CAUSE: He died at his home in Los Angeles, California, from a massive heart attack. Clad in a dressing gown, he had been sitting at his desk working at his typewriter. He was 70.
FURTHER READING: Orson Welles: The Rise And Fall Of An American Genius– Charles Higham (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1985); Citizen Welles: A Biography Of Orson Welles– Frank Brady (London: Coronet, 1991); Orson Welles: The Road To Xanadu– Simon Callow (London: Jonathan Cape, 1995).
Mae West
(MARY JANE WEST)
Born August 17, 1893
Died November 22, 1980
Blonde bombshell who shook up America. Born on Bushwick Avenue in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of a father who was a heavyweight boxer and a mother who modelled corsets. Mae began her career in burlesque and vaudeville. She wrote much of her own material and on April 19, 1927, was jailed for 10 days after her play Sex was deemed obscene. People probably assume that Mae appeared in dozens of movies but, in fact, she appeared in just 12 films and didn’t make her movie début until she was aged 40. In that film, Night After Night, she wore particularly impressive jewels, causing a cloakroom attendant to remark, “Goodness, what lovely diamonds.” Replied Mae: “Goodness had nothing to do with it.” She became notorious/celebrated for her West-isms including: “I used to be Snow White – but I drifted” and “It’s not the men in my life, it’s the life in my men.” Told that a 5́10˝ man was waiting to see her, she quipped “Never mind about the five foot, tell me about the ten inches.” Unlike many Hollywood stars, who frequently change abodes, Mae lived in the same block of flats, Ravenswood at 570 North Rossmore Avenue, off Wilshire Boulevard just three blocks from Paramount Studios, from 1932 until her death. Everything in her home was white with the occasional bit of gold. Cary Grant once admitted, “I learned everything from Mae West – well, nearly everything.” Her films were: She Done Him Wrong (1933) as Lady Lou, I’m No Angel (1933) as Tira, Belle Of The Nineties (1934) as Ruby Carter, Goin’ To Town (1935) as Cleo Borden, Klondike Annie (1936) as the Frisco Doll, Go West Young Man (1936) as Mavis Arden, Every Day’s A Holiday (1937) as Peaches O’Day, My Little Chickadee (1940) as Flower Belle Lee, The Heat’s On (1943) as Fay Lawrence, Myra Breckinridge (1970) as Leticia Van Allen and Sextette (1978) as Marlo Manners. The RAF nicknamed a life jacket a ‘Mae West’ because of her magnificent embonpoint. She remarked: “I’ve been in Who’s Who and I know what’s what, but this is the first time I’ve been in a dictionary.”
CAUSE: In August 1980 she suffered a minor stroke that paralysed her tongue, leaving her unable to speak, and was admitted to the Good Samaritan Hospital. On September 18, she suffered another stroke that paralysed her right arm and leg. On November 3, she was discharged and returned home. Less than three weeks later, she died aged 87 having received the last rites from a Catholic priest.
FURTHER READING: Mae West: The Lies The Legend The Truth – George Eels And Stanley Musgrove (London: Robson Books, 1989); Mae West: Empress Of Sex – Maurice Leonard (London: HarperCollins, 1991).
