CAUSE: He died in Paris aged 73 from a pulmonary embolism.
Robert Taylor
(SPANGLER ARLINGTON BRUGH)
Born August 5, 1911
Died June 8, 1969
‘The man with the perfect face’. Born in Filley, Nebraska, the son of a doctor, his mother, Ruth, was not expected to survive his birth. (Ironically, she would outlive him.) Nicknamed Arly, his original career plan was to be a concert cellist and he followed his music teacher to Pomona College, Claremont, California. There he began acting in college productions and was given a screen test by MGM, of which he later recalled: “It was awful. I could see they were disappointed.” He was subsequently given a seven-year contract at the studio, paying $35 a week, making him among the lowest paid actors in Tinseltown history. He moved to Hollywood with his mother, whose health had rallied somewhat. Taylor was not impressed when the studio changed his name: “After having a distinguished name like Spangler Arlington Brugh, who could accept such a common name — Robert Taylor?” It wasn’t until his eighth film, Magnificent Obsession (1935) in which he played Robert Merrick, that he became a star, earning $750 a week. His very brief romantic entanglements came to nothing until he met Barbara Stanwyck. Opposite in almost every way, they nonetheless began discreetly seeing each other. In February 1939 they became engaged and three months later, on May 14, they married. The marriage came as something of a relief to MGM, who had been distinctly worried about Taylor’s seeming lack of interest in women. Marriage to Stanwyck laid – at least publicly – his ‘queer’ image to rest; their million-dollar investment in him would not be threatened. Taylor’s overbearing mother was not impressed and went on hunger strike to protest at the wedding, which she referred to as “it”. Taylor spent his wedding night with his mother. He didn’t enjoy spending time with his wife and claimed to have fallen in love with Lana Turner during the filming of Johnny Eager (1941). He went so far as to boast that their passion had been consummated, a claim she refuted. Taylor told Stanwyck he was in love with Turner and they had a brief break-up. In February 1943 he joined the US Navy, being discharged on November 5, 1945. The pair began to grow apart and when he befriended MGM worker Ralph Couser, Stanwyck became convinced the two men were having an affair. When Couser telephoned the Taylor home, Stanwyck would call out, “Hey, Bob, your wife wants to speak to you.” Taylor became convinced he was gay and went to visit a psychologist. He was told that he saw Stanwyck as a mother figure and, therefore, could not become aroused by her. He later let it be known that he had an affair with Ava Gardner. In The Conspirator (1949) he gave Elizabeth Taylor her first screen kiss. Taylor later complained to his agent about the kiss but, at first, his co-star was ecstatic: “Today I grew up. No one can say I am a child in this picture, because I am playing Robert Taylor’s wife! He is just as wonderful as everyone in Hollywood told me he was. I have to admit I did get nervous when he took me in his arms and made love to me, but the director said I shouldn’t be upset.” Taylor, E.’s admiration for Taylor, R. soon turned to loathing. She claimed he went over the top in their love scenes and hurt her back when he bent her over to kiss her. She even went so far as to claim that he was responsible for the chronic back problems she suffered later in life. (In actual fact, they were caused by her falling off a horse while filming National Velvet [1944]). Taylor flew to Rome for six months to film Quo Vadis (1951) as Marcus Vinicius then, at $7 million, the biggest budget film in Hollywood history. The press reported rumours of Taylor’s womanising but how much of this was invention is uncertain. Nonetheless, he and Stanwyck were divorced on February 21, 1951. On May 24, 1954, he married divorced actress Ursula Theiss (b. 1917) aboard a boat in Jackson Lake, Jackson, Wyoming. A son, Terrance, was born on June 18, 1955, followed on August 16, 1959, by daughter Theresa. Theiss already had two children: 10-year-old Emanuela and 9-year-old Michael (who in 1963 would be arrested in Munich for attempted murder and who committed suicide in May 1969). With Theiss he found a new lease of life and felt his attraction to men almost disappear. He once yelled at Stanwyck: “At least I can get it up with her.” His career was not so successful. The large roles dwindled and he made the television series