CAUSE: Norma Shearer died aged 80 of bronchial pneumonia at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital, 23450 Calabasas Road, Woodland Hills, San Fernando, California. She was buried in the Great Mausoleum of the Sanctuary of Benediction at Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks, 1712 South Glendale Avenue, Glendale, California 91209.
FURTHER READING: Norma Shearer – Gavin Lambert (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990).
Ann Sheridan
(CLARA LOU SHERIDAN)
Born February 21, 1915
Died January 21, 1967
‘The Oomph Girl’. Born in Denton, Texas, Ann Sheridan’s career was possibly harmed by her stupid nickname, which did nothing to highlight her undoubted intelligence and very obvious glamour. In 1933 she won a competition called ‘Search For Beauty’, the first prize being a bit part in a Paramount film of that name. She signed a contract with the studio and was cast in a succession of minor and/or mediocre films. She appeared in 27 of them in two years before moving to Warner Bros, who labelled her ‘The Oomph Girl’. The parts and films improved (San Quentin [1937] as May Kennedy, Little Miss Thoroughbred [1938] as Madge Perry, Angels With Dirty Faces [1938] as Laury Ferguson, The Angels Wash Their Faces [1939] as Joy Ryan, Naughty But Nice [1939] as Zelda Manion), but it was Kings Row (1942), in which she played the part of Randy Monaghan, that made her a star. Her subsequent films included: Shine On, Harvest Moon (1944) as Nora Bayes, the title role in Nora Prentiss (1947), I Was A Male War Bride (1949) as Lieutenant Catherine Gates and the lead in Stella (1950). Her movie career was over by the end of the Fifties and she appeared for two years (1965–66) on the daytime soap Another World as Kathryn Corning. She was married on three occasions, each time to actors.
CAUSE: Ann Sheridan died of cancer aged 52 at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital, 23450 Calabasas Road, Woodland Hills, San Fernando, California. Her remains are stored in the basement holding vault of the Chapel of the Pines Crematory, 1605 South Catalina, Los Angeles, California 90006.
Max Showalter
Born June 2, 1917
Died July 30, 2000
Steadfast support. Born in Kansas, he began his career in show business by playing the piano in cinemas for silent films. Between 1935 and 1938 he appeared in 92 shows at the Pasadena Playhouse before making his broadway début thanks to the patronage of Oscar Hammerstein II in Knights of Song. For two years he toured in the Irving Berlin musical This Is the Army. He made his film début in Always Leave Them Laughing (1949) as Comet Pen salesman. On screen he often worked under the name Casey Adams. His films included: What Price Glory (1952) (as Casey Adams) as Lieutenant Moore, My Wife’s Best Friend (1952) as Pete Bentham, With A Song In My Heart (1952) as Harry Guild, Dangerous Crossing (1953) (as Casey Adams) as Jim Logcin, Niagara (1953) (as Casey Adams) as Ray Cutler, Vicki (1953) (as Casey Adams) as Larry Evans for which he also wrote the title song, Destination Gobi (1953) as Walter Landers, Naked Alibi (1954) (as Casey Adams) as Lieutenant Parks, Night People (1954) (as Casey Adams) as Frederick S. Hobart, Down Three Dark Streets (1954) (as Casey Adams) as Dave Milson, The Return Of Jack Slade (1955) (as Casey Adams) as Billy Wilcox, Never Say Goodbye (1956) (as Casey Adams) as Andy Leonard, Indestructible Man (1956) (as Casey Adams) as Lieutenant Richard Chasen, Bus Stop (1956) (as Casey Adams) as a reporter for Life magazine, The Monster That Challenged The World (1957) (as Casey Adams) as Dr Tad Johns, The Female Animal (1957) (as Casey Adams) as Charlie Grant, Dragoon Wells Massacre (1957) as Phillip Scott, The Naked And The Dead (1958) as Dalleson, Voice In The Mirror (1958) as Don Martin, It Happened To Jane (1959) (as Casey Adams) as Selwyn Harris, a deaf man in Elmer Gantry (1960), Return To Peyton Place (1961) as Nick Parker, Summer And Smoke (1961) as Roger Doremus, Bon Voyage! (1962) (as Casey Adams) as the tight suit, My Six Loves (1963) as B.J. Smith, a hotel desk clerk in Move Over, Darling (1963), Fate Is The Hunter (1964) as Dan Crawford, Sex And The Single Girl (1964) as Holmes, How To Murder Your Wife (1965) as Tobey Rawlins, Lord Love A Duck (1966) as Howard Greene, The Moonshine War (1970) as Mr Worthman, The Anderson Tapes (1971) as Bingham, Bonnie’s Kids (1973) as Frank, 10 (1979) as Reverend, Racing With The Moon (1984) as Mr Arthur and Sixteen Candles (1984) as Fred.
