Natalie Talmadge (Apr. 29, 1896–Jun. 19, 1969) was an occasional silent film actress who was more well-known as the sister of her movie star siblings Norma and Constance Talmadge until her marriage to silent film actor and comedian Buster Keaton.
Talmadge was born in Brooklyn, New York. Although there have been questions about her actual birth year, her birth year is listed as 1896 on the 1900, 1910, and 1920 Censuses for Brooklyn and Manhattan, New York. She appeared in D.W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916), and Buster Keaton's Our Hospitality (1923), her final appearance.
Personal life
Talmadge married Buster Keaton on May 31, 1921, after an unusual courtship where they did not see each other for two years and exchanged no love letters. She proposed to him in a letter in January of that year by saying, "I am alone now with Mother. If you still care for me just send for me." Keaton went east from Hollywood by train and married her. The reasons for marriage on both sides have never been fully explained. They had dated, but not too seriously. It was believed that Joe Schenck, Keaton's producer and Norma's husband and producer, influenced the match, possibly arguing that it would solve several problems at once and keep the business all in the family.
Their marriage resulted in two sons, James, born 1922, and Robert, born 1924, but was rocky and tumultuous. Natalie spent prodigious amounts on clothes and ever-more elaborate Beverly Hills homes, and after the birth of their second son she ceased sexual relations with Buster. Although accepting of this exile (although it was imposed on him for reasons he did not understand), Keaton made it clear to Natalie and her mother that he would not go without sex and would find other partners. At this time he was only 28.
Late in the marriage Buster's career began to suffer after his contract with Schenck was sold to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and he became more open about his affairs with other women and turned increasingly to drink. He eventually became an unmanageable alcoholic. The marriage finally collapsed. Following the much publicized and acrimonious divorce in 1932 Natalie legally changed the boys' names to Talmadge, and refused to allow them to see their father for many years.
During the next few years she became involved with an actor named Larry Kent. They lived together for a while in a house bought for her by her sister Constance after the famous Italian Villa mansion which Keaton had built for her had been sold in 1933. They also took vacations together on occasion, but the romance did not last. She never remarried, and in her solitary existence also developed an alcohol problem. Her hatred and enmity towards her former husband persisted for the rest of her life and she refused to speak of him.
Natalie Talmadge died of a cardiac arrest in 1969. She was buried in the family crypt in the Shrine of Eternal Love in the Abbey of the Psalms at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.
Sources
Smith, Imogen Sara (2008). Buster Keaton: The Persistence of Comedy. Gambit Publishing. ISBN 978-0967591742.
Marion Meade (1995), Buster Keaton: Cut to the Chase, (ISBN 0-306-80802-1).
Ethel Barrymore (August 15, 1879 – June 18, 1959) was an American actress and a member of the Barrymore family of actors.[1] [2]
Early life
Ethel Barrymore was born Ethel Mae Blythe in Philadelphia, the second child of the actors Maurice Barrymore (whose real name was Herbert Blythe) and Georgiana Drew.[3] Named after her father’s favorite character—Ethel in William Makepeace Thackeray’s The Newcomes—she was one of the twentieth century’s most elegant, beautiful and gifted actresses.
She was the sister of actors John Barrymore and Lionel Barrymore, the aunt of actor John Drew Barrymore, and the grand-aunt of actress Drew Barrymore. She was also the niece of Broadway matinée idol John Drew Jr and early Vitagraph movie star Sidney Drew.
She spent her childhood in Philadelphia, and attended Roman Catholic schools there.
Career
Ethel Barrymore in 1901 in one of the famous dresses from Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines
Ethel Barrymore was a highly regarded stage actress in New York City and a major Broadway performer. Many today consider her to be the greatest actress of her generation.
Her first appearance in Broadway was in 1895, in a play called The Imprudent Young Couple which starred her uncle John Drew, Jr. and Maude Adams. She appeared with Drew and Adams again in 1896 in Rosemary.
