Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries

by Paul Donnelley

  CAUSE: Mature died, aged 86, from leukaemia at Rancho Santa Fe, California. He was buried in the family plot at St Michael’s Cemetery, Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky.

  Jenny Maxwell

  Born September 3, 1941

  Died June 10, 1981

  Tragic wannabe. After failing the audition for Lolita it looked like New York-born Jennifer Helene Maxwell’s career was over before it had started. Then she was cast in Blue Denim (1959) as Marion and Blue Hawaii (1961) as Ellie Corbett opposite Elvis Presley and it looked as if things could take off. She only made two more films before retiring: Shotgun Wedding (1963) and Take Her, She’s Mine (1963) as Sarah.

  CAUSE: Walking with her lawyer husband Tip Roeder both were shot to death outside their Beverly Hills home. The murders remain unsolved.

  Louis B. Mayer

  (LAZAR MEIR)

  Born 1885

  Died October 29, 1957

  Creator of “more stars than there are in the heavens”. Born in Dymer in the Ukraine, the son of 5́ 4˝ Jacob Meir, he moved with his family to England in 1886 but his father was unable to find work and after a year moved to Ireland, while his wife and family sailed for America where he later joined them. Then they moved to St John, New Brunswick, Canada, in 1892. Mayer worked as a scrap metal dealer before moving to Boston on January 3, 1904. At the 15 Emerald Street First Orthodox Synagogue on June 14, 1904, he married Margaret Shenberg (b. 1882, d. Cedars Of Lebanon Hospital, Los Angeles, May 21, 1954, of heart failure). On the wedding documents Mayer lied about his age stating it as “Born July 4, 1882”. In fact, like many from Eastern Europe, his date of birth is unsure and he adopted the Fourth of July to show his patriotism. Their daughter Edith was born on August 13, 1905, and then, following a stillbirth, another daughter, Irene, was born at 101 Russell Street, Greenpoint, on April 2, 1907. That same year Mayer bought the Orpheum, an old cinema in Haverhill, Massachusetts, after seeing an advertisement. He spent time and money redecorating the building and then announced a policy of only showing the best films when it opened on November 28 (Thanksgiving), 1907. It worked and he began to purchase other picture palaces until he owned the largest chain in New England. In 1914 he changed tack and began distributing films, starting with D.W. Griffith’s The Birth Of A Nation (1915). His next step was to move into production and he joined the Alco company (which later became Metro). On September 15, 1914, he joined a masonic lodge that already numbered Al Jolson, D.W. Griffith and Raymond Hitchcock among its members. On October 14, 1916, he left to become a movie producer and his first film was called The Great Secret (1916). He created his own company, Louis B. Mayer Pictures. On April 7, 1920, he had a punch-up with Charlie Chaplin following remarks made by Mayer about the Little Tramp’s divorce from Mildred Harris to which Chaplin took exception. The actor took the first swing but the producer won the day. On April 17, 1924, his company merged with Metro and Goldwyn Pictures. For some time films were released as “A Metro-Goldwyn Picture, Produced By Louis B. Mayer” until at Mayer’s insistence the name became Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Mayer was appointed General Manager and Vice President, a role he would hold until July 25, 1951, when he lost a power struggle to Dore Schary. It was Mayer’s vision that made the studio one of the most successful in the Thirties. Mayer spent the most to hire the best and was amply rewarded himself, becoming the highest paid person in America. Mayer ran MGM like a family, rewarding loyalty and punishing those who didn’t have the company’s best interests at heart. Screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz said of him, “He has the memory of an elephant and the hide of an elephant. The only difference is that elephants are vegetarians and Mayer’s diet is his fellow man.” Mayer went to extreme lengths to protect his ‘family’, covering up manslaughters by Clark Gable and John Huston. He also maintained a brothel for the exclusive use of visiting VIPs, in which all the prostitutes were film star lookalikes. He had an on-off relationship with his production chief David O. Selznick, who was also his son-in-law. A rabid Republican, Mayer was instrumental in the foundation of the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. In 1948 his mentally unbalanced wife won a divorce from him. Mayer eloped to Yuma, Arizona, with Lorena Danker on December 3, 1948. When he left MGM, things changed. Ava Gardner reported: “MGM’s no great shakes now, but it was a damned sight better when the old man was around. I never liked him much but at least you knew where you stood.”

