Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries

by Paul Donnelley

  CAUSE: Walker slept late on August 28, 1951, at his home 14238 Sunset Boulevard. Unlike most days in Beverly Hills, the weather was unseasonably cold. At 2pm Walker took a call from his business manager Charles Trezona. At 6pm his psychiatrist, Frederick Hacker, received a call from Walker’s housekeeper saying he was out of control. However, Walker’s friend Jim Heneghan had called in for a drink and tried to leave when the shrink turned up. Hacker asked Heneghan to stay and another doctor, Sidney Silver, turned up and told the friend that Walker needed a shot of sodium Amytal to calm him down. However, when the injection was administered Walker stopped breathing and died around 9pm. On September 1, Walker was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks, 1712 Glendale Avenue, Glendale, California 91209. Neither Jennifer Jones nor David O. Selznick ever publicly discussed Robert Walker.

  FURTHER READING: Star Crossed: The Story Of Robert Walker And Jennifer Jones – Beverly Linet (New York: Berkley, 1988).

  Beryl Wallace

  Born 1910

  Died June 17, 1948

  Plane crazy. Beryl Wallace was the chosen favourite of impresario Earl Carroll and although her performances in films such as Murder At The Vanities (1934) as Beryl, Thanks For Listening (1937) as Gloria, Trade Winds (1938), Romance Of The Rockies (1938) as Betty, Air Devils (1938) as Marcia Bradford, A Night At Earl Carroll’s (1940) as Miss DuBarry, Johnny Eager (1941) as Mabel, Sunset On The Desert (1942) as Julie Craig, I Married An Angel (1942) as Fifi, The Woman Of The Town (1944) as Louella O. Parsons and Enemy Of Women (1944) as Jenny Hartmann were nothing special, her nightclub act in Earl Carroll’s niterie was. They were also lovers off stage.

  CAUSE: Wallace, Carroll and 42 people perished in a plane crash over Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, en route to New York. The couple was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks, 1712 Glendale Avenue, Glendale, California 91209. Their grave is surmounted by a large cast of Carroll’s hand holding a full-sized woman representing the curvy Wallace.

