Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries
Page 155
CAUSE: Sanders suffered a stroke in 1969 and was terrified of being unable to care for himself or, as he put it, “having someone to wipe my bum for me.” He also suffered from vertigo and had to use a walking stick. In early 1972 he suffered a nervous breakdown and stayed with his sister, Margaret, in England to recuperate. Always in love with Spain, Sanders flew to Madrid in April 1972 to try and find himself a small house. On April 23, he arrived by himself at Castelldefels, 10 miles south of Barcelona, and booked into the Hotel Don Rey Jaime. The weather was unseasonably wet and cold and Sanders proceeded to get drunk. He asked for an early morning wake-up call and retired to his room. The next day he was discovered dead. Next to his body were five empty packets of Nembutal and a bottle of vodka. His suicide note read: “Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool – good luck”. He was 65.
Catya Sassoon
Born September 3, 1968
Died January 1, 2002
‘Tuff Turf’. Born in New York, Catya Sassoon was the tall (5́ 8˝), beautiful but rebellious daughter of celebrity hairdresser Vidal Sassoon (b. London, January 17, 1928) and the model Beverley Adams (b. Canada, November 7, 1945). Catya attended Beverly Hills High School (the school in Beverly Hills 90210) where she spent more time partying than studying. She once filled her father’s swimming pool with so much of his own brand of shampoo that the suds covered the pool. When she was 14 Catya dropped out to pursue a modelling career in New York and signed with the Prestige Agency. Her parents seemed unable to control her and the following year, in August 1984, she got married to Luca Scalisi. Marriage did nothing to calm her wild ways. She developed a heavy drug problem. Her films included: Tuff Turf (1985) as Feather, Inside Out (1986), Modern Girls (1986), Dance With Death (1991) as Jodie, Inside Out IV (1992) as Pauline, Bloodfist IV: Die Trying (1992) as Lisa, Secret Games as Sandra in which she bared her silicone-enhanced breasts, Angelfist as Katara/Kat Lang, Bloodfist VI: Ground Zero (1994) as Tori. Her son, London Vidal Sassoon, was born in 1995 and in the spring of 2000 she gave birth to twin daughters, Mycca and Syke, by her second husband Joe Myers.
CAUSE: Catya died aged 33 of a heart attack at her Hollywood, California home. The coronary was almost certainly drug-related.
Telly Savalas
Born January 21, 1922
Died January 22, 1994
Chrome dome. Aristoteles Savalas, the second son (there were four and one daughter) of Nicholas (who supposedly was the 24th of 27 children!) and Christina Savalas, a former Miss Greece beauty queen, was born, despite the Greek nomenclature, in Garden City, Long Island, New York. His bushy-haired younger brother, George (b. The Bronx, New York, December 5, 1926, d. October 2, 1985), was also an actor. Away from the screen, 6́ 1˝ Savalas, like the only other really successful bald actor, Yul Brynner, had an ego the size of Mount Olympus. He also told a different story every time he was interviewed, making the real story of Telly Savalas difficult to completely fathom. His first job was in the army and he received a Purple Heart after being wounded in action. How the wound occurred is a matter of some dispute. Some believe a shell did the damage, while others believe that it was a grenade. Savalas did have a mangled left index finger, but never revealed whether that was part of his wartime injuries. Following demob, he went to university where he married his first wife, Catherine, and then became a civil servant before joining ABC where he worked as a producer, winning a prize for one series he worked on. Just before he turned 40, he decided to give acting a shot and spent much of the Sixties playing a succession of evil men but also the occasional copper, good practice for the role that would make him internationally famous. His films included: Mad Dog Coll as Lieutenant Dawson, The Young Savages (1961) as Police Lt Gunderson, Birdman Of Alcatraz as Feto Gomez, for which he was nominated for an Oscar, Cape Fear (1962) as Charles Sievers, Johnny Cool (1963) as Vince Santangelo, Love Is A Ball (1963) as Dr Gump, The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) as Pontius Pilate, Genghis Khan (1965) as