CAUSE: In 1981 David Niven was struck down by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or motor neurone disease. This causes the sufferer to lose both the ability to communicate and use of their limbs. He died from it two years later at Château-d’Oex, Switzerland, accompanied only by his nurse and daughter, Fiona. He left approximately $5 million in his will. His memorial service attracted over five thousand people.
FURTHER READING: Bring On The Empty Horses – David Niven (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1975); The Moon’s A Balloon – David Niven (London: Coronet, 1981); The Other Side Of The Moon: The Life Of David Niven – Sheridan Morley (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1985).
Lloyd Nolan
Born August 11, 1902
Died September 27, 1985
Stalwart detective. Born in San Francisco, California, Lloyd Nolan began his career on the stage in 1927 and six years later made his Broadway début. Nolan began appearing in low-budget fare such as G-Men (1935) as Hugh Farrell and Texas Rangers (1936) as ‘Polkadot Sam’ McGee which lead to him being cast in the title role of the series of B-movies that began with Michael Shayne, Private Detective (1940). By the middle of that decade he had moved up to A-movies and showed himself to be a versatile performer. He appeared as Officer McShane in A Tree Grows In Brooklyn (1945) and FBI agent George A. Briggs in The House On 92nd Street (1945). He was also in The Last Hunt (1956) as Woodfoot, A Hatful Of Rain (1957) as John Pope, Sr and played Dr Swain in Peyton Place (1958). He received acclaim for his Broadway portrayal of Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial. His later films included: Airport (1970) as Harry Standish, Earthquake (1974) as Dr James Vance, Prince Jack (1984) as Joe Kennedy and the posthumously released Hannah And Her Sisters (1986) as Evan.
CAUSE: Nolan died of lung cancer in Los Angeles, California. He was 83.
Christine Norden
(MARY LYDIA THORNTON)
Born December 25, 1924
Died September 21, 1988
Britain’s first post-war sex symbol. Born in Sunderland, Tyne-and-Wear, buxom Christine Norden became the protégée (and lover) of Sir Alexander Korda who put her in a number of films. She made her début in Night Beat (1947) as Jackie and went on to appear in An Ideal Husband (1947) as Mrs Marchmont, Mine Own Executioner (1947) as Barbara Edge, The Interrupted Journey (1949) as Susan Wilding, Saints And Sinners (1949) as Blanche, Reluctant Heroes (1951) as Gloria Pennie, A Case For PC 49 (1951) as Della Dainton and The Black Widow (1951) as Christine Sherwin before retiring from films for 35 years, making a comeback in Little Shop Of Horrors (1986). In the gap she appeared on television in America and in 1967 became the first legitimate actress to bare her breasts on stage. Married five times, including once to cinematographer Jack Cardiff, her last husband named a scientific formula after her.
CAUSE: She died of pneumonia aged 63 in London. She was survived by her fifth husband and son.
Mabel Normand
Born November 16, 1894
Died February 22, 1930
‘The Female Chaplin’. Mabel Ethelreid Normand was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of vaudevillians, and schooled at St Mary’s Convent, Westport. Mabel and her parents moved to New York City where the 5́ 1˝ Mabel became interested in acting and modelling. She began appearing in films in 1910 for Biograph, then Vitagraph, appearing in more than 200 features. She quickly returned to Biograph, where she worked under Mack Sennett in comedies. On August 28, 1912, when Sennett moved to Keystone Mabel went with him. They fell in love and even set a wedding date but that came and went and no nuptials followed. Mabel began to appear regularly with Fatty Arbuckle. By May 1, 1916, she was running her own production company. On July 23, 1917, she and Sennett went their separate ways after she was signed by Samuel Goldwyn on a five-year contract at a $3,500-a-week salary. Mabel enjoyed the high life rather too much and began to drink and take drugs. Her favourite read was the Police Gazette. She was also in the habit of eating peanuts while riding around Hollywood in her limousine. Sennett persuaded Goldwyn to release Mabel from her contract and she went back to Keystone. Then she met gentlemanly, handsome William Desmond Taylor. Through him, Mabel developed an interest in books; Taylor’s ambition and delight was to improve his lady friends’ minds through literature. Throughout her career, scandal seemed to dog Mabel. Her co-star Fatty Arbuckle found himself unjustly on the wrong end of the law in September 1921. When William Desmond Taylor was murdered five months later it was another nail in Mabel’s professional coffin. Worse was to follow. On New Year’s Day 1924 her chauffeur, Horace Greer, shot millionaire clubman Courtland S. Dines while Mabel and Edna Purviance were visiting. The gun was registered to Mabel. According to Greer, Mabel encouraged him to enter Dines’ house, and he shot Dines because the bachelor oilman was about to hit him with a bottle during a row. At Greer’s trial Mabel behaved in a most peculiar way, joking, waving her hands and holding her feet pigeon-toed. Greer was acquitted. Mabel’s star soon flickered out and she developed addictions to booze and cocaine. On September 17, 1926, she married actor Lew Cody (b. Berlin, New Hampshire, February 22, 1884, as Lewis Joseph Coté, d. Beverly Hills, California, May 31, 1934, of heart disease) when both were drunk.