  Irving Wallace

  Born March 19, 1916

  Died June 29, 1990

  The novelist. Irving Wallace was born in Chicago, Illinois, the only son (there was a younger sister, Esther, born in 1923) of Alex Wallace (b. Vasilishki, near Vilna, Russia, 1892, as Ilya Wallechinsky, d. 1982) and Bessie Liss (b. Narevka, near Bialystock, Russia, 1890, d. 1970s). The family moved to Kenosha, Wisconsin, a largely industrial town on Lake Michigan in 1917, and the young Irving began submitting freelance articles to a Milwaukee newspaper. He and two friends travelled to Honduras in search of material. It was there, at the age of 18, that Wallace lost his virginity to a prostitute. She charged him $2. During the Second World War he joined the film unit of the US Army Air Force on October 6, 1942 where his commanding officer was Ronald Reagan and then served in the Signals until February 1946 where he also wrote magazine features. After the war Wallace wrote for newspapers and magazines covering sporting events, ghosting showbiz autobiographies and reporting on the quirkier side of life. He moved to Hollywood where he began writing films for $750 a week. His first film was The West Point Story (1950) which starred Doris Day and James Cagney. His other films included Meet Me At The Fair (1953), Gun Fury (1953), Desert Legion (1953), Split Second (1953), Bad For Each Other (1953), The Gambler From Natchez (1954), Jump Into Hell (1955), Sincerely Yours (1955), The Burning Hills (1956), Bombers B-52 (1957) and The Big Circus (1959). But Wallace intensely disliked the grind of Hollywood and looked for a way out. In his spare time he wrote a book about the prototypes of literary figures such as Robinson Crusoe and Sherlock Holmes. The Fabulous Originals, published on October 17, 1955, was a minor success. His first novel, The Sins Of Philip Fleming (published on September 30, 1959), was not. A second non-fiction book, The Square Pegs, was published on July 22, 1957 and told the stories of some great eccentrics. His third non-fiction effort, The Fabulous Showman (published on November 16, 1959), the life of P.T. Barnum, was well received. However, Wallace hit the big time with his second novel. The Chapman Report (published May 23, 1960) was based on the researches of Alfred Kinsey, the sexologist. It was filmed in 1962 starring Shelley Winters, Glynis Johns, Claire Bloom and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr and was directed by George Cukor. The success of the novel allowed Wallace to escape Hollywood on March 30, 1959 and to concentrate on writing his novels. Wallace’s career took off. He has sold more than 120,000,000 books in 31 languages and all his fiction has one thing in common – titles beginning with “The”. His novel, The Prize, about the shenanigans behind the Nobel prizes, is banned in Sweden. (The Prize was filmed in 1963 and starred Paul Newman and Elke Sommer.) The Seven Minutes, his novel about “the dirtiest book ever written” made it onto the big screen in 1971. It was directed by Russ Meyer and starred Wayne Maunder, Marianne MacAndrew and Yvonne DeCarlo. However, literary critics dismissed his prose as flat and his characters one-dimensional. Wallace’s 900,000,000 readers would undoubtedly disagree with this analysis. On June 3, 1941 at the Santa Barbara courthouse he married Sylvia Kahn, a successful novelist in her own right, and they had two children, David who reverted to the original family name Wallechinsky (b. Los Angeles, California, February 5, 1948) and Amy (b. Los Angeles, California, July 3, 1955). At one time all four family members worked together on various reference books for pleasure such as The People’s Almanac, The Book Of Lists, The Intimate Sex Lives Of Famous People, The Book Of Predictions and Significa.

  CAUSE: He died of cancer of the pancreas in Los Angeles, California, aged 74. He is buried in Hillside Memorial Park, 6001 West Centinela Avenue, Los Angeles 90045.

  FURTHER READING: Irving Wallace A Writer’s Profile – John Leverence (Bowling Green: The Popular Press, 1974).

  Kenneth Waller

  Born November 5, 1927

  Died February 1, 2000

  Old before his time. Born in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, lifelong bachelor Waller made his first appearance on stage at the age of six in a concert party arranged by his mother. During his national service on the Isle of Man he formed a drama society with a friend. Demobbed, he worked at an estate agents and appeared in local amateur dramatics. Seizing the chance he turned professional and first appeared in the West End in 1960, two years after he made his first film Room At The Top (1958). He also appeared in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) as an inventor, Scrooge (1970) as a party guest, The Love Pill (1971) as Professor Edwards, Fiddler On The Roof (1971) and Carry On Behind (1975) as a barman. It was as Grandad on Bread and as Old Mr Grace on Are You Being Served? that he found fame. Strangely, he replaced Harold Bennett (Young Mr Grace) even though he was nearly 30 years his junior. Said Waller, “I’ve played old men since the age of 18.”

  CAUSE: He died in London of natural causes. He was 72.