CAUSE: He died aged 83 in Middletown, Connecticut, of cancer. He spotted his home in Middletown while filming It Happened To Jane there.
Sylvia Sidney
(SOPHIA KOSSOW)
Born August 8, 1910
Died July 1, 1999
‘Silently suffering Jewish actress’. Born in the Bronx, the daughter of a Russian father and a Rumanian mother, her parents soon separated and her mother married Sigmund Sidney, who adopted Sylvia. A career on the stage may have seemed an odd choice for a girl who was, by her own admission, shy but enrolled in the Theater Guild’s School for Acting. An early production won favourable reviews from the New York Times. That led to a succession of plays and eventually Hollywood came a-knocking. Her film début came in Broadway Nights (1927), a film about the Great White Way, in which she played herself. It would be another two years before 5́ 4˝ Sylvia was again before the cameras and in the meantime she appeared in a succession of poor plays. Her return to films came in Thru Different Eyes (1929) as Valerie Briand and then Five Minutes From The Station (1930) as Carrie Adams. Paramount made her a star in City Streets (1931) as Nan. She knew that she was replacing Clara Bow but Sylvia grabbed her opportunity with both hands. Her films Ladies Of The Big House (1931) as wrongly accused Kathleen Storm and Merrily We Go To Hell (1932) as Joan Prentiss were critical and commercial hits. Then she appeared as geisha girl Cho-Cho San in Madame Butterfly (1932). The film flopped but did have a residual effect. In Japan her picture adorned a packet of condoms and they quickly became known as ‘Sylvia Sidneys’. She redeemed herself with the title role in Jennie Gerhardt (1933) as the poor pregnant widow. Good Dame (1934) as Lillie Taylor was a box-office flop. Her next film, Mary Burns, Fugitive (1935), in which she took the title role of a restaurateur who falls for a hoodlum, did good box office as did Accent On Youth (1935) as Linda Brown. Then came Behold My Wife (1935) as Tonita Storm, Sabotage (1936) as Mrs Verloc, The Trail Of The Lonesome Pine (1936) as June Tolliver, Fury (1936) as Katherine Grant and You And Me (1938) as Helen opposite George Raft. The film didn’t do well and apart from a couple of films Sylvia was absent from the screen until Blood On The Sun (1945) as Iris Hilliard. The Searching Wind (1946) as Cassie Bowman was based on a Broadway play but flopped on the big screen. Her films became fewer and fewer and from 1946 until 1971 she made just seven films. In the Seventies and Eighties she appeared in several TV movies but her last big screen films were Beetlejuice (1988) as Juno and Mars Attacks! (1996) as Grandma Norris. She was married three times. Her husbands were Bennett Cerf (October 1, 1935–April 9, 1936), Luther Adler (August 13, 1938–1946) and Carleton W. Alsop (1947–March 22, 1951).
CAUSE: She died aged 88 of throat cancer in New York.
Don Siegel
Born October 26, 1912
Died April 20, 1991
Principled director. Born in Chicago, Illinois, and educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, Siegel is probably best known for his work with Clint Eastwood in films such as Coogan’s Bluff (1968) in which he also played a passenger in a lift, Two Mules For Sister Sara (1969), Dirty Harry (1971) in which he also played a pedestrian, The Beguiled (1971) and Escape From Alcatraz (1979) but there was much more to Siegel. He was head of montage at Warner Bros, a studio he got into by pretending to be related to Jack Warner. He won two Oscars for short films: Hitler Lives (1945) and Star In The Night (1945) before moving on to feature films with The Verdict (1946). Many of his films were violent, which brought him criticism from many quarters. His other films included: The Big Steal (1949), No Time For Flowers (1952), China Venture (1953), Riot In Cell Block 11 (1954), Private Hell 36 (1954), Baby Face Nelson (1957), Spanish Affair (1958), Hound-Dog Man (1959) and Flaming Star (1960) (one of Elvis Presley’s better films), Hell Is For Heroes (1962) (one of Siegel’s best), police drama
Madigan (1968), Death Of A Gunfighter (1969) from which he removed his screen credit, with the film being credited to the famous fictional Allan Smithee, Charley Varrick (1973), John Wayne’s last film The Shootist (1976), Telefon (1977), Rough Cut (1980) and the black comedy Jinxed! (1982). He was married to actress Viveka Lindfors from August 10, 1949 until April 29, 1953. They had one son, Christoper, born in September 1952. One of Siegel’s most famous films was Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1956) starring Kevin McCarthy and called by one critic “one of the most frightening films ever made”. Despite popular belief, the film was not about a political take-over by either right- or left-wing politicians, it was about what Siegel saw as those who stopped him making the films he really wanted, “The front office” – the money men who really control Hollywood. He once said: “Most of my pictures, I’m afraid to say, are about nothing. Because I’m a whore. I work for money. It’s the American way.”
