in Mexico City during the filming of Yellowbeard (1983) in which he played Gilbert.

  FURTHER READING: Round The Horne: The Complete And Utter History – Barry Took (London: Boxtree, 1998).

  Federico Fellini

  Born January 20, 1920

  Died October 31, 1993

  Mendacious film auteur. Born in Rimini, Italy, it is difficult to ascertain the truth about Fellini’s childhood since many of the tales he told were riddled with discrepancies. He was a self-confessed liar. He left home in 1938 to become a cartoonist and proofreader in Florence. He then became a journalist specialising in crime before becoming a joke writer for films. A meeting with Roberto Rossellini opened the way for mainstream movie work. His best, most famous and first internationally recognised work was La Dolce Vita (1959), a critical look at modern Rome. It introduced the word paparazzi to the English language. Fellini originally wanted Marilyn Monroe to play the part of Sylvia Rank in the film, but was turned down. Anita Ekberg played the role. His wife Giulietta Massina appeared in many of his films, which included Luci Del Varietà (1950), Lo Sceicco Bianco (1950), La Strada (1954) which won a Best Foreign Film Oscar, Le Notti Di Cabiria (1957) which won his second Best Foreign Film Oscar, 81/2 (1963) which won his third Best Foreign Film Oscar, Giulietta Degli Spiriti (1965), Satyricon (1969), Roma (1972), Amarcord (1974) which won his fourth Best Foreign Film Oscar, Casanova (1976), La Città Delle Donne (1980), Ginger E Fred (1985), Intervista (1987) and La Voce Della Luna (1989).

  CAUSE: He died in Rome of a heart attack aged 73.

  Fernandel

  (FERNAND JOSEPH DÉSIRÉ CONTANDIN)

  Born May 8, 1903

  Died February 26, 1971

  Rubber-faced clown. Fernandel had no illusions about his looks. In fact, when he first saw himself on screen it virtually put h
im off acting. Thankfully, he reconsidered. One French film critic noted: “When Fernandel is on a film set there’s a whiff of garlic in the air, the sun shines, and those who don’t talk like Provençals begin to sound like they were speaking with an accent.” Born in Marseilles, the son of an office worker who spent his weekends in amdram, Fernandel made his stage début aged five, singing military songs with his older brother and later won trophies at amateur concerts. Leaving school, he began work in a bank but was sacked from three consecutive positions for, respectively, smoking outside the manager’s office, singing during office hours and telling so many jokes that no one got any work done. His stage name came about from his future mother-in-law. When he went to pick up his girlfriend, Henriette Manse, her mother would cry out “Ah, voilà, le Fernand d’elle!” (“Here’s her Fernand.”) Married life (he took the plunge in 1925 and had three children) taught him responsibility and he landed a job in the accounts department of a soap factory. One day the manager of the local Odeon in Marseilles asked Fernandel to fill in for an errant singer. Nervously he agreed. That night he launched into one song after the other, not allowing the audience to interrupt. To his amazement when he did finally pause for breath he found them cheering, not jeering. The result was a national tour. Film director Marc Allégret was in the audience one night and was impressed by what he saw. Fernandel was given a part in Sacha Guitry’s Le Blanc Et Le Noir (1930). It was the first of 150-plus films that saw him become one of France’s highest paid actors and develop a friendship with writer-director Marcel Pagnol. They began to collaborate on films including Regain (1937) (banned in Britain until 1956 because of an implied gang rape), a satire of the French film world Le Schpountz (1938), La Fille Du Puisatier (1940) and Nais (1945) based on a story by Emile Zola in which Fernandel plays a hunchbacked labourer. On their first film, Angèle (1934), Pagnol cast Fernandel as a village idiot. During filming Pagnol decided to rewrite one scene on the spot. Fernandel protested that he couldn’t learn six new sides (script pages) so Pagnol suggested he hide them in his hat. The scene was shot without rehearsing, and critics applauded Fernandel’s sensitive characterisation, especially the way he lowered his eyes every so often! In 1936 Fernandel was the third most popular box-office star in France; the following year he took over top place from Charles Boyer. By the time of his 35th birthday Fernandel was making around one film every two months. He would rise between 5am and 6am, having slept just four hours. Over strong coffee, he would personally answer his hundreds of fan letters before going to the studio or location. During World War II he appeared in films in Vichy France along with a host of other notables. He was arrested on August 28, 1944, for collaboration, but later exonerated. After the war he continued making films. Probably his best-known role outside France was that of the Roman Catholic priest Don Camillo in Julien Duvivier’s film Le Petit Monde De Don Camillo (1952). Although he was initially reluctant to take part, the film was a massive international success and Fernandel was personally invited to the Vatican by Pope Pius XII who labelled him “the second best-known priest in Christendom”. The film was based on Giovanni Guareschi’s tales of two bigots in an Italian town – the communist mayor and the curate. One thing did upset Fernandel. He took a salary rather than a cut of the profits, little knowing the success the film would have; it made director Duvivier rather wealthy. Duvivier also directed the equally successful sequel, Le Retour De Don Camillo (1953) but the next in the series (without Duvivier) Don Camillo Monseigneur (1961) suffered from poor direction. Mike Todd wanted Fernandel to play Passepartout to David Niven’s Phileas Fogg in Around The World In 80 Days (1956) but the Frenchman demurred, claiming his English was not sufficiently good. The part went to the Mexican Cantinflas, although Fernandel did play a cameo role. His choice of films in his latter years was mostly poor, teaming him with comedians from other countries, usually to no good effect. In 1965 he appeared with his son in L’Age Ingrat and returned as Don Camillo in Don Camillo A Moscou (1965).