The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor (1959) playing Detective Captain Matt Holbrook. His films included: Handy Andy (1934) as Lloyd Burmeister, West Point Of The Air (1935) as Jaskerelli, Times Square Lady (1935) as Steve Gordon, Murder In The Fleet (1935) as Lieutenant Tom Randolph, Society Doctor (1935) as Dr Tommy ‘Sprout’ Ellis, Broadway Melody Of 1936 (1935) as Bob Gordon, Private Number (1936) as Richard Winfield, Small Town Girl as Dr Robert Dakin, Camille as Armand Duval, Personal Property (1937) as Raymond Dabney, This Is My Affair (1937) as Lieutenant Richard Perry, Broadway Melody Of 1938 (1937) as Steve Raleigh, A Yank At Oxford (1938) as Lee Sheridan, Three Comrades (1938) as Erich Lohkamp, Remember? (1939) as Jeff Holland, Lady Of The Tropics (1939) as Bill Carey, Lucky Night (1939) as William Overton, Stand Up And Fight (1939) as Blake Cantrell, Waterloo Bridge (1940) as Roy Cronin, Flight Command (1940) as Ensign Alan Drake, Escape (1940) as Mark Preysing, When Ladies Meet (1941) as Jimmy Lee, Johnny Eager (1941) as Johnny Eager, Billy The Kid (1941) as William ‘Billy the Kid’ Bonney, Her Cardboard Lover (1942) as Terry Trindale, Stand By For Action (1943) as Lieutenant Gregg Masterson, Song Of Russia (1943) as John Meredith, Bataan (1943) as Sergeant Bill Dane, Undercurrent (1946) as Alan Garroway, Conspirator (1949) as Major Michael Currah, Ambush (1949) as Ward Kinsman, Westward The Women (1951) as Buck Wyat, Ivanhoe (1952) as Ivanhoe, Above And Beyond (1952) as Colonel Paul Tibbets, Ride, Vaquero! (1953) as Rio, Knights Of The Round Table (1953) as Sir Lancelot, All The Brothers Were Valiant (1953) as Joel Shore, The Adventures Of Quentin Durward (1955) as Quentin Durward, Many Rivers To Cross (1955) as Bushrod Gentry, D-Day The Sixth Of June (1956) as Captain Brad Parker, Saddle The Wind (1958) as Steve Sinclair, Party Girl (1958) as Thomas Farrell, The House Of The Seven Hawks (1959) as John Nordley, Killers Of Kilimanjaro (1959) as Robert Adamson, Miracle Of The White Stallions (1963) as Colonel Podhajsky, Cattle King (1963) as Sam Brassfield, A House Is Not A Home (1964) as Frank Costigan, Savage Pampas (1966) as Captain Martin and Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows (1968) as Mr Farraday. Sal Mineo once said of him: “I’d always heard around town that Robert Taylor was bisexual, that his marriage to Barbara Stanwyck was arranged, and that she was also gay. So, when I met Taylor, I figured we’d have something in common, right? Wrong! I was open, he was not only closeted, he was rightwing and a witch hunter, not at all friendly or honest or even smiling.”
CAUSE: He died of lung cancer in St John’s Hospital, Santa Monica, California. He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks, 1712 Glendale Avenue, Glendale, California 91209. The eulogy was delivered by Ronald Reagan.
FURTHER READING: Robert Taylor – Jane Ellen Wayne (London: Robson Books, 1987).
William Desmond Taylor
(WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM DEANE TANNER)
Born April 26, 1867
Died February 1, 1922
Hollywood mystery. The film director whose death became one of Hollywood’s most enduring riddles. Born in Carlow, Ireland, the son of a British army major, Taylor married Eva Shannon around 1883. The following year he was acting on the London stage. He travelled to America and worked at various jobs before landing one in the New York theatre. In 1901 he married Ethel May Harrison in New York’s Little Church Around the Corner. Two years later, a daughter was born and named Ethel Daisy Deane Tanner. On October 23, 1908, he walked out of his family’s life. Reputed to be something of a ladies’ man, he also had a bisexual side and it is possible that the growing realisation of this stopped him living a heterosexual lie. He escorted numerous attractive film stars including Mabel Normand and Mary Miles Minter. With the patronage of Hollywood pioneer Allan Dwan, Taylor began working in Hollywood. By 1922 Taylor had become president of the Motion Picture Directors Association and was head director at Famous Players-Lasky, a Paramount subsidiary. He lived in one of the Spanish-style stucco homes arranged in a U-sha
pe near Westlake Park at 404 South Alvarado Street, Los Angeles. (Charlie Chaplin’s leading lady Edna Purviance and actor Douglas MacLean were other film inhabitants of the cul de sac.) Taylor’s bungalow was more than a home – it was where he entertained his procession of lovelies. It was also where he met his death.