CAUSE: Mabel died of tuberculosis in a sanatorium in Monrovia, California. Her last words were: “I sigh and surrender.” Shortly before that she whispered: “I wonder who killed poor Bill Taylor?”
Ramon Novarro
(JOSé RAMóN GIL SAMANIEGOS)
Born February 6, 1899
Died October 30, 1968
The poor woman’s Valentino. Born in Durango, Mexico, the son of a dentist and one of fifteen children, 5́ 8˝ Novarro began his career in 1914 as a singing waiter in a Hollywood eaterie where he was spotted by dance director Marion Morgan who gave him a job with her vaudeville act. He made his film début in Joan The Woman (1916) but it wasn’t until he was cast as Rupert of Hentzau in The Prisoner Of Zenda (1922) that he became famous. He appeared in Mr Barnes Of New York (1922) as Antonio, Where The Pavement Ends (1923) as Motauri, Scaramouche (1923) as André-Louis Moreau, The Arab (1924) as Jamil Abdullah Azam and his most famous film Ben-Hur (1925) as Ben-Hur by which time he was earning $10,000 a week. Novarro was MGM’s answer to Rudolph Valentino but didn’t quite have what it took to inherit Valentino’s mantle on his death in 1926. He also shone in Ernst Lubitsch’s The Student Prince In Old Heidelberg (1927) as Crown Prince Karl Heinrich. In March 1929 he signed a contract with RCA and recorded The Pagan Love Song from the film The Pagan (1929) in which he played Henry Shoesmith, Jr. It was one of the first hit records originating from a film. By the Forties Novarro’s career was over and he had found other ways of amusing himself. On April 29, 1942, he was fined and given a suspended sentence for drunken driving in Los Angeles. On January 3, 1959, he was again arrested for drunken driving. On February 20, 1962, he was arrested yet again on the same charge and this time sentenced to a fortnight imprisonment. In the last thirty years of his life he made just seven films.
CAUSE: Novarro shared the same sexual preferences as his friend and rival Valentino and when the press inquired about his romantic life, studio publicists put them off with tales of Novarro’s deep religious convictions. The only woman he was ever publicly linked with was Greta Garbo when they filmed Mata Hari (1931), in which Novarro took the part of Lieutenant Alexis Rosanoff. But since Garbo’s biographer describes the film as “the first complete Garbo performance to communicate a coded message to lesbian and gay audiences” it seems the only place romance between the two ever existed was in the febrile imaginations of PRs and the naïve minds of unsophisticated fans. Novarro wasn’t quite the devout celibate described in his early press. He had a penchant for rent boys and in the six months leading up to his death he had paid 140 prostitutes for their services. On Hallowe’en Eve 1968 he summoned one more whore to his home, 3110 Laurel Canyon Boulevard, North Hollywood. At 5.30pm 23-year-old Paul Ferguson and his 17-year-old brother, Tom, arrived chez Novarro where he welcomed them with drinks and sent out for cigar
ettes from the local newsagent. The three carried on boozing, with Novarro recounting anecdotes about his career that went over the heads of the Fergusons, who had never heard of the old actor. All they were interested in was a stash of $5,000 in cash that Novarro supposedly kept in the house. Tom Ferguson, feeling woozy from the booze, went outside to get some fresh air while his brother stayed in the living room where Novarro serenaded him on the piano. After a while Novarro suggested they go somewhere more comfortable and led Ferguson to the bedroom. When Tom Ferguson returned to the house he went looking for his brother and was shocked to find him and the actor naked on the bed indulging in sexual intercourse; clearly Paul hadn’t told his brother about the methods he would use to distract Novarro during the caper. Ferguson yelled at his brother to get out and the younger man staggered back to the living room where he rang his girlfriend. After three-quarters of an hour he heard Tom Ferguson calling for him but when he went to the bedroom he was greeted by the sight of a bloodsoaked room and Novarro lying half on the bed. He had three large gashes on the back of his head. The Fergusons half-dragged and half-carried the semi-conscious Novarro to the bathroom where they dunked him under the shower. Novarro mumbled something and Tom Ferguson stooped to listen. “Hail Mary, full of grace …” murmured Novarro. They put him back on the bed and Paul Ferguson dressed himself in Novarro’s finery, complete with silver-tipped cane. The ailing actor saw a chance to escape and dragged himself to his feet only to be discovered by Paul Ferguson who began to thrash Novarro, splitting his skull and face as he struck. Novarro collapsed to the floor and there drowned in his own blood. Then the regrets came and Paul Ferguson insisted he hadn’t meant to kill Novarro. Tom Ferguson came up with the bright idea of making the murder look like a robbery, so the two brothers trashed the old man’s home. As a final touch Paul Ferguson placed the silver tip of the cane between Novarro’s legs. In the house they found just $45. On November 4, 1968, Novarro was buried in Plot 584, Section C of Calvary Cemetery, 4201 Whittier Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90023. Thanks to forensic evidence and a 48-minute telephone call made by Tom Ferguson the brothers were arrested two days later. They were tried in July 1969, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. They were released in 1976.