In 1897 Ethel went with William Gillette to London to play Miss Kittridge in Gillette's Secret Service. The play, Gillette’s greatest work, was a huge success, but Ethel remained pretty much beneath everyone's radar scopes until one night when the leading actress, Odette Taylor, became ill and went home, still dressed in her costume. Ethel was standing in the wings in her nurse’s costume when the theater manager told her she would have to replace Taylor, dressed as she was. Ethel protested that she didn’t know Ms. Taylor’s part, but she went out in her nurse’s uniform and carried the show. It was a splendid performance, and she was noticed.
She was about to return to the States with Gillette's troupe when Henry Irving and Ellen Terry offered her the role of Annette in The Bells. A full London tour was on and, before it was over, Ethel created, on New Years Day 1898, Euphrosine in Peter the Great at the Lyceum, the play having been written by Irving's son, Laurence. Men everywhere were smitten with Ethel, most notably young Winston Churchill, who asked her to marry him. Not wishing to be a politician's wife, she refused. Winston, several years later, married Clementine Hozier, a ravishing beauty who looked very much like Ethel, but Winston and Ethel remained friends until the end of her life. Their “romance” was their own little secret until his son let the cat out of the bag 63 years after it happened.[4]
After her big season in London, Ethel returned to America. Charles Frohman cast her first in Catherine and then as Stella de Grex in His Excellency the Governor. After that, Frohman finally gave Ethel the role that would make her a star: Madame Trentoni in Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines, which opened at the Garrick Theatre on February 4, 1901. Unbeknownst to Ethel, her father Maurice had witnessed the performance as an audience member and walked up to his daughter, congratulated her and gave her a big hug. It was the first and only time he saw her on stage. When the tour concluded in Boston in June, she had out-drawn two of the most prominent actresses of her day, Mrs. Patrick Campbell and Minnie Maddern Fiske.
Barrymore playing the male character Carrots in a play of the same name, 1902
Following her triumph in Captain Jinks, Ethel gave sterling performances in many top-rate productions, and it was in Sunday that she uttered what would be her most famous line, "That's all there is, there isn't any more."[5]
Ethel portrayed Nora in A Doll's House by Ibsen (1905), and Juliet in Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare (1922).
She was also a strong supporter of the Actors' Equity Association and had a high-profile role in the 1919 strike. In 1926, she scored one of her greatest successes as the sophisticated spouse of a philandering husband in W. Somerset Maugham's comedy, The Constant Wife. She starred in Rasputin and the Empress (1932), with John and Lionel Barrymore, playing the Czarina married to Czar Nicholas. In July 1934, she starred in the play Laura Garnett, by Leslie and Sewell Stokes, at Dobbs Ferry, New York State.
After she became a stage star, she would often dismiss adoring audiences who kept demanding curtain calls by saying "That's all there is—there isn't any more!" This became a popular catch phrase in the 1920s and 1930s. Many references to it can be found in the media of the period, including the Laurel and Hardy 1933 film Sons of the Desert, and Arthur Train's 1930 Wall Street Crash novel Paper Profits. Actor Kevin Spacey delivers the line in the film Beyond the Sea, in the song The Curtain Falls, when portraying the singer, Bobby Darin, concluding his stage act.
Barrymore was a baseball and boxing fan. Her admiration for boxing ended when she witnessed as a spectator the brutality of the July 4, 1919, Dempsey/Willard fight in which Dempsey broke Willard's jaw and knocked out several of his teeth. Ethel vowed never to attend another boxing match though she would later watch boxing on television.
In 1928, the Shuberts opened the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, which operates under that name to the present day.