James Whale
Born July 22, 1889
Died Memorial Day (May 29), 1957
Horror auteur. James Whale was born at 41 Brewery Street, Dudley, Worcestershire, the sixth of seven children of William Whale (1855–1936), a blast furnaceman, and Sarah Peters (1855–1937), a nurse. Three more children died in infancy. William Whale kept pigs in his back garden and James Whale was acutely embarrassed about his working-class origins and quietly began to expunge all traces of it. Charles Laughton disparagingly referred to Whale as the “Would-Be Gentleman”. Shortly before Whale’s death, he learned that his brother had discovered documents that showed that seventeenth century Whales had been landowners and “gentlemen”. Whale said, “I cannot help a feeling of comfort in my old age that I was born right.” A thin, red-headed, fey child, Whale was educated at Bayliss’ School in Tower Street and Dudley Bluecoat School until his mid-teens and then, rather than following his brothers down the mines, he became a cobbler’s assistant. An odd job as a sign drawer earned Whale enough to enrol at the Dudley School of Arts and Crafts in 1910. It became immediately apparent to his contemporaries that Whale was “different”. When the First World War broke out Whale did not join up, instead working for the YMCA at Whittington Barracks. In October 1915 he joined the Inns of Court regiment as an officer cadet. In the summer of 1916 he joined the 2nd Battalion of the 7th Worcestershire regiment as a second lieutenant at the time when the average life span of a subaltern was three weeks. He served at the Somme, Arras and Ypres. On August 25–26, 1917 he was captured as he led his men on an attack on the German lines in the Pommern Redoubt, Belgium. He was imprisoned at Holzminden, near Hanover, for fifteen months and spent his time designing and performing in troop shows. Back in Blighty after the Armistice, Whale decided upon a theatrical career. He made his professional acting début with Barry Jackson’s Birmingham Repertory Company on August 30, 1919. That year he also met the flamboyantly homosexual Ernest Thesiger and Whale relaxed in his company. In 1920 Whale moved to Stratford-upon-Avon where he immersed himself in Shakespeare. He joined a rep company in Liverpool and began to commute between that city and London. In 1922 he appeared in The Insect Play. Also in the cast were Elsa Lanchester, Claude Rains, Angela Baddeley, John Gielgud and a woman to whom Whale became engaged. Doris Clare Zinkeisen (b. Kilcreggan, Scotland, July 31, 1898, d. January 1991) was an exotic creature who beguiled Whale. The relationship was one of the mysteries of Whale’s life. Was it a rare heterosexual interlude or a “beard”? Whatever the case, he continued to take male lovers during the betrothal. Whale preferred younger men throughout his life. Whale worked steadily but without external recognition for almost a decade. In late 1928 Whale was given the job of directing a new play that no one wanted by an unknown playwright, R.C. Sherriff, based on his own experiences in the trenches. Journey’s End was to change his life. During the run he finished with his girlfriend and fell in love with a young amateur actor called Robert Barthe Offen. Journey’s End opened on December 10, 1928. The lead was a young actor of promise named Laurence Olivier. The play was a hit and transferred (without Olivier) to the West End, where it ran for nearly 600 performances. Whale was asked to go to New York to stage the play’s Broadway première. Hollywood beckoned in June 1929 and Whale met a handsome young man called David Lewis (b. Trinidad, Colorado, December 14, 1903 as David Levy, d. March 13, 1987), a producer at MGM and Warner Bros who would be nominated for two Oscars. The two men hit it off and dated until Whale had to return to England to direct Badger’s Green in April 1930. Before he could begin work on Journey’s End Whale worked on The Love Doctor (1929) which starred Richard Dix. He then worked as a dialogue director on Howard Hughes’ Hell’s Angels (1930) and received a $5,000 bonus from the bashful billionaire. Finally, his next project was the film version of Journey’s End (premièred March 13, 1930), which was made by a team of British producers that included Michael Balcon and shot on Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard. Universal Studios offered Whale a contract and his first job was a weepy melodrama, Waterloo Bridge (shooting began May 23, 1931). His next film would make his name. Universal had just had a smash hit with Dracula (released February 14, 1931) starring Bela Lugosi and wanted something similar. They bought the rights to Mary Shelley’s Gothic novel Frankenstein, or The New Prometheus (although kept little of the original story) and hired the Frenchman Robert Florey to direct. He was sacked and replaced by Whale whose star was in the ascendancy. The bisexual Colin Clive, who had starred in Journey’s End, was given the job of playing the title role and the part of the monster, originally intended for Lugosi who turned it down, went to a little-known, bit-part player called Boris Karloff. To add mystery in the opening credits Karloff was billed as ‘?’. Whale designed the look of the monster and created an icon that lasts to today. Frankenstein (released on December 4, 1931 at a cost of $291,000) was a smash hit taking $53,000 in its first week and $12 million in total. In interviews to promote the film Whale con