Ivor Novello
(DAVID IVOR DAVIES)
Born January 15, 1893
Died March 6, 1951
‘The Handsomest Man In England’. One of Britain’s greatest songwriters and light actors was born at Llywn yr Eos (Grove of the Nightingales), 95 Cowbridge Road, Cardiff, the only son of David Davies (b. 1852? d. October 1931 of dropsy and a heart attack), a rent collector for Cardiff council, and his wife, Clara Novello Evans (b. 1861, d. March 1, 1943), a singing teacher and choral conductor. After a private education in Cardiff and Gloucester, where he studied harmony and counterpoint with the cathedral organist, Dr (later Sir) Herbert Brewer, the young Ivor gained a scholarship to Magdalen College School, Oxford, where for three of his five years he was a solo treble in Magdalen College choir. His early compositions were inspired by visits to the Gaiety and Daly’s theatres in London. His waltz Spring Of The Year was featured on a programme given by a choir led by his mother at the Albert Hall. Oddly, his voice didn’t break until late 1909 when he was 16 years old. His The Little Damosel (1910) attracted much attention. Both compositions were attributed to “Ivor Novello”. He changed his name by deed poll in 1927. He moved permanently to London in 1913 and took a flat at 11 Aldwych, which became his London residence for the rest of his life. Aged 22, during the First World War he wrote ‘Till The Boys Come Home’ (‘Keep The Home Fires Burning’), to words by the American poet, Lena Guilbert Ford. Novello was to claim that he earned £15,000 from the song. Money did not inspire generosity, and like millionaire oil tycoon Paul Getty, Novello installed a payphone in his home. He once gave an actress a diamond brooch. She approached Noël Coward: “Ivor gave me this tiny diamond. Can you see it?” Guests always brought their own booze since Novello rationed his measures. In June 1916 he reported to Crystal Palace training depot as a probationary flight sub-lieutenant. Always keen to impress, he had his own tailor make up his uniform. It would not be fair to say that Ivor Novello’s forte was flying. He crashed twice and was moved to an Air Ministry office in the Hotel Cecil in London. There he had to learn to use a typewriter but found himself no more adept at that than he had been with an aeroplane’s joystick. His first musical success was Theodore And Co which featured 13 Novello numbers and opened at the Gaiety Theatre on September 14, 1916. It was produced by George Grossmith and Edward Laurillard with a score written jointly by Novello and Jerome Kern. Novello then contributed four numbers to André Charlot’s revue See-Saw (opening at the Comedy Theatre on December 14, 1916) and another production by Grossmith and Laurillard, the musical comedy Arlette (opening at the Shaftesbury Theatre on September 6, 1917) which featured seven Novello numbers. In 1917 he met the man who would become his long-term (but not only) boyfriend until his death, Robert ‘Bobbie’ Andrews (1895–1976), coyly described by biographer Peter Noble as “his closest friend”. One of his lovers, author J.R. Ackerley, revealed that, “Ivor’s equipment did not strike me as very impressive.” 5́ 11˝ Novello regularly fell in love with women but when the crucial moment came found he was unable to perform. A story has it that Winston Churchill’s only homosexual experience was with Novello. When asked what it was like, he replied “musical”. Success followed success and he composed Who’s Hooper? (opened at the Adelphi Theatre on September 13, 1919; a joint score with Howard Talbot), The Golden Moth by Thompson and P.G. Wodehouse (opened at the Adelphi Theatre on October 5, 1921), and the revues Tabs (opened at the Vaudeville Theatre on May 15, 1918), A To Z (opened at the Prince of Wales Theatre October 21, 1921; including Novello’s second best known song ‘And Her Mother Came Too’ first sung by Jack Buchanan, with the lyricist Dion Titheradge), and Puppets (opened at the Vaudeville Theatre on January 2, 1924). He made his professional stage début in a straight play at the Ambassadors Theatre on November 23, 1921 playing a young man in Deburau, in which the role of Charles Deburau was played by Bobbie Andrews. A year earlier, he had been offered his first film role by the French film director Louis Mercanton in L’Appel Du Sang (1920). Novello was cast purely on the strength of a publicity photograph. His next film, Miarka, Fille De L’Ourse (1920) was also for Mercanton. Novello made his first English film for Alliance, Carnival (1921) as Count Andrea, and went on to appear in The Bohemian Girl (1922) as Thaddeus for Alliance, The Man Without Desire (1923) for Atlas Biocraft. His first film in America was The White Rose (1923) as Joseph Beaugarde, directed