Film and TV career
Barrymore appeared in her first motion picture, The Nightingale, in 1914. Members of her family were already in pictures; uncle Sidney Drew, his wife Gladys Rankin and Lionel had entered films in 1911 and John made his first feature in 1913 with possible earlier shorter films. She made 15 silent pictures between 1914 and 1919, most of them for the Metro Pictures studio. Most of these pictures were made on the East Coast, as her Broadway career and children came first. All of her silent films are lost with the exception of one reel from The Awakening of Helena Richie (1916) which survives at the Library of Congress and The Call of Her People (1917) held at George Eastman House.[6][7]
In the 1940s, she moved to Hollywood, California. As children she and her brothers put on amateur or home made plays together often with Lionel the hero and John the villain, Ethel of course being the heroine. The only two films that featured all three siblings—Ethel, John and Lionel—were National Red Cross Pageant (1917) and Rasputin and the Empress (1932). The former film is now considered a lost film.
Barrymore won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film None but the Lonely Heart (1944) opposite Cary Grant, but made plain that she was not overly impressed by it. On March 22, 2007, her Oscar was offered for sale on eBay.
She appeared in The Spiral Staircase (1946) directed by Robert Siodmak, The Paradine Case (1947) directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and Portrait of Jennie (1948), among others. Her last film appearance was in Johnny Trouble (1957).
Barrymore also made a number of television appearances in the 1950s, including one memorable encounter with comedian Jimmy Durante on NBC's All Star Revue on December 1, 1951, which is preserved on a kinescope. In 1956, she hosted 14 episodes of a TV series Ethel Barrymore Theatre, produced by the DuMont Television Network and presented on the DuMont flagship station WABD just as the network was folding. Unfortunately none of the episodes were preserved on kinescope. A 1952 appearance on What's My Line? survives, however, in addition to several radio broadcasts.
Barrymore appeared in the Academy Award winning film Pinky (1949), for which she was awarded an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
In the romantic time-travel film, Somewhere in Time (1980), a photo of Barrymore wearing nun's habit from her 1928 play The Kingdom of God can be seen. Christopher Reeve plays a journalist rummaging through old theater albums at a large Michigan hotel. He uncovers the photos of Barrymore in the play and childhood photos of actresses Blanche Ring and Rose Stahl.
Private life
Winston Churchill was among many of Barrymore's new friends in England. Churchill reportedly proposed to her in 1900;[8] however, Barrymore mentions no such thing in her autobiography, Memories. She had, at the age of 19, while on tour in England, been rumored to be engaged to the Duke of Manchester, actor Gerald Du Maurier, writer Richard Harding Davis and the aforementioned Churchill.[9] Upon her engagement to Laurence Irving, son of Sir Henry Irving, an old friend of Mrs. John Drew, she cabled her father Maurice who responded with a cable "Congratulations!" When she broke up with Irving she cabled Maurice who wired back "Congratulations!"
Ethel Barrymore married Russell Griswold Colt (1882–1959), grandnephew of American arms maker Samuel Colt (1814–1862), on March 14, 1909. The couple had been introduced, according to Barrymore's autobiography, when Colt had strolled by the table where she was having lunch with her uncle, actor John (Jack) Drew, in Sherry's Restaurant in New York.[10] A New York Times article of 1911, when Barrymore first took preliminary divorce measures against Colt, states that Colt had been introduced to Barrymore by her brother John Barrymore some years before while Colt was still a student at Yale.[11] The couple had three children: actress/singer Ethel Barrymore Colt (1912–1977), who appeared on Broadway in Stephen Sondheim's Follies; Samuel Colt (1909–1986) a Hollywood agent; and John Drew Colt (1913–1975) who became an actor.
Barrymore's marriage to Colt was a precarious one from the start, with Barrymore filing divorce papers as early in the marriage as 1911, much to Colt's surprise, and later recanted by Barrymore as a misunderstanding by the press. At least one source, a servant, alleged that Colt abused her and also that he fathered a child with another woman while married to Barrymore. They divorced in 1923 and she did not seek alimony from Colt for herself, which was her right but she demanded that his entailed wealth still provide for their children.
Ethel Barrymore did not remarry. She had platonic relationships with other men, most notably actors Henry Daniell and Louis Calhern.
