Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries

by Paul Donnelley

  CAUSE: Katharine Hepburn, who had been in ill-health for some years, died at her home in Fenwick, an upper-class borough of Old Saybrook, Connecticut. She had suffered from Parkinson’s disease and a large malignant tumour had grown on her neck. A friend of the actor, Cynthia McFadden, said that she died surrounded by family. On June 10–11, 2004, Sotheby’s in New York auctioned 684 lots of Hepburn’s belongings, including items of clothing and paintings she had created.

  FURTHER READING: Tracy And Hepburn– Garson Kanin (New York: Bantam, 1972); Kate: The Life Of Katharine Hepburn– Charles Higham (New York: W.W. Norton, 1975); Katharine Hepburn: A Biography– Gary Carey (London: New English Library, 1985); Katharine Hepburn: A Biography– Anne Edwards (London: Coronet, 1987); Young Kate– Christopher Andersen (New York: Delta, 1988); Me: Stories Of My Life– Katharine Hepburn (New York: Ballantine Books, 1992); Katharine Hepburn– Barbara Leaming (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995); An Affair To Remember: The Remarkable Love Story Of Katharine Hepburn And Spencer Tracy– Christopher Andersen (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1997); Kate Remembered– A. Scott Berg (London: Simon & Schuster, 2003); Katharine The Great (1907–1950) Secrets Of A Lifetime … Revealed– Darwin Porter (New York: Blood Moon Productions, 2004).

  Jon-Erik Hexum

  Born January 5, 1957

  Died October 18, 1984

  Tragic hunk. Born in New Jersey, it was said that handsome 6́ 1˝ Hexum had a guaranteed golden future ahead of him in Hollywood. He starred as macho time-traveller Phineas Bogg in the sci-fi show Voyagers and then he appeared with Joan Collins in the TV movie The Making Of A Male Model (1983). The pair reputedly became a couple off screen. Collins tried and failed to use her influence to get Hexum cast as her lover, Dex, on Dynasty. (The part went to Michael Nader.) Instead, Hexum was cast as Mac Harper, the lead in the series Cover Up at Fox in Century City. Mac Harper was a fashion photographer, a former Green Beret and, ironically, a weapons expert, who doubled as a secret agent.

  CAUSE: Off screen Hexum was a practical joker, forever fooling around. It was his sense of fun and jolly japes that cost him his life. On Friday October 12, 1984, Hexum left his home, 2108 Kenwood Avenue, Burbank, and travelled to the studio. At about 5.15pm 26-year-old Hexum jokingly placed a .44 Magnum against his temple, smiled and said, “Let’s see if I’ve got one for me” and pulled the trigger. Although the weapon was loaded with three empty cartridges and two blanks (a wad of cotton and a small charge) it was still enough to shatter his skull. He immediately collapsed into a coma. A witness at the studio commented: “Jon smiled and pulled the trigger. There was a loud bang and a bright flash, then black smoke. Jon screamed in agony, then looked kind of amazed as he slumped back onto the bed with blood streaming from a severe head wound. It was horrible.” A crew member rushed over and tried to stem the bleeding. Hexum was rushed to Beverly Hills Medical Center, 1177 South Beverly Drive, Los Angeles, where his condition was declared to be extremely critical. Six days later, he was pronounced brain dead. His organs were transplanted and his death was ruled as ‘accidental’. He was cremated at a private funeral in Grandview Crematory, Glendale, California. His ashes were scattered in Malibu.

  Benny Hill

  (ALFRED HAWTHORNE HILL)