  Hal B. Wallis

  Born September 14, 1899

  Died October 5, 1986

  Producer extraordinary. Harold Brent Wallis was born in Chicago, Illinois, and began his film career as a publicist for Warner Bros. Following the advent of talking pictures he was promoted to production executive where he oversaw the making of films such as Little Caesar (1930), Miss Pinkerton (1932), I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang (1932), 42nd Street (1933), Captain Blood (1935), Anthony Adverse (1936), Gold Diggers Of 1937 (1936), The Charge Of The Light Brigade (1936), Kid Galahad (1937), Ever Since Eve (1937), The Prince And The Pauper (1937), Jezebel (1938), The Roaring Twenties (1939), The Oklahoma Kid (1939), Dark Victory (1939), Each Dawn I Die (1939), Nancy Drew And The Hidden Staircase (1939), The Private Lives Of Elizabeth And Essex (1939), The Sea Hawk (1940), Santa Fe Trail (1940), Dr Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet (1940), Million Dollar Baby (1941), Affectionately Yours (1941), High Sierra (1941), The Sea Wolf (1941), Sergeant York (1941), The Bride Came C.O.D. (1941), The Maltese Falcon (1941), They Died With Their Boots On (1941), Kings Row (1942), The Man Who Came To Dinner (1942), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Now, Voyager (1942) and Casablanca (1942). In 1944 he left the company to form his own production unit with films distributed through Paramount. His later work included: Rhapsody In Bl
ue (1945), Desert Fury (1947), My Friend Irma (1949), Come Back, Little Sheba (1952), Three Ring Circus (1954), Gunfight At The O.K. Corral (1957), King Creole (1958), G.I. Blues (1960), Blue Hawaii (1961), Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962), 4 for Texas (1963), Fun In Acapulco (1963), Roustabout (1964), Becket (1964), Boeing Boeing (1965), The Sons Of Katie Elder (1965), Paradise, Hawaiian Style (1966), Barefoot In The Park (1967), 5 Card Stud (1968), True Grit (1969), Anne Of The Thousand Days (1969), Mary, Queen Of Scots (1971) and Rooster Cogburn (1975).

  CAUSE: He died aged 87 in Rancho Mirage, California, from natural causes.

  Dermot Walsh

  Born September 10, 1924

  Died June 26, 2002

  Professional Irishman. Born in Dublin, the son of a journalist and civil servant, Walsh was educated at St Mary’s College, Rathmines. It was there he decided to become an actor but was warned by his parents of the precarious nature of the profession and so, in 1940, he began work in a Dublin solicitor’s. He was also given day release to study law at University College, Dublin but his heart was never in his studies. He spent his evenings at the Abbey Theatre School of Acting, taking part in amateur productions. His parents bowed to the inevitable and gave permission for him to appear in a small no-line part in a play at the Olympic Theatre. This led to a role in another production at the Gate Theatre, Dublin, where he had 10 lines to learn. Then he became an assistant stage manager with Lord Longford’s repertory company (earning £2 a week). He worked hard and graduated to juvenile leads. Realising that he could not further his career in the backwater of Ireland, he moved to England in 1945. He worked his passage on board the ship looking after horses. In December 1945 he joined the Croydon Repertory for a short time before returning to the Gate company in Dublin where, playing in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, he had a stroke of luck and was spotted by Brian Desmond Hurst, of J. Arthur Rank. Hurst was casting for Hungry Hill (1946), a film adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s novel of 1943 about an Irish family feud spanning three generations. Hurst hired Walsh, whose performance as Wild Johnnie – alongside Margaret Lockwood, Dennis Price, Cecil Parker, Jean Simmons and Michael Denison – led to the part of Barney Hatton in Sydney Box’s Jassy (1947), the story of a gypsy servant girl who falls in love with her master and is accused of murder. He also appeared as the chauffeur in Bedelia (1946), The Mark Of Cain as Jerome Thorn, My Sister And I (1948) as Graham Forbes alongside Hazel Court (whom he was to marry in 1949), Martita Hunt, Barbara Mullen and Sally Ann Howes, Third Time Lucky as Lucky and Torment (1950) as Cliff Brandon. Following his marriage to Court (the first girl to be put under contract by Rank), Walsh became a father in 1950. He appeared alongside his wife in The Frightened Man (1952) as Julius Roselli, The Ghost Ship (1952) as Guy Thornton and Counterspy (1953) as Manning. Fame was his but not always when he wanted it. Once he was standing on a railway platform in Manchester with Rank’s publicity manager and he spotted a group of small boys heading his way. Noticing that the lads were clutching notebooks, Walsh asked the publicity man to lend him a pen because, he explained, autograph hunters always had pens that leaked. But the boys rushed past him on their way to collect engine numbers. He appeared in the theatre, often working with his wife. His late-Fifties films included Sea Fury (1958) as Kelso, Sea Of Sand (1958), Make Mine A Million (1959), as Martin Russell opposite Sid James and Arthur Askey and The Challenge (1960) with Jayne Mansfield, in which he played Detective Sergeant Willis. On the small screen he appeared in Danger Man, Court Martial, The Invisible Man and the title role in the series Richard The Lionheart, which lasted for 39 episodes. When (6)߰Walsh toured he eschewed hotels and guest houses and took his caravan instead. His hobbies included making lists, collecting menus and stamps. Following his divorce from Hazel Court in 1963, he married the actress Diana Scougall in 1968. They had a son and divorced in 1974. That same year he married Elizabeth Knox (née Scott), who predeceased him. They had two daughters, one of whom is the actress Elizabeth Dermot-Walsh (b. 1976).