Death
Ethel Barrymore died of cardiovascular disease in 1959, at her home in Hollywood, California, after having lived for many years with a heart condition. She was less than two months shy of her 80th birthday. She was entombed at Calvary Cemetery. The Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York City is named after her.[12]
Filmography
silents
The Nightingale (1914)
The Final Judgment (1915)
The Kiss of Hate (1916)
The Awakening of Helena Richie (1916)
The White Raven (1917)
The Call of Her People (1917)
The Greatest Power (1917)
The Lifted Veil (1917)
Life's Whirlpool (1917)
The Eternal Mother (1917)
An American Widow (1917)
National Red Cross Pageant (1917)
Our Mrs. McChesney (1918)
The Divorcee (1919)
Camille (1926)(*short)
talkies
Rasputin and the Empress (1932)
All at Sea (1933)(*newsreel; short)
None but the Lonely Heart (1944)
The Spiral Staircase (1946)
The Farmer's Daughter (1947)
Moss Rose (1947)
Night Song (1947)
The Paradine Case (1947)
Moonrise (1948)
Portrait of Jennie (1948)
The Great Sinner (1949)
That Midnight Kiss (1949)
The Red Danube (1949)
Pinky (1949)
Kind Lady (1951)
The Secret of Convict Lake (1951)
It's a Big Country (1951)
Deadline – U.S.A. (1952)
Just for You (1952)
The Story of Three Loves (1953)
Main Street to Broadway (1953)
Young at Heart (1954)
Johnny Trouble (1957)
References
1.^ Obituary Variety, June 24, 1959.
2.^ Ethel Barrymore - North American Theatre Online
3.^ Famous Actors and Actresses On The American Stage Vol.1 A-J by William C. Young c. 1975 (Ethel Barrymore entry pages56-60)
4.^ Frohman, Daniel, and Isaac F. Marcosson, “The Life of Charles Frohman,” Cosmopolitan, Volume 61, 1916, p. 370.
5.^ Peters, Margot, The House of Barrymore (Simon and Schuster, 1991), pp. 95, 97; Barrymore, Ethel, Memories, An Autobiography (Harper, 1955), p. 148.
6.^ Catalog of Holdings, The American Film Institute Collection and the United Artists Collection at The Library of Congress, published by The American Film Institute c. 1978; for The Awakening of Helena Ritchie (1916)
7.^ The Call of Her People. silentera.com
8.^ Wenden, D. J. (1993). "Churchill, Radio, and Cinema." In Blake, Robert B.; Louis, William Roger. Churchill. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 236. ISBN 0-19-820626-7.
9.^ Great Stars of the American Stage by Daniel Blum c.1952 Profile #56
10.^ Memories: An Autobiography by Ethel Barrymore. (Harper and Brothers, 1955, page 162.)
11.^ "Ethel Barrymore to Sue for Divorce". New York Times. July 8, 1911.
12.^ "Ethel Barrymore Is Dead at 79; One of Stage's 'Royal Family'". The New York Times. June 19, 1959.
The slow-speed chase
Lawyers convinced the Los Angeles Police Department to allow O.J. Simpson to turn himself in at 11 a.m. on June 17, even though the double murder charge meant no bail and a possible death penalty verdict if convicted (double homicide is a capital offense in California). On June 17, 1994, over one thousand reporters waited for Simpson at the police station. When he failed to appear, confusion set in. At 2 p.m., the police issued an all-points bulletin. Robert Kardashian, a Simpson friend and one of his defense lawyers, read a rambling letter by Simpson to the media. In the letter Simpson said, "First everyone understand I had nothing to do with Nicole's murder… Don't feel sorry for me. I've had a great life." To many, this sounded like a suicide note and the reporters joined the search for Simpson. Simpson was dating Playboy Playmate Traci Adell at the time and had been seen with her that night (she was questioned, but avoided controversy).