  CAUSE: He suffered a kidney infection in October 1957 and on the 28th fell into a coma. He died at 12.35am the next day, aged 72. He was buried in The Chapel Mausoleum’s Corridor of Immortality in Home of Peace Memorial Park, 4334 Whittier Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90023.

  FURTHER READING: Merchant Of Dreams: Louis B. Mayer, MGM And The Secret Hollywood – Charles Higham (New York: Donald I. Fine, 1993).

  Virginia Mayo

  (VIRGINIA CLARA JONES)

  Born November 30, 1920

  Died January 17, 2005

  Glamorous second fiddle. Virginia Mayo was born in St Louis, Missouri, the daughter of a newspaper reporter. She became interested in show business at an early age and began her working life in vaudeville. Her movie career almost faltered when David O. Selznick believed that she did not have a future in films. Samuel Goldwyn disagreed and cast her in the 1943 film Jack London, which starred her soon-to-be-husband Michael O’Shea (b. Hartford, Connecticut, March 17, 1906, d. Dallas, Texas, December 4, 1973 of a heart attack), whom she married on July 6, 1947 in the Little Church of the Flowers in Glendale, California. They had one daughte,r Catherine Mary, who was born in Los Angeles on November 12, 1953. Mayo starred opposite Bob Hope in the 1944 film The Princess And The Pirate. Her work was primarily in light comedy and she appeared with Danny Kaye in four films, including The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty (1947) in which she played Rosalind van Hoorn. As well as comedy she could play drama and was in 1946’s The Best Years Of Our Lives as Marie Derry, the unfaithful wife of Fred Derry (Dana Andrews). In the late Forties she made the move from MGM to Warner Bros and was lauded for her role as Verna Jarrett the wife of James Cagney in the crime drama White Heat (1949). Her other films included: The Flame And The Arrow (1950) as Anne, Captain Horatio Hornblower (1950) as Lady Barbara Wellesley, She’s Working Her Way Through College (1952) as Angela Gardner and The Silver Chalice (1954) as Helena, opposite Paul Newman in his film début. She worked less and less from the Sixties onwards, making just ten films between 1965 and her death.

  CAUSE: She died aged 84 at a nursing home in Thousand Oaks, California, of pneumonia and heart failure.