by D.W. Griffith for Ideal/United Artists. On June 9, 1924 Novello produced and starred in the successful play The Rat about the Parisian thief Pierre ‘The Rat’ Boucheron at the Prince of Wales Theatre. The play was credited to the pseudonymous David L’Estrange but was written by Novello with his friend, the actor Constance Collier. Filmed for Gainsborough in 1925, it spawned two sequels The Triumph Of The Rat (1926) and The Return Of The Rat (1928), again for Gainsborough with whom he signed a contract in 1927. Among Novello’s other films were: Bonnie Prince Charlie (1923), The Vortex (1928) as Nicky Lancaster, South Sea Bubble (1928) his last silent film, Symphony In Two Flats (1930) as David Kennard and I Lived With You (1933) as Prince Felix Lenieff. In 1926 Novello played the title role in Alfred Hitchcock’s silent film The Lodger, the story of a stranger who is assumed (wrongly) to be Jack the Ripper. The film was the first real Hitchcock thriller. Six years later, the movie was remade as a talkie and was co-written by Novello. The fee from the film The Constant Nymph (1928), in which he played Louis Dodd, allowed him to buy Munro Lodge, Littlewick Green, near Maidenhead in Berkshire on November 11, 1927. The price was £4,000 and Novello renamed the five-bedroomed property Redroofs. It was to be his country residence for the rest of his life. Novello returned to the musical stage with the revue The House That Jack Built (opened at the Adelphi Theatre on November 8, 1929), to which he contributed eight numbe
rs to a score that also included music by Vivian Ellis, Arthur Schwartz, and Sydney Baynes. In the summer of 1931 Novello moved to Hollywood with a contract from MGM as both a screenwriter and an actor. His talents were scandalously underused: and he made only one minor film as an actor and his biggest contribution was his work on the script for Tarzan The Ape Man (1932), for which he reputedly originated the line that gave rise to the now mythical if inaccurate “Me Tarzan. You Jane” (originally – with appropriate pointing – “Tarzan. Jane.”). While in Hollywood he had written the play I Lived With You and it opened in the West End at the Prince of Wales Theatre on March 2, 1932. It starred Novello, Ursula Jeans and Robert Newton. Party opened at the Strand Theatre on May 23, 1932 and starred Benita Hume (the future Mrs Ronald Colman) and Douglas Byng. Novello returned to London following the death of his father. Exceptionally prolific in the early Thirties Novello had simultaneous London productions of Fresh Fields (at the Criterion Theatre from January 5, 1933), Flies In The Sun (at the Playhouse Theatre from January 13, 1933), Proscenium (at the Globe Theatre from January 14, 1933), and Sunshine Sisters (at the Queen’s Theatre from November 8, 1933). He met the handsome Christopher Hassall, the father of the beautiful but doomed actress Imogen Hassall, at a midnight supper in Oxford in early 1934 and the two men had an affair that understandably caused much distress to Hassall’s wife. They appeared together in Novello’s play Murder In Mayfair which opened at the Globe Theatre on September 5, 1934. With Hassall, Novello wrote his first musical romance for Drury Lane, Glamorous Night, which opened on May 2, 1935. Hassall contributed lyrics to nearly all of Novello’s later musical stage shows. On March 23, 1939 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, Novello’s most lasting musical stage work The Dancing Years opened. The Second World War forced its initial closure and it toured the country before returning to the West End at the Adelphi on March 14, 1942, to run until July 8, 1944. Novello often filled the cast of his plays with a high percentage of gay men. He only half-jokingly renamed his play The Dancing Years “The Prancing Queers”. On March 24, 1944, a plain clothes policeman called at 11 Aldwych and charged Novello with unlawful conspiracy to commit offences against the Motor Vehicles (Restriction of Use) Order, 1942. His Rolls-Royce had been used by a supposed fan and assistant, Dora Grace Constable. Novello was none the less deemed liable, and on April 24, 1944 at Bow Street Court he was sentenced to eight weeks in Wormwood Scrubs. Constable was fined £50 with £25 costs. An appeal on May 16, 1944 reduced the sentence from eight weeks to four, but his brief spell of “porridge” shook him badly both mentally and physically and had lasting effects. On February 16, 1951 his last show, Gay’s The Word, opened at the Saville Theatre. It starred the comedienne Cicely Courtneidge and for the first time there was no part for Novello. The lyricist was the young and acerbic Alan Melville.
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