The police tracked calls placed on the cellular telephone from Simpson's van in Orange County. A sheriff's patrol car saw a white Ford Bronco belonging to Simpson's friend, Al Cowlings, going north on Interstate 405. When the officer approached the Bronco, Cowlings, who was driving, yelled that Simpson had a gun to his own head. The officer backed off but followed the vehicle with Simpson in a slow-speed chase at 35 miles per hour (56 km/h).
For some time a Los Angeles News Service helicopter piloted by Bob Tur, and contracted by KCBS had exclusive coverage of the chase, but by the end of the chase they had been joined by about a dozen others. NBC interrupted coverage of Game 5 of the NBA Finals between the New York Knicks and the Houston Rockets to air the pursuit.
Radio station KNX also provided live coverage of the slow-speed pursuit. USC sports announcer Pete Arbogast and station producer Oran Sampson contacted former USC coach John McKay to go on the air and encourage Simpson to end the pursuit. McKay agreed and asked Simpson to pull over and turn himself in instead of committing suicide.
Thousands of spectators and on-lookers packed overpasses along the procession's journey waiting for the white Bronco. Some had signs urging Simpson to flee and others were caught up in a festival-like atmosphere. Over twenty helicopters were following this chase. It was televised by local as well as national news outlets, with 95 million viewers tuning in. The chase was covered live by ABC News anchors Peter Jennings and Barbara Walters on behalf of ABC's five newsmagazines, which achieved some of their highest-ever ratings that week.
The chase ended at 8 P.M. at Simpson's Brentwood home, 50 miles later. He was allowed to go inside for about an hour. His attorney Robert Shapiro arrived and a few minutes later, Simpson surrendered himself to authorities.
Although Simpson had a loaded weapon, and though Cowlings, as the driver, had led authorities on a lengthy car chase, no charges of any sort regarding the chase were filed against either Simpson or Cowlings. The prosecution did not present evidence at the trial about whether Simpson had pointed a loaded weapon at Cowlings. However, the police did say they recovered a gun from the SUV.
Pamela Britton (March 19, 1923 – June 17, 1974) was an actress best known for appearing as "Loralee Brown" in the television series My Favorite Martian (1963–1966). She also appeared in the film noir classic D.O.A. (1950).
Early career
She was born Armilda Jane Owen in Milwaukee. Her mother was Ethel Waite Owen (1893–1997), a prominent stage, radio, and early television actress. Her father, Raymond G. Owen, was a doctor who died when the actress was twenty years old. She had two sisters, Virginia, an actress under contract to RKO Radio Pictures and Mary, a social worker.
Pamela attended State Teacher's Normal School and Holy Angels Academy in her hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, taking leads in her school class plays. By the age of nine she was doing summer stock and Hollywood came calling at ten though her mother rejected the advances, saying she wanted her to be an actress, not a child star. Pamela started making the rounds at fifteen using the name Gloria Jane Owen but found that as soon as people knew who her mother was they expected her to be as accomplished as the respected dramatic actress. She chose the name Pamela from a British book and Britton to emphasise the source.
Theatre work
After a stint touring with bandleader Don McGuire, her big break came when she was cast as both Celeste Holm's understudy and "Gertie" in the Broadway singer of Oklahoma! When the show went on tour she took over Holm's role as "Ado Annie." After her New York agent pushed her credentials to MGM executive Marvin Schneck, he came to see her performance in Chicago. Disappointed on the first night he returned after cajoling from her agent on the second and signed her immediately.
Hollywood
Her first role in a major production was as Frank Sinatra's girlfriend in Anchors Aweigh. However afterwards, a forgettable part in a forgettable film, A Letter for Evie in 1946 disappointed and after three years she went on suspension to play "Meg Brockie" in Brigadoon on Broadway.
She returned to the big screen in Key to the City (which starred Clark Gable) in 1950 and then went on to make by far her most significant film appearance in the classic D.O.A., also in 1950. She made her third film of the year in the Red Skelton-starring Watch the Birdie (1951) although it was 19 years after that until she returned to the big screen. During that period, she portrayed the title role of the TV version of the Chic Young newspaper comic strip, Blondie, for the one season it ran, opposite Arthur Lake as her husband, "Dagwood Bumstead." (Lake had played the role earlier in numerous movie comedies, opposite Penny Singleton in the role of the title character.)