  Mercedes McCambridge

  Born March 16, 1916

  Died March 2, 2004

  The voice of the devil. Carlotta Mercedes Agnes McCambridge was born at 5am – the daughter of Irish immigrants on the family farm at Blackstone, near Joliet, Illinois. At some point in life, she began giving her birth date as St Patrick’s Day 1918. She was educated at a Catholic High School in Chicago, and then studied English and theatre at Mundelein College, Chicago, where she was spotted by a Chicago radio programme director and was given a five-year contract. In 1941, she married her first husband, William Fifield and they migrated to Hollywood, where she continued to work in wireless. She then moved to New York to take the title role in a radio adaptation of the play Abie’s Irish Rose and found steady work in the radio dramas of Orson Welles. In 1945 she made her Broadway début in A Place Of Our Own but the play closed after just eight performances. A series of flops followed before McCambridge was chosen to appear in Robert Rossen’s All The King’s Men (released November 8, 1949). The film was based on the career of the corrupt Louisiana governor Huey ‘Kingfish’ Long and McCambridge played the hard-bitten and aggressive Sadie Burke, a manipulative campaign manager to Governor Willie Stark (Broderick Crawford). On March 23, 1950, the film garnered the Best Picture Oscar, as well as the Best Actor Oscar for Broderick Crawford as Stark. McCambridge also won an Oscar for her performance but if she was hoping that the film would catapult her into megastardom that ho
pe was in vain. She did not fit the Hollywood glamour girl profile and her film work was sporadic. In 1981 she said, “I don’t think the Hollywood community is interested in what I can do. That’s all right. I’ve never looked for a job in my life, and I’m not going to start now. I have plenty to keep me busy.” Her other credits included Lightning Strikes Twice (1951) as Liza McStringer, Inside Straight (1951), The Scarf (1951), Giant (1956) as Luz Benedict, Rock Hudson’s haughty older sister, wearing a hat given to her by Gary Cooper, for which she won a second Best Supporting Actress nomination; A Farewell To Arms (1957) as Miss Van Campen, Suddenly Last Summer (1959) as Mrs Holly, Cimarron (1960) as Mrs Sarah Wyatt, 99 Women (1969), Thieves (1977) and The Concorde – Airport ’79 (1979) as Nelli. The on-screen feud with Joan Crawford in Johnny Guitar (premièred May 5, 1954) in which she played the homicidal and sexually ambiguous Emma Small was given an added poignancy because the two women could not stand each other off screen – in her autobiography she called Joan Crawford “a mean, tipsy, powerful, rotten-egg lady”. Orson Welles regarded her as “the world’s greatest living radio actress” and persuaded her to provide the voice of the demon who possesses Linda Blair in William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (premièred Boxing Day, 1973). Once she had the role McCambridge was enthusiastic in her preparation. Said Friedkin, “She really went for it. She was chainsmoking, swallowing raw eggs, getting me to tie her to a chair; all these painful things just to produce the sound of a demon in torment. And as she did it, the most peculiar things would happen in her throat. Double and triple sounds would emerge at once, wheezing sounds, very much akin to what you would imagine a demon in torment might sound like.” The lady herself said, “I’m a product of 16 years of convent education and I’m still a devout Catholic, so speaking those vile, blaspheming words was an agony for me. Every night when I came home I got down on my knees and gave thanks to God that I had been able to conjure up so much demonic personality. Any child could have wiggled on the bed. If there was any horror in the exorcism, it was me.” However, if the audience were shocked by the film’s graphic content, McCambridge had a shock as the credits rolled. Her name was omitted. She left the cinema crying and claimed that she would not “at the hands of Mr Friedkin or Warner Bros, sink into senility in shame”. The Screen Actors’ Guild subsequently forced the inclusion of her name in the credits. She earned a Tony nomination for Best Supporting Actress in The Love Suicide At Schofield Barracks (1972). In 1950 she married Fletcher Markle (b. Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, March 27, 1921, d. May 23, 1991 of heart failure), a radio and film director. During the course of the 12-year marriage McCambridge became an alcoholic and ended up in hospital after several heavy binges. On March 16, 1963, after her divorce, 5́ 3˝ McCambridge was given emergency treatment after swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills. But she eventually recovered, later testifying before a Senate committee on alcoholism and narcotics in July 1969. In 1987, her only child, John Lawrence, the son of her first marriage, committed suicide after murdering his wife and two daughters. Her autobiography The Quality Of Mercy punned on her nickname, Mercy.

  CAUSE: Mercedes McCambridge died from natural causes at an assisted-living facility in La Jolla, California.

  Colonel Tim McCoy

  Born April 10, 1891

  Died January 29, 1978

  Indian expert. Born in Saginaw, Michigan, Timothy John Fitzgerald McCoy was educated at St Ignatius College in Chicago and then moved to Wyoming where he lived on a large ranch. Serving in World War I he reached the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and was appointed Indian Agent for Wyoming. In 1922 the 5́ 1˝ McCoy was hired by a film company as Indian advisor and three years later made the first of his 90-plus films, The Thundering Herd (1925), as Burn Hudnall. That year he was signed by MGM where he stayed until the Thirties, leaving as one of the most popular cowboy stars. He worked for Columbia and various independent studios and starred in The Indians Are Coming (1935), the first talkie serial at Universal. In 1935 he joined Ringling Brothers Circus and three years later began his own, unsuccessful, Wild West Show. More military service followed before he retired, only to make various comebacks in films and on television. He was married to a Danish journalist called Inga Marie Arvad (b. Copenhagen, October 6, 1913, d. 1973). The latter had an affair with President John F. Kennedy (he nicknamed her Inga-Binga) and was considered a national security risk by the FBI, who put a tap on her phone. McCoy’s films included: War Paint (1926) as Lieutenant Tim Marshall, California (1927) as Captain Archibald Gillespie, Wyoming (1928) as Lieutenant Jack Colton, Beyond The Sierras (1928) as The Masked Stranger, Sioux Blood (1929) as Flood, Shotgun Pass (1931) as Tim Walker, The Fighting Fool (1932) as Tim Collins, Two-Fisted Law (1932) as Tim Clark, Daring Danger (1932) as Tim Madigan, Police Car 17 (1933) as Tim Conlon, Man Of Action (1933) as Tim Barlow, Rusty Rides Alone (1933) as Tim Burke, Speed Wings (1934) as Tim, Beyond The Law (1934) as Tim, Square Shooter (1935) as Tim Baxter, Fighting Shadows (1935) as Tim O’Hara, Outlaw Deputy (1935) as Tim Mallory, Roaring Guns (1936) as Tim Corwin, Border Caballero (1936) as Tim Ross, Ghost Patrol (1936) as Tim Caverly, Two Gun Justice (1938) as Tim, Phantom Ranger (1938) as Tim Hayes, Lightning Carson Rides Again (1938) as Bill Carson, Six Gun Trail (1938) as Captain William Carson, Trigger Fingers (1939) as Bill Carson, Texas Wildcats (1939) as Lightning Bill Carson, Fighting Renegade (1939) as Lightning Bill Carson/El Puma, Arizona Gangbusters (1940) as Tim, Outlaws Of The Rio Grande (1941) as Marshall Tim Barton, Arizona Bound (1941) as Parson McCall, The Gunman From Bodie (1941) as Marshal McCall, Forbidden Trails (1941) as Tim McCall, West Of The Law (1942) as Marshal Tim McCall, Below The Border (1942) as Tim McCall, Ghost Town Law (1942) as Marshal Tim McCall, Down Texas Way (1942) as Tim, Around The World In 80 Days (1956) as Commander and Requiem For A Gunfighter (1965) as Judge Irving Short.