Shan, Battle Of The Bulge (1965) as Guffy, Beau Geste (1966) as Sergeant Major Dagineau, The Dirty Dozen as Archer Maggott, The Karate Killers (1967) as Count de Fanzini, Buona Sera, Mrs Campbell (1968) as Walter Braddock, The Scalphunters as Jim Howie, Crooks And Coronets (1969) as Herbie Haseler, Mackenna’s Gold (1969) as Sergeant Tibbs, The Assassination Bureau as Lord Bostwick, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) as Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Città Violenta (1970) as Weber, Kelly’s Heroes (1970) as Big Joe, Pretty Maids All In A Row (1971) as Captain Sam Surcher, Senza Ragione (1972) as Memphis, Una Ragione Per Vivere E Una Per Morire (1972) as Ward and the lead in Pancho Villa (1972). He married for the second time in the early Sixties to Lynn, by whom he had two daughters. In England in 1966 filming The Dirty Dozen he indulged in a few extra curricular activities. He was seeing Sally Adams who would be the mother of his son, Nicholas, who would go out with Tori Spelling, the daughter of TV mogul Aaron Spelling who made Starsky & Hutch among many other successful US TV series. By 1973 Savalas was living with Sally Adams and Nicholas in London, accepting anything he was offered. His life changed when he was offered the role of a lollipop-sucking, cheroot-smoking Manhattan South, New York City police lieutenant called Theo Kojak. Oddly, Kojak was originally conceived to be Polish but Savalas’ own ethnic background soon took over. His brother, George, was cast as Kojak’s punch bag, Detective Stavros, although he was originally billed as Demosthenes (his real name). Savalas refused to share screen time with a young, good-looking actor to appeal to teenage girls, believing the show would appeal to a male audience. The show’s producers were rather surprised when the teenage girl audience began tuning in to watch Telly Savalas. The first Kojak story was ‘The Marcus-Nelson Murders’, which aired on March 8, 1973 (although none of the characters appeared in the subsequent series), before the series proper took over on October 24 of the same year. Kojak ran until April 1978, before being revived in The Belarus File on February 16, 1985, and again in November 1989 with a different cast (including Savalas’ daughter, Candace) in a series of TV movies: Fatal Flaw (1989), Ariana (1989), None So Blind (1990), It’s Always Something (1990) and Flowers For Matty (1990).
CAUSE: Savalas died of prostate cancer one day after his 72nd birthday in Universal City, California.
FURTHER READING: Telly Savalas – Marsha Daly (London: Sphere, 1975).
Savannah
(SHANNON WILSEY)
Born October 9, 1970
Died July 11, 1994
Beautiful blonde rock groupie. Born in Laguna Beach, California, Savannah (the name came “from a movie called Savannah Smiles [1982] which was about a little blonde girl who looked exactly like me when I was little”) began her love affair with sex and rock stars early. “I love sex and I love sex with rockers more than anything else,” she once boasted. “I don’t seem to go out with really normal people. I’m kind of on the wild side. I don’t think I ever went out with anyone with short hair. I like musician types.” She had a fling with Cher’s ex-husband Gregg Allman while she was 16 and still in high school. Her subsequent rocker lovers included Billy Idol and Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses, whom she later called “a selfish, boring lover. Axl, despite his arrogance, was one of the world’s worst lovers. He was rude, obnoxious and boring in bed” rating him a one on a scale of one to ten. She also dated Slash from Guns N’ Roses, Danny Boy from rock group House of Pain, Vince Neil of Mötley Crüe and MTV personality Pauly Shore. In 1990 she began making pornographic films, at one time calling herself Silver Kane. The 5˝ 6˝ silicone-enhanced 34D-22-30 Savannah specialised in spanking and enema films for Prestige Video before signing a contract with Vivid Video in April 1991 and appearing in America’s Nastiest Home Videos 4 (1991), Indian Summer (1991), Blonde Savage (1991), House Of Sleeping Beauties (1992), Sinderella (1992), Indian Summer 2: Sandstorm (1992), House Of Sleeping Beauties II (1992) and many others. In 1992 she was named Best New Starlet by trade journal Adult Video News, much to the annoyance of many i