  CAUSE: Fernandel fell when he was on his boat and bruised his chest. Some time later he began to suffer pains that he believed were a direct result of the fall. In the summer of 1970 he was filming Don Camillo Et Les Contestataires in Italy when he collapsed with pleurisy. He was returned to his Paris flat where he was told to get plenty of rest. However, his condition worsened and he died of lung cancer aged 67.

  Lolo Ferrari

  (EVE VALOIS)

  Born February 9, 1963

  Died March 6, 2000

  Huge-busted model. Born to a middle-class family in Clermont-Ferrand, France, Lolo Ferrari became infamous for her huge silicone-inflated breasts. She had more than 30 operations on various parts of her body. Her breasts were inflated with three litres of surgical serum and were designed by an aircraft engineer. She could not sleep on her back or stomach, had difficulty breathing and was scared to fly lest her breasts explode. She appeared as a regular on the television show Eurotrash from September 1996 until 1999. In February 1996, she released a single called ‘Airbag Generation’. A second was entitled ‘Set Me Free’. As well as appearing in porn films, she also appeared in the movies Camping Cosmos (1995) as Mme Vandeputte and Quasimodo D’El Paris (1999) as La fée. In 1988 she married Eric Vigne (b. 1948). At one stage it was stated that 5́ 7˝ Lolo’s breasts measured 71” or 54G bra size. Lolo, by the way, is French slang for “tits”.

  CAUSE: She died aged 37 in Grasse, France, of what was originally thought to be an overdose of prescription drugs. On June 8, 2000, Eric Vigne was arrested on suspicion of failing to prevent her death. In February 2002, a report was issued stating that Lolo had died of suffocation. On February 27, 2002, Vigne was placed under formal investigation – one step short of being charged with murder. In November 2002, a court in Aix-en-Province decided that there was sufficient evidence to proceed with the murder trial of Eric Vigne.

  Jose Ferrer

  (JOSé VICENTE FERRER DE OTERO Y CINTRóN)

  Born January 8, 1909

  Died January 26, 1992

  Latin lover. Born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, Ferrer was educated at Princeton University, where he studied architecture. Changing direction, he made his acting début on a Long Island showboat in 1934. The following year he appeared in summer theatre in Suffern, New York. He then joined Joshua Logan’s company and toured doubling up as assistant stage manager. His Broadway début came at the 48th Street Theater on September 11, 1935, playing a policeman in A Slight Case Of Murder. He spent much of the next 50 years touring America in various plays. He also appeared in over 50 films and innumerable television productions, including Joan Of Arc (1948) as The Dauphin, for which he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, losing out to Walter Huston for Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (1948), the lead in Cyrano De Bergerac (1950), which won him the Best Actor Academy Award, Crisis (1950) as Raoul Farrago, Moulin Rouge (1952) as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and The Comte de Toulouse-Lautrec, which earned him a Best Actor Oscar nomination, Anything Can Happen as Giorgi, Miss Sadie Thompson as Alfred Davidson, The Caine Mutiny (1954) as Lieutenant Barney Greenwald, Deep In My Heart (1954) as Sigmund Romberg, The Cockleshell Heroes (1955) as Major Stringer, I Accuse! (1958) as Captain Alfred Dreyfus, which he also directed, The High Cost Of Loving (1958) as Jim Fry, Lawrence Of Arabia (1962) as Bey Of Deraa, Cyrano Et D’Artagnan (1963) as Cyrano de Bergerac, The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) as Herod Antipas, Ship Of Fools (1965) as Rieber, Cervantes (1966) as Hassan Bey, The Swarm (1978) as Dr Andrews, The Amazing Captain Nemo (1978) as Captain Nemo, The Fifth Musketeer (1979) as Athos, To Be Or Not To Be as Professor Siletski, Dune as Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV and Hired To Kill (1991) as the leader of the rebels. Of his career he had few illusions: “The truth is I made a few good movies in the Fifties then went into freefall.” He was possessed of a sense of humour that didn’t always place him in favourable positions. Interrogated during the McCarthy witch hunts on May 22, 1951, he was asked about an alleged communist past and his attendance of communist fund-r
aising events during the war. Ferrer admitted attending the events but said that when he played Iago to Paul Robeson’s Othello, he didn’t notice that the actor was either a communist or black! Ferrer was married four times. His first wife was Uta Hagen, whom he married on December 8, 1938. They divorced in 1948, eight years after the birth of their daughter, Leticia Thyra. On June 19, 1948, Ferrer married actress Phyllis Hill in Greenwich, Connecticut. The couple was divorced on July 7, 1953. Six days later, Ferrer married singer Rosemary Clooney in Durant, Oklahoma. They had five children: actor Miguel (b. February 7, 1955) who is married to actress Leilani Sarelle, Roxy in Basic Instinct (1992); Maria (b. August 1956); Gabriel (b. 1957) who married singer Debby Boone in 1979; Monsita (b. 1958) and Rafael (b. March 23, 1960). Ferrer and Clooney were divorced in 1967. Sometime in the late Sixties, amid great secrecy, Ferrer married Stella Daphne Magee. “The date of our marriage is known to only three people: my wife, myself and the man who married us. Even my children don’t know.”