CAUSE: Siegel died aged 78 from cancer in Nipoma, California.
Simone Signoret
(SIMONE KAMINKA)
Born March 25, 1921
Died September 30, 1985
Cinematic good-time girl. Born in Wiesbaden, Germany, the daughter of a French Jew, Signoret was a star for almost 40 years and spent much of that time playing a succession of ladies of the night. She was also the long-suffering wife of Yves Montand. She made her film début in Le Prince Charmant (1941) and became one of the mainstays of French cinema in the Fifties. She married Yves Allegret in 1948 (they had a daughter, Catherine, born two years prior to the marriage while Allegret was still married to someone else) and became a star that year playing the title role of the prostitute Dédée D’Anvers. She also played a hooker in La Ronde (1950) as Leocadie. Her other films included: Adieu Léonard (1943), Macadam (1946) as Gisele, Fantômas (1947), Impasse Des Deux Anges (1948), Against The Wind (1948) as Michèle, Swiss Tour (1949) as Yvonne, Manèges as Dora, Gunman In The Streets as Denise Vernon, Ombre Et Lumière (1951) as Isabelle Leritz, the title role in Thérèse Raquin (1953), Les Diaboliques (1955) as Nicole Horner, Les Sorcières De Salem (1957) as Elisabeth Proctor, Room At The Top (1959) as Alice Aisgill, for which she won an Oscar, Term Of Trial (1962) as Anna, Barabbas (1962), Dragées Au Poivre (1963) as Genevieve, Compartiment Tueurs (1965) as Eliane Darres, Ship Of Fools (1965) as La Condesa, Games (1967) as Lisa Schindler, The Deadly Affair (1967) as Elsa Fennan, The Sea Gull (1968) as Arkadina, Comptes A Rebours (1970) as Léa, Le Chat (1971) as Clémence Bouin, Les Granges Brulées as Rose, La Chair De L’Orchidée as Lady Vamos, Police Python 357 (1976) as Thérèse Ganay, the title role of the prostitute Madame Rosa (1977) for which she won a César, the French equivalent of the Oscar, L’Adolescente (1979) as Mamie, Chère Inconnue (1980) as Louise and L’Étoile Du Nord (1982) as Sylvie Baron. Following her 1949 divorce from Allegret, she married Yves Montand on December 22, 1951, standing by him despite his constant philandering. As she became older, she put on more and more weight, commenting: “I got old the way that women who aren’t actresses grow old.”
CAUSE: She died of cancer in Normandy, France, aged 64.
FURTHER READING: Nostalgia Isn’t What It Used To Be – Simone Signoret (London: Panther, 1979).