  CAUSE: Walsh died in hospital in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. He was 77.

  Raoul Walsh

  Born March 11, 1887

  Died December 31, 1980

  The director’s director. Born in New York, Walsh ran away to sea when he was still a boy and worked on a ranch before entering the film industry in 1909. He edited D.W. Griffith’s The Birth Of A Nation (1915) before turning to directing. By the end of his career in 1964 (caused by failing eyesight) he had directed over 120 films. Walsh also acted, appearing in The Birth Of A Nation as John Wilkes Booth. His last performance came in Sadie Thompson (1928) as Sergeant Tim O’Hara, a film that he also wrote and directed. During the filming of In Old Arizona (1929) he lost an eye and wore a black patch for the rest of his life. His films were popular with actors, directors and the public but studiously ignored by the Academy. They included: The Thief Of Bagdad (1924), Me And My Gal (1932), The Bowery (1933), Going Hollywood (1933), Spendthrift (1936), Klondike Annie (1936), When Thief Meets Thief (1937), O.H.M.S. (1937), The Roaring Twenties (1939), The Strawberry Blonde (1941), High Sierra (1941), They Died With Their Boots On (1941), Objective, Burma! (1945), Cheyenne (1947), White Heat (1949), Along The Great Divide (1951), Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951), Distant Drums (1951), Blackbeard The Pirate (1952), Sea Devils (1953), Saskatchewan (1954), The Sheriff Of Fractured Jaw (1958), The Naked And The Dead (1958), Esther And The King (1960) and A Distant Trumpet (1964).

  CAUSE: He died aged 93 in Simi Valley, California, of natural causes.

  Sam Wanamaker, CBE (Hon.)

  Born June 14, 1919

  Died December 18, 1993

  Acting-director. Born in Chicago, Illinois, Wanamaker studied at the Goodman Theater in his home town before making his stage début aged 17. His first film didn’t come until after World War II, My Girl Tisa (1948), in which he played Mark Denek. Wanamaker had definite left-wing tendencies and believed his cause would be better suited in England. As it turned out his name did not crop up in either the 1947 nor 1951 Senate Un-American Activities investigations. However, the tentacles of McCarthy’s insidious campaign were long and Wanamaker found himself blacklisted. Unable to work in films, he found gainful employment in the English theatre, not returning to film-making until the Sixties. He appeared in Taras Bulba (1962) as Filipenko, Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines, Or How I Flew From London To Paris In 25 Hours 11 Minutes (1965) as George Gruber, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (1965) as Peters, The Day The Fish Came Out (1967) as Elias, Voyage Of The Damned (1976) as Carl Rosen, Private Benjamin (1980) as Teddy Benjamin, Irreconcilable Differences (1984) as David Kessler, Raw Deal (1986) as Patrovita and Superman IV: The Quest For Peace (1987) as David Warfield. His directing was mostly confined to the theatre and television: he directed two Columbo TV movies. He was married in 1940 to Charlotte Holland and had three daughters, one of whom is the actress Zoë Wanamaker (b. New York, May 13, 1948).