veniently shaved seven years off his age and invented an education at the hands of private tutors. Whale was to make films in many genres – his next was the romantic comedy The Impatient Maiden (1932) – but it was for horror films he is remembered, much to his annoyance. His next film was an adaptation of a J.B. Priestley novel, The Old Dark House (1932) which was followed by The Kiss Before The Mirror (1933). The Invisible Man (1933), taken from H.G. Wells’ classic novel, heralded the screen début of Claude Rains in the title role. His next films were By Candlelight (1933) and an adaptation of a John Galsworthy novel, One More River (1934). At the start of 1934 Whale and David Lewis moved in together at 788 South Amalfi drive in Pacific Palisades. It was a bold move in an age when open homosexuality was frowned upon even in Hollywood and could get you imprisoned in England. Nonetheless, while Whale continued to produce hits, Hollywood continued to turn a blind eye. Universal wanted a sequel to Frankenstein but Whale was not keen to repeat his triumph. Eventually, he allowed himself to be persuaded and created his magnum opus. He cast Ernest Thesiger and Elsa Lanchester in The Bride Of Frankenstein (made in 1935 at a cost of $397,000, $100,000 over budget and 10 days over schedule). Lanchester played a dual role – the bride and authoress Mary Shelley in the prologue. Whale’s next effort was the screwball comedy, Remember Last Night? (1935). It starred Robert Young and Constance Cummings. In November 1935 Whale began work on the film version of the Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein musical Show Boat (released in April 1936). Paul Robeson and Helen Morgan triumphantly repeated their Broadway roles and it is undoubtedly the best of the three versions filmed so far. (The other two were made in 1929 and 1951.) However, it was also expensive and although it would earn back the outlay, it did not happen quickly enough to save Universal Studios from financial crisis. Carl Laemmle, who had founded the studio in 1912, stepped down and Universal had new owners, J. Cheever Cowdin and Charles R. Rogers. It was pure bad luck that Whale’s first flop coincided with the changeover at Universal. The Road Back (began filming in February 1937 with a budget of $770,000 that rose to more than $880,000) was adapted from Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, a sequel to All Quiet On The Western Front. Any hopes for a hit were dashed by poor casting and the busybody German consul in Los Angeles, Dr Georg Gyssling, who threatened a boycott if the film was not changed. Whale ignored him, but Universal buckled under the pressure and cut several scenes before bringing in Ted Sloman to shoot extra material, including a clumsy new ending. Unsurprisingly, the film did badly. It was the beginning of the end for James Whale. His next film, The Great Garrick (1937) for Warner Bros, was well-written, well-directed, well-performed and badly received by the public. At MGM, Whale directed Port Of Seven Seas (1938), an attempt to combine Marcel Pagnol’s Marseilles trilogy (Marius, Fanny and César) into one film, with Wallace Beery. Back at Universal, Whale made two forgettable films, Sinners In Paradise (1938) and Wives Under Suspicion (1938) which was a remake of his own The Kiss Before The Mirror. He made a version of The Man In The Iron Mask (1939) for United Artists but was bored, paid little attention, smoked on set and let the smoke drift into camera range and was sacked. His final film for Universal, the studio that had been the scene of his greatest successes, was a jungle melodrama, Green Hell (made in 1940 at a cost of more than $700,000) starring Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. It would not be unfair to say that this was one of the worst films ever produced in Hollywood. An anti-Nazi oeuvre They Dare Not Love (1941) was Whale’s next assignment at Columbia but he fell out with the studio’s boss, Harry Cohn, and was once again sacked. He never made another feature film. Whale had an English reserve about him – perhaps as a shield for his homosexuality – so he never bothered to socialise or network. When he was a success this did not matter but when he began to produce flops, he needed friends and he did not have any. He had told one interviewer, “That they should pay such fabulous salaries is beyond ordinary reasoning. Who’s worth it? But why not take it? And the architecture! And the furnishings! … All the world’s made of plaster of Paris!” Whale’s last film was a 41-minute adaptation of a William Saroyan play, Hello Out There. Whale took to retirement easily, taking up painting; it was old age he feared.
Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries Page 179