n the industry who didn’t like her holier-than-thou attitude. “She is either loved or hated,” said one reviewer. “Loved for her perfect beauty and hated for her lack of interest in matters sexual. She doesn’t so much have sex, as let people perform sexual acts on her person.” Her Vivid contract wasn’t renewed, as she was considered “undependable and difficult to work with.” In 1993 she was voted Worst Female in porn. She worked for various companies and performed in the first of Blackpool-born director John T. Bone’s Starbangers gang bang series. The latter commented: “She was awesome. I think she felt her career was on the slide and she wanted to do something outrageous and shock the world. I met her one other time for about three minutes and had heard all the horror stories about her but, unlike her queen image, I found her to have a good, professional attitude. I think she had a secret sense of humour which Savannah didn’t care to share with others — like she didn’t want people to know she was having fun.” Her mainstream films included: Invisible Maniac (1990) and Ghoul School (1990) and she also appeared in several music videos. In June 1994 she landed a job dancing at Club Paradise in Las Vegas, for which she was paid $9,000 plus tips. Before going on stage she would do a hit of cocaine. She was sacked after taking nights off to see David Lee Roth.
CAUSE: On July 10, 1994, on her way home after a night out clubbing, Savannah drove her white Corvette into a fence, breaking her nose in the process. She feared her looks and thus her career would be ruined. She had been booked for a dancing job at Goldfinger’s nightclub in Nyack, New York. At 2.15am she called her manager Nancy Pera wailing about the crash: “Nancy, it’s Savannah! I just got in a major fucking car accident! And I think my nose is broken, and my head. And my car is completely fucked, and I need you to come over here because I need to go to the hospital.” At 2.40am Pera arrived at Savannah’s Multiview Drive, North Hollywood, California, home to find a fire engine in the star’s driveway. In the 25 minutes between the call and Pera’s arrival, Savannah had gone to her garage and shot herself in the head with a .40 calibre Beretta. She was taken to St Joseph Medical Center in Burbank where she lay comatose until she died at 11.20pm the next day. Police found Valium in her handbag; doctors found cocaine in her body. Her funeral, attended by around 40 people, was held at the Faith Chapel at Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks, 1712 South Glendale Avenue, Glendale, California 91209 after which she was cremated and her ashes given to her father, Mike. After her death it was discovered that she was in debt, owing $2,540 to the IRS, $6,000 to American Express, $2,000 to other credit companies and sundry other borrowings.
Gia Scala
(GIOVANNA SGOGLIO)
Born March 3, 1934
Died April 30, 1972
Italian scouser. Despite her exotic name, 5́ 8˝ Gia Scala was born in Liverpool, although her father was a baron (her mother was Irish) and the family moved to Messina, Sicily, when Gia was just three months old. She had a sister, Tina, and all four members of the family were incredibly close. Gia was a sensitive, some would say highly strung child. When she was 14, it was decided that Gia’s education should be completed in America and she went to stay with her paternal aunt. She studied drama while attending Bayside High School in Queens. Upon leaving school, she began working for an insurance company and then an airline while studying at the Actors’ Studio at night. Her mother moved to America to be with her and they lived on East 55th Street. At the Studio she was romanced by Steve McQueen, who proposed to her, but Gia turned him down. It was also at this time that Giovanna became Gia. She appeared on several quiz shows winning (for the time) tidy sums of money. In the winter of 1954 she was put under contract by Universal-International, who began to groom her and soften her still strong Italian accent. Her first film was a small part in All That Heaven Allows (1955). Her first featured film was as Nina Ferranti in The Price Of Fear (1956) and she also appeared as Vicki Dauray in Four Girls In Town (1956) for which she received critical acclaim. United Artists borrowed her to play Anita Ferrer in The Big Boodle (1957) opposite Errol Flynn. In October 1956 her contract was transferred jointly to Columbia and MGM. Socially, she was seen out and about with a series of young, handsome actors mostly, though not exclusively, homosexual. In 1958 she learned her mother was suffering from inoperable cancer and that night was involved in a drink-driving incident, although the charges were later dropped. That year she appeared in The Tunnel Of Love (1958) as Estelle Novick, Ride A Crooked Trail (1958) as Tessa Milotte, and became an American citizen. After a film in Greece (The Angry Hills [1959] as Eleftheria), she flew to England to star opposite Jack Hawkins in The Two-Headed Spy (1959). Halfway during filming, suffering from depression, she flung herself off Waterloo Bridge, but was rescued by a taxi driver. She may have been saved from suicide but she subsequently began to drink heavily. On August 21, 1959, she married actor Don Burnett. Her last American film was The Guns Of Navarone (1961) playing Greek resistance fighter Anna. She filmed Il Trionfo Di Robin Hood (1963) in Czechoslovakia and Operación Dalila (1967) as Dalida in Spain. Around this time she also began appearing on television. In September 1970 she was divorced. Burnett obtained a restraining order against her, mainly because of her drinking. She travelled to Europe and settled into the Sunset Marquis Hotel-Apartments in Los Angeles when she returned to the States. On April 20, 1971, she and Larry Langston, a 21-year-old male friend, were arrested over a parking dispute and both received two years’ probation. On May 19 she was sent for a psychiatric evaluation, having collapsed while in court on a drink-driving charge. On her release she moved in with Marlon Brando’s ex-wife Anna Kashfi, but arguments soon forced her out. She was examined by another psychiatrist, who decided she was suicide prone. The Roman Catholic Gia had taken insecticide a few months earlier and was given the last rites. In July 1971, Gia, now aged 37 but looking nearer 50, was injured when her sports car turned over; she lost part of an index finger in the accident. Don Burnett’s marriage to actress Barbara Anderson also played on her mind and caused her to drink more and more.
CAUSE: On April 30, 1972, Larry Langston summoned an ambulance to Gia’s Hollywood Hills home at 7944 Woodrow Wilson Drive. She was lying dead on the second floor. Her death was listed as “possible accidental liquor and drug overdose.” She was 38. However, when ‘Coroner to the Stars’ Dr Thomas T. Noguchi performed the autopsy, he discovered that Gia was suffering from the early stages of arteriosclerosis, meaning the brain was not getting enough oxygen, which explained Gia’s often irrational behaviour.
Joseph M. Schenck
Born Christmas Day, 1878
Died October 22, 1961
Movie mogul. Born in Rybinsk, Russia, Schenck travelled to the States in 1892 and began running errands for various shopkeepers, working his way up the commercial ladder until with his brother, Nicholas (b. Rybinsk, Russia, November 15, 1880, d. 1969), he eventually owned a couple of New York chemists. The brothers moved into the amusement arcade business in 1908 and opened their own amusement park four years later. They joined Marcus Loew in his chain of cinemas and the company that eventually became the parent of MGM. In 1917 Schenck branched out on his own and became an independent film producer. On October 20, 1916, he had married actress Norma Talmadge. They separated in 1928 and were divorced on April 14, 1934. He produced films starring his wife, her sister, Constance, and her brother-in-law, Buster Keaton. In 1924 Schenck became chairman of United Artists and nine years later co-founded Twentieth Century Pictures with Darryl F. Zanuck. Two years after that, he became chairman of the newly formed 20th Century Fox, a position he held until 1941. For a number of years Schenck had paid off two gangsters, Willie Biof and George Browne, to the tune of $50,000 per annum. The two had complete control of the stage-hands’ union and without their ‘help’ numerous productions would have been closed or run vastly over budget. The two men were eventually caught and jailed, thanks in no small part to Schenck. He served four months in prison for income tax evasion but was subsequently pardoned by President Harry S. Truman.