Britton was married on April 8, 1943, to Capt. Arthur Steel after they met on a blind date in Texas arranged by Pamela's sister. After the wedding he was posted to Italy on active service and Britton continued working. They had a daughter, Katherine Lee, born on September 8, 1946. After the war Steel worked as an advertising executive and went on to manage the Gene Autry hotels. Britton worked mainly in West Coast theater while their daughter grew up. Britton reprised her role in Brigadoon in 1954, appeared in Annie Get Your Gun at the Santa Barbara Bowl, and then returned to Broadway to replace an ailing Janis Paige in Guys and Dolls.
My Favorite Martian
What is perhaps her signature role began in 1963 and lasted until 1966 as she appeared as nosy landlady Mrs. Loralee Brown in My Favorite Martian. After the series ended, Britton appeared in If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium and Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came.
Death
In May 1974, while performing on tour with Don Knotts in The Mind with the Dirty Man, Britton began to have headaches. She was diagnosed with a brain tumor and died within two weeks. She was 51.
Pamela Britton is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Hollywood Hills.
George Reeves (January 5,[1] 1914 – June 16, 1959) was an American actor best known for his role as Superman in the 1950s television program Adventures of Superman.
His death at age 45 from a gunshot remains a polarizing issue. Some believe the official verdict of suicide; others believe George Reeves was murdered or the victim of an accidental shooting.[2][3]
Early life
Reeves was born George Keefer Brewer in Woolstock, Iowa, the son of Don Brewer and Helen Lescher.[4] (His death certificate erroneously lists his birthplace as Kentucky.)[5] George was born five months into their marriage. They separated soon afterward and Helen moved back home to Galesburg, Illinois.
Later, George's mother moved to California to stay with her sister. There, Helen met and married Frank Bessolo. George's father married Helen Schultz in 1925 and had children with her. Don Brewer apparently never saw his son again.
In 1927, Frank Bessolo adopted George as his own son, and the boy took on his new stepfather's last name to become George Bessolo.[6] Helen's marriage to Frank lasted 15 years and ended in divorce while George was away visiting relatives. Helen told George that Frank had committed suicide. Reeves's cousin, Catherine Chase, told biographer Jim Beaver that George did not know for several years that Bessolo was still alive, nor that he was his stepfather and not his biological father.
George began acting and singing in high school and continued performing on stage as a student at Pasadena Junior College.[7] He also boxed as a heavyweight in amateur matches until his mother Helen ordered him to stop, fearing his good looks might be damaged.
Acting career
While studying acting at the Pasadena Playhouse, Reeves met his future wife, Ellanora Needles. They married on September 22, 1940, in San Marino, California, at the Church of Our Savior. They had no children and divorced 10 years later.
Reeves's film career began in 1939 when he was cast as Stuart Tarleton (albeit incorrectly listed in the film's credits as Brent Tarleton), one of Vivien Leigh's suitors in Gone with the Wind. It was a minor role, but he and Fred Crane, both in brightly dyed red hair as "the Tarleton Twins," were in the film's opening scenes. He was contracted to Warner Brothers at the time, and the actor's professional name became "George Reeves"[6] and his GWTW screen credit reflects the change.
He starred in a number of two-reel short subjects and appeared in several B-pictures, including two with Ronald Reagan and three with James Cagney (Torrid Zone, The Fighting 69th, and The Strawberry Blonde). Warners loaned him to producer Alexander Korda to co-star with Merle Oberon in Lydia, a box-office failure. Released from his Warners contract, he signed a contract at Twentieth Century-Fox but was released after only a handful of films, one of which was the atmospheric Charlie Chan movie Dead Men Tell. He freelanced, appearing in five Hopalong Cassidy westerns before director Mark Sandrich cast Reeves as Lieutenant John Summers opposite Claudette Colbert in So Proudly We Hail! (1942), a war drama for Paramount Pictures. He won critical acclaim for the role and garnered considerable publicity.