  CAUSE: He died aged 86 in Nogales, Arizona, from a heart attack.

  Joel McCrea

  Born November 5, 1905

  Died October 20, 1990

  Mr Nice Guy. The grandson of a man who drove a stagecoach and another who was a gold prospector in 1849, it seemed only right that 6́ 2˝ Joel Albert McCrea should make his name in Westerns. Raised in South Pasadena, California, he was one of the few boys at an all-girls school and later attended Pomona State College and joined the Pasadena Playhouse after graduation in 1928. In 1927 he had begun appearing in films in very small parts, achieving his first leading role in 1930 in The Silver Horde and going on to appear in over 90 films, making himself a very wealthy ($50 million-plus) man in the process. He once commented, “The best advice came from my friend Will Rogers who told me, ‘No matter what you make, you ought to save half of it,’ and I’ve always tried to follow that.” From the Thirties onwards he showed a versatility in his acting, appearing in Come And Get It (1936), Three Blind Mice (1938), Cecil B. DeMille’s Union Pacific (1939), Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent (1940) as Johnny Jones, an unsophisticated journalist (after Gary Cooper turned down the part), Sullivan’s Travels (1941), The Palm Beach Story (1942) and Sam Peckinpah’s Ride The High Country (1962). He married Frances Dee on October 20, 1933, at White Methodist Church, Rye, New York, and had three sons: Joel Dee (b. September 7, 1934); David (b. November 15, 1936) and Peter (b. 1955). For someone in such a cutthroat profession and despite his legendary meanness, McCrea was incredibly popular. Ginger Rogers said, “Joel truly loves everybody. He expects to find the best in everyone he meets, and he does.”

  CAUSE: He died aged 84 of pulmonary complications on his 57th wedding anniversary.

  Hattie McDaniel

  Born June 10, 1895

  Died October 26, 1952

  ‘The coloured Sophie Tucker’. Born in Wichita, Kansas, the 13th child of a Baptist minister, Hattie McDaniel is best known for playing Mammy in Gone With The Wind (1939). The role allowed her to make history in three ways: she was the first black person to be nominated for an Oscar, the first to win and the first to sit down at the pre-ceremony dinner. (She also may have been the first blac
k woman to sing on the radio.) She began her career winning a gold medal for acting when she was 16, whereafter she moved into vaudeville and sang with bands. Like many before and since she was occasionally unemployed and, for a time, was a lavatory attendant in Milwaukee. She moved to Hollywood in 1931 and, when she fell on hard times there, took in laundry. She had faith in God (she was a devout member of the Independent Church of Christ) and in herself and finally she got her big break. She appeared in the Western The Golden West (1932), which set her on her way. She appeared in over 60 films but it was as Mammy that she is forever remembered. “Everybody loves me,” she once said. “When I’m working I mind my own business and do what I’m told.” Away from the screen she had definite socialist views. She was married three times. Her first husband’s identity is unknown but when he died she married Los Angeles estate agent James Lloyd Crawford in Tucson, Arizona, on March 21, 1941. They divorced and on June 11, 1949, she married painter and decorator Larry C. Williams. They divorced on the grounds of incompatibility on December 5, 1950. She had no children.