  Born January 21, 1924

  Found dead Easter Monday (April 20), 1992

  Sad comic. Best known for his television shows Benny Hill made only the occasional foray into films, including Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines (1965), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1966) as the toy maker and The Italian Job (1969) as the computer expert. In Star Turns, his dual biography of Benny Hill and Frankie Howerd, the scriptwriter Barry Took investigates the sex lives of both comedians. One was a closet homosexual although very open about it in showbiz circles while the other was suspected of similar tendencies. Benny Hill’s friends jumped to his defence insisting any accusation of homosexuality was simply wrong and ill-informed. And they were right. Benny Hill was born above a lamp shop in Bernard Street, Southampton (although he knocked a year off his age in later life insisting he was born in 1925), the middle of three children: Leonard Ernest (b. Southampton, December, 1921, d. June, 1990 of a heart attack) and Diana Helen (b. Southampton, January, 1933, d. Australia, 1987, of leukaemia). Hill was exceptionally close to his mother, Helen Cave (b. June 21, 1894, d. Southampton General Hospital, February, 1976), but kept his distance from his father Alfred Hawthorn (b. Leytonstone, December 12, 1893, d. May, 1972) who by all accounts was a stern man known as ‘The Captain’. In 1941, aged 17, young Alfred left Southampton and travelled to London to seek fame and fortune in the precarious world of show business. Not long after his arrival in the capital city Hill was propositioned by a gay comedian looking for a new partner (for his act). He plied the youngster with booze and edged closer on the settee. An arm around the shoulder, a hand on the knee. It was only when he leaned forward to kiss him that Hill jumped up and ran away. Later, when asked by a group of gay dancers if he was queer, Hill is said to have replied that he felt very well. When the matter was pressed he said, “Not really but I have my funny little ways.” Hill was said to have had two great loves in his life which left him unable to give himself completely to any other woman. The second of these was actress Annette André, star of Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased). It was claimed that whenever she came on screen he had to leave the room. However Hill would have wanted it otherwise, the relationship was always a friendship and never a romance. “We used to laugh together and were good friends, but that was it,” she said many years later. “I never had an affair with him, I didn’t want to.” It came as a shock to her when Hill proposed one day in 1963. She declined and never spoke to him again until just two months before his death in 1992. It was on The Benny Hill Show, broadcast on Thames TV from 1969 until 1989, that Hill began to attract massive audiences and three BAFTA (British Oscar) awards (for Best Light Entertainment Programme (1971), Best Light Entertainment Production and Direction, and Best Script (both 1972)). However, the show also brought a great deal of criticism from feminists, much of it ignorant. The readers of a women’s magazine voted The Benny Hill Show their least favourite programme. In 1987 Colin Shaw, the director of regulatory body the Broadcasting Standards Council, declared, “It’s not as funny as it was to have half-naked girls chased across the screen by a dirty old man. Attitudes have changed. The kind of behaviour that gets a stream of men sent to magistrates’ courts each year isn’t at all amusing.” Alternative comedian Ben Elton wondered aloud if in the days when it was unsafe for women to walk in parks, was it a good idea for a show to be broadcast showing Benny Hill chasing women in their underwear? Hill was outraged at Elton breaking the unwritten rule that one comic does not publicly criticise another. Without specifically naming anyone he hit back. “They criticise me for chasing girls through a park, when in real life it’s not safe for a girl to walk through parks alone. If they watched the show properly, they would see it’s always girls chasing me.” The girls were nicknamed in the press ‘Hill’s Angels’ after the gorgeous trio in the cop show Charlie’s Angels. Sue Upton, one of the original Angels and a close friend of Hill, came to his defence. She stated somewhat naïvely, “Benny isn’t the dirty old man people think … He is the perfect gentleman when he dates his glamour girls. They all say so. He always walks on the road side of the pavement. That’s the height of good manners.” Yet others told a different tale. One young and very attractive brunette actress tells of being invited for a Chinese meal by Hill and then back to his flat at 2 Queensgate, London SW7, where Hill expected sexual favours. When she declined to service the fat comic he asked her to leave and she never got to appear on his show. Beautiful model and actress Stefanie Marrian (b. October 9, 1949) was just 16 when she went to see Hill about work on his TV show in 1966. In October 1985 Marrian told newspapers that Hill had invited her to his flat for an “audition” whereupon he produced a bottle of champagne to help her relax. As he poured the drink, Hill told her there were three ways to become
a success. “Either you need talent which you don’t have, or outstanding beauty which you don’t have either. Or you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” Stefanie Marrian then related how Hill showed her how to pleasure him. He took her into his bedroom where he stripped her before taking off his own clothes except his shorts. Stefanie grabbed her clothes and bolted for the door. A few days later, she went back. “I’d never seen a man naked before and the sight of Benny was no laughing matter,” she said. “He didn’t want to make love, but enjoyed me masturbating him on his purple bed. I hated the sight of his naked body, but he loved me wanking him. It was like a holy ritual and I was his virginal creature.” 33½-22-34 Stefanie who went on to become The Sun Page 3 Girl of the Year in 1976 related how Hill would strip off and lay on his bed with her between his legs stroking him. “I always kept my knickers on and he would never touch me. He would constantly put me down and make me feel dirty. Each time we met I would masturbate him, no matter where we were.” According to the model she pleaded with the corpulent comic to make love to her not long after she had lost her virginity aged 17. She tried everything in her repertoire of tricks to turn Hill on including wearing stockings and garters and bending over in front of him while wearing no knickers but nothing seemed to work. “He kept saying he was afraid of making me pregnant. But once when he did try to touch me up, he did it wearing rubber gloves. He would also invite his friends round and expect me to sleep with them, but I would always refuse.” Blonde model Nikki Critcher claimed that one day in the studio Hill had squeezed her bosom so hard she had to slap his face to make him let go. “I’d been warned by other girls that Benny was always trying it on, but I’d never seen that side of him until one day he suddenly grabbed my breasts. I feel sorry for Benny. I think he was very lonely.” His former producer Dennis Kirkland completely refutes both stories. Former model Cherie Gilham has revealed how she would give the corpulent comic “a sympathy blowjob”. In Star Turns Barry Took opines that 5́ 10˝ Benny Hill’s sex life was carried out with prostitutes in faraway places like Marseilles, Hamburg, Tokyo and Bangkok. It seems that Benny Hill didn’t have to go far to get his kicks after all. However, perhaps the most poignant statement is made by Hill himself. “In relations between the sexes the male is always disappointed.”