Jay Silverheels
(HAROLD J. SMITH)
Born May 26, 1912
Died March 5, 1980
Reliable Red Indian. Many actors are irrevocably linked with one role – Robert Englund is Freddy Krueger, Basil Rathbone’s name is rarely mentioned without the words Sherlock Holmes following rapidly, and Pat Phoenix will forever be identified with Coronation Street’s Elsie Tanner. The same is true of Jay Silverheels. Despite appearing in over 60 films, he will be forever associated with playing The Lone Ranger’s trusted Red Indian buddy Tonto. Born on the Six Nations Reservation, Brantford, Ontario, Canada, he made his film début playing an Indian scout in The Sea Hawk (1940). He first played Tonto nine years later on television, beginning on September 15, 1949, and stayed with the show for the whole of its eight-year run (unlike Clayton Moore who was absent from 1952 for two years). Other films Silverheels appeared in were: Too Many Girls (1940), Good Morning, Judge (1943), Song Of The Sarong (1945), Northwest Outpost (1947), Unconquered (1947), Captain From Castile (1947), Fury At Furnace Creek (1948) as Little Dog, Family Honeymoon (1948), Key Largo (1948) as John Osceola, The Feathered Serpent as Diego, Trail Of The Yukon as Poleon, Laramie (1949) as Running Wolf, The Cowboy And The Indians (1949) as Lakohna, Broken Arrow (1950) as Geronimo, Red Mountain (1951) as Little Crow, Yankee Buccaneer (1952), The Story Of Will Rogers (1952) as Joe Arrow, Last Of The Comanches (1952), Laramie Mountains (1952) as Running Wolfe, The Battle At Apache Pass (1952) as Geronimo, Brave Warrior (1952) as Tecumseh, War Arrow (1953) as Satanta, The Pathfinder (1953) as Chingachgook, Jack McCall Desperado (1953) as Red Cloud, Four Guns To The Border (1954) as Yaqui, Drums Across The River (1954) as Taos, Saskatchewan (1954) as Cajou, Masterson Of Kansas (1954) as Yellow Hawk, Walk The Proud Land (1956) as Geronimo, Indian Paint (1963) as Chief Hevatanu, Smith! (1969) as McDonald Lasheway, True Grit (1969), Santee (1973) as John Crow, One Little Indian (1973) as Jimmy Wolf and The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing (1973) as the Chief. He also played Tonto in two Lone Ranger films: The Lone Ranger (1956) and The Lone Ranger And The Lost City Of Gold (1958) plus the Bob Hope comedy: Alias Jesse James (1959). In later years Silverheels bred and raced horses.
CAUSE: He died aged 67 following a stroke at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital, 23450 Calabasas Road, Woodland Hills, San Fernando, California. He was cremated at the Chapel of the Pines Crematory, 1605 South Catalina, Los Angeles, California 90006.
Phil Silvers
(PHILIP SILVERSMITH)
Born May 11, 1911
Died November 1, 1985
Jewish wiseacre. Like the previous entrant, Phil Silvers is also predominantly known for one role – that of the fast-talking, scheming Master Sergeant Ernie Bilko in the variously named television series You’ll Never Get Rich, The Phil Silvers Show and Bilko. Born in Brooklyn, Silvers was the youngest of eight children of a Russo-Jewish emigrant. He was an adept song-and-dance man who began his career in burlesque before appearing in a number of short films for Warner Bros. His feature début came in Hit Parade Of 1941 (1940) as Charlie Moore. The unlikely portrayal of an ice-cream man in Tom, Dick And Harry (1941) brought him a measure of fame and established the style for which he was to become famous. He appeared in You’re In The Army Now as Breezy Jones, Footlight Serenade (1942) as Slap, All Through The Night (1942) as Louie, My Gal Sal as Wiley, Roxie Hart (1942) as Babe, Coney Island (1943) as Frankie, A Lady Takes A Chance (1943) as Smiley Lambert, Something For The Boys (1944) as Harry Hart, Four Jills In Jeep (1944) as Eddie, Don Juan Quilligan (1945) as MacDenny, Diamond Horseshoe (1945) as Blinky Walker, A Thousand And One Nights (1945) as Abdullah, Summer Stock (1950) as Herb Blake, Top Banana (1953) as Jerry Biffle, Lucky Me (1954) as Hap, Forty Pounds Of Trouble (1963) as Bernie Friedman, It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963) as Otto Meyer, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum (1966) as Lycus, Buona Sera Mrs Campbell (1968) as Phil Newman, The Boatniks (1970) as Harry Simmons, The Strongest Man In The World (1975) as Krinkle, Won Ton Ton, The Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976) as Murray Fromberg and The Happy Hooker Goes To Hollywood (1980) as Warkoff. He was even a guest star in Carry On … Follow That Camel (1967) as the Foreign Legion’s Sergeant Nocker. Silvers married twice. His first wife (on March 12, 1945, in Los Angeles) was former Miss America 1942 Jo-Carroll Dennison. They divorced in 1950. On October 21, 1956, he married actress Evelyn Patrick and had five daughters: Tracey (b. June 27, 1957), Nancey (b. January 19, 1959), Candy (b. May 27, 1961), Cathy (b. May 27, 1961) and Laury (b. January 19, 1964). The couple was divorced in 1965 amidst a certain amount of rancour. The first episode of You’ll Never Get Rich, which later became The Phil Silvers Show and is known in Britain as Bilko, aired on CBS on September 20, 1955, and ended 142 episodes later on September 11, 1959. It, in turn, was the inspiration for
the cartoon series Top Cat.
Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries Page 159