CAUSE: On the evening of February 1, 1922, Mabel Normand visited an unhappy Taylor. The film director was annoyed because Edward F. Sands, his English former butler, had made free use of the house while Taylor was abroad. He pawned Taylor’s jewellery, used his charge accounts, forged his signature to write cheques, wrote off two cars, and then ran away with almost all Taylor’s wardrobe. Sands’ replacement was Henry Peavey (d. Sacramento, California, 1937), a black man who spoke in a falsetto and whose hobbies included crochet and needlepoint. He gave Taylor and Normand drinks and left them to it at 6.30pm. One hour and fifteen minutes later, Normand was driven away by her chauffeur. At approximately 8.15pm a sound like a car backfiring was heard. Douglas MacLean’s wife, Faith, looked out of her window and saw a man leaving Taylor’s home through an alley next to the garage. She later recalled: “He was funny-looking because he walked like a woman and was built like a woman.” The man’s face was covered by a scarf and a cap was pulled down low on his forehead. At 7.30 next morning Peavey arrived and found Taylor lying on the floor, a dried streak of blood at the corner of his mouth (and two.38-calibre slugs in his body). He ran into the street shouting, “Dey’ve kilt Massa! Dey’ve kilt Massa!” according to the Los Angeles Examiner. Edna Purviance telephoned Mabel Normand who alerted the studio who sent executives over to carry out a damage limitation exercise which included removing any and all alcohol from Taylor’s vicinity. Prohibition was still in force. Mabel Normand rushed over to fetch some love letters she had sent Taylor and eventually the police were called when neighbours became fed up with Peavey’s hysterics. They discovered a roaring fire in the grate and a frantic Mabel Normand still looking for her letters. (They were eventually found by the police inside one of Taylor’s riding boots. District Attorney Thomas Lee Woolwine went through the letters then returned them to Mabel without revealing their content. His only comment was that they were irrelevant as far as the case was concerned.) Mabel Normand was the first to be questioned by murder detectives because she was the last known person to see Taylor alive. Edna Purviance also rang Mary Miles Minter, a beautiful blonde ingénue, whom Paramount was grooming to replace Mary Pickford. The young actress was out when the call came and Purviance spoke to her mother, Charlotte Shelby, who disapproved of her daughter’s relationship with Taylor. She disapproved so much she visited Taylor and threatened him unless he stopped seeing the girl. (The Shelby family maid informed the authorities that Mrs Shelby had a gun and practised shooting regularly.) When Charlotte Shelby told her daughter, none too tactfully, what had happened, Mary rushed over to South Alvarado Street but was prevented from entering the house by police. The place was already swarming with reporters and movie executives. She was eventually taken to Mabel Normand’s house. Woolwine told the press that a handkerchief bearing the initials MMM was discovered in Taylor’s bedroom among a collection of silk lingerie and nightgowns. Discovered nearby was a love note with a letterhead in the shape of a butterfly. On the wings and body of the butterfly was written the by now familiar MMM. The note read: “Dearest – I love you – I love you – I love you – – –” Then followed a sequence of ten kisses in the shape of Xs. The note was signed, “Yours always! Mary”. She admitted, “I did love William Desmond Taylor. I loved him deeply and tenderly, with all the admiration a young girl gives a man like Mr Taylor.” Her mother confessed to owning a.38-calibre pistol, but insisted she obtained it for protection at home against burglars, not to use against Taylor. In fact, Mrs Shelby insisted that she had no objection to her daughter’s infatuation with the director. Mary didn’t confirm her mother’s claims. “Mother’s actions over Mr Taylor’s attention to me were not inspired by a desire to protect me from him. She was really trying to shove me into the background so she could monopolise his attentions and, if possible, his love.” Police investigated the possibility that Taylor’s killer may have been in drag and interviewed his ex-butler but those avenues led nowhere. Taylor had been a vocal opponent of the drug culture that was then becoming prevalent in Hollywood and had reported a number of dealers to the authorities but police ruled out a vengeful drugs baron as ordering the hit. Bizarrely, some of the jewellery stolen by Sands was pawned in Fresno, California, by someone using Taylor’s real name, William Deane Tanner. The murder ended Taylor’s life and Mary Miles Minter’s career. The public tarred her with guilt by association. For years the case remained unsolved. Film director King Vidor began to take a close interest in the murder in 1966 and spent much of the following year investigating the crime. His conclusion was that the murder was committed in a fit of jealousy by Charlotte Shelby.
FURTHER READING: A Cast Of Killers – Sidney Kirkpatrick (Mysterious Press: London, 1987).
Lou Tellegen
(ISADORE LOUIS BERNARD VAN DOMMELEM)
Born November 26, 1881
Died October 29, 1934
Leading man. Born in St Oedenrode, Holland, he began appearing on the stage in 1903 and later caught the eye of Sarah Bernhardt, becoming her leading man in Paris six years later. He went with her when she toured America in 1910 and three years later returned to live in America permanently, first in New York, where he appeared on Broadway, and then in Hollywood. His films included: The Unknown (1915) as Richard Farquhar, The Black Wolf (1917) as The Black Wolf, The Long Trail (1917) as Andre Dubois, Flame Of The Desert (1919) as Sheik Essad, Let Not Man Put Asunder (1924) as Dick Lechmere, Between Friends (1924) as David Drene, Single Wives (1924) as Martin Prayle, Those Who Judge (1924) as John Dawson, Greater Than Marriage (1924) as John Masters, Fair Play (1925) as Bruce Elliot, Borrowed Finery (1925) as Harlan, The Verdict (1925) as Victor Ronsard, After Business Hours (1925) as John King, Parisian Love (1925) as Pierre Marcel, With This Ring (1925) as Rufus Van Buren, The Silver Treasure as Solito, Siberia (1926) as Egor Kaplan, Womanpower (1926) as the broker, The Princess From Hoboken as Prince Anton Balakrieff, The Little Firebrand (1927) as Harley Norcross, Married Alive (1927) as James Duxbury, Enemies Of The Law (1931) as Eddie Swan, Caravane (1934) and Together We Live (1935) as Bischofsky. He was married and divorced four times.
CAUSE: With his career over, Tellegen sat in his living room and read through his press cuttings. Then he took all his clothes off, resumed his position and committed hara-kiri with a pair of gold scissors inscribed with his name. He was 52.
Terry-Thomas
(THOMAS TERRY HOAR STEVENS)
Born July 14, 1911
Died January 8, 1990
Gap-toothed gagster. Born in Finchley, London, the (6)߰son of a businessman, he began his working life in Smithfield market as a clerk but the lure of the stage proved too much and he began appearing as an extra in films. According to the man himself, his name change was hyphenated to match the gap in his teeth. He was known for his monocle, gaudy waistcoat, red carnation and cigarette holder encrusted with diamonds. During World War II he appeared with ENSA, the entertainment vehicle for troops lovingly, if not totally inaccurately, dubbed ‘Every Night Something Awful’. His career began to take off after demob and he appeared in the West End with Sid Field, on radio with his own shows and also on TV where he, again, had his own show. He became a massive star after being cast as Major Hitchcock in Private’s Progress (1956). He went on to appear in The Naked Truth (1957) as Lord Henry Mayley, Lucky Jim (1957) as Bertrand Welch, Blue Murder At St Trinian’s as Romney, Too Many Crooks as Billy Gordon, tom thumb as Ivan, I’m All Right Jack (1959), Carlton-Browne Of The F.O. as Cadogan deVere Carlton-Browne, School For Scoundrels as Raymond Delauney, Make Mine Mink (1960) as Major Rayne, Bachelor Flat (1961) as Professor Bruce Patterson, Operation Snatch (1962) as Lieutenant ‘Piggy’ Wigg, Kill Or Cure (1962) as J. Barker-Rynde, The Mouse On The Moon, (1963) a
s Spender, It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963) as J. Algernon Hawthorne, You Must Be Joking! (1965) as Major Foskett, Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines, Or How I Flew From London To Paris In 25 hours 11 minutes (1965) as Sir Percy Ware-Armitage, Munster, Go Home (1966) as Freddie Munster, Our Man In Marrakesh (1966) as El Caid, Those Fantastic Flying Fools (1967) as Sir Harry Washington-Smythe, The Perils Of Pauline (1967) as Sten Martin, Don’t Raise The Bridge, Lower The River (1967) as H. William Homer, Monte Carlo Or Bust (1969) as Sir Cuthbert Ware-Armitage, 12 Plus 1 (1970) as Albert, The Abominable Dr Phibes (1971) as Dr Longstreet, Dr Phibes Rises Again (1972) as Lombardo, The Bawdy Adventures Of Tom Jones (1976) as Mr Square, The Last Remake Of Beau Geste (1977) as Governor and The Hound Of The Baskervilles (1978) as Dr Mortimer, after which ill-health forced him to retire. In 1938 he married dancer Ida Florence (d. 1983) and they were divorced in 1962. In 1963 he married Belinda Cunningham. They had two sons.
CAUSE: When he learned he had Parkinson’s disease he moved to Ibiza but medical bills running at £40,000 per annum soon depleted his fortune and he returned to London where he ended up living in poverty in Barnes. A fund-raising concert in April 1989 enabled him to move to Busbridge Hall Nursing Home in Godalming, Surrey, where he succumbed to pneumonia. He was 78. At his funeral the organist played the main theme of Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines. He left less than £100,000.
Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries Page 167