Reeves was drafted into the U.S. Army in early 1943.[8] Later that year, he was assigned to the U.S. Army Air Forces and performed in the USAAF's Broadway show Winged Victory. A long Broadway run was followed by a national tour and a movie version. Reeves was transferred to the Army Air Forces' First Motion Picture Unit, where he made training films. He looked forward to working with So Proudly We Hail! director Mark Sandrich. Sandrich felt that Reeves had the potential to become a major star but unfortunately died while Reeves was still in uniform. Reeves would later lament the impact Sandrich's death had on his career.
After the war, Reeves returned to Hollywood. However, many studios were slowing down their production schedules, and some production units had shut down completely. He appeared in a pair of outdoor thrillers with Ralph Byrd and in a Sam Katzman-produced serial, The Adventures of Sir Galahad. Reeves fit the rugged requirements of the roles and, with his retentive memory for dialogue, he did well under rushed production conditions. He was able to play against type and starred as a villainous gold hunter in a Johnny Weismuller Jungle Jim film.
Separated from his wife (their divorce became final in 1950), Reeves moved to New York City in 1949. He performed on live television anthology programs as well as on radio and then returned to Hollywood in 1951 for a role in a Fritz Lang film, Rancho Notorious.[9] Meanwhile, DC Comics was planning a television adaptation of its most famous character.
Superman
In June 1951, Reeves was offered the role of Superman in a new television series.[10] He was initially reluctant to take the role because, like many actors of his time, he considered television unimportant and believed few would see his work. He received low pay and only for the weeks of production. The half-hour films were shot on tight schedules; at least two shows were made every six days. According to commentaries on the Adventures of Superman DVD sets, multiple scripts would be filmed simultaneously to take advantage of the standing sets, so that all the "Perry White's office" scenes for three or four episodes would be shot the same day, the various "apartment" scenes would be done consecutively, etc.
Reeves's career as Superman had begun with Superman and the Mole Men, a film intended both as a B-picture and as the pilot for the TV series. Immediately after completing it, Reeves and the crew began production of the first season's episodes, all shot over 13 weeks in the summer of 1951. The series went on the air the following year, and Reeves was amazed at becoming a national celebrity. In 1957, the struggling ABC Network purchased the show for national broadcast, which gave him greater visibility.
The Superman cast members had restrictive contracts which prevented them from taking other work that might interfere with the series. Except for the second season, the Superman schedule was brief (13 shows shot two per week, a total of seven weeks out of a year), but all had a "30-day clause," which meant that the producers could demand their exclusive services for a new season on four weeks' notice. This prevented long-term work on major films with long schedules, stage plays which might lead to a lengthy run, or any other series work.[11]
However, Reeves had earnings from personal appearances beyond his meager salary, and his affection for his young fans was genuine. Reeves took his role model status seriously, avoiding cigarettes where children could see him and eventually quitting smoking. He kept his private life discreet. Nevertheless, he had a romantic relationship with a married ex-showgirl eight years his senior, Toni Mannix, wife of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer general manager Eddie Mannix.
In the documentary Look, Up in the Sky: The Amazing Story of Superman, Jack Larson told how when he first met Reeves he told him that he enjoyed his performance in So Proudly We Hail! According to Larson, Reeves said that if Mark Sandrich hadn't died, he wouldn't be there in "this monkey suit." Larson said it was the only time he heard Reeves say anything negative about being Superman.
With Toni Mannix, Reeves worked tirelessly to raise money to fight myasthenia gravis. He served as national chairman for the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation in 1955. During the second season, Reeves appeared in a short film for the Treasury Department, Stamp Day for Superman, in which he caught the villains and told children why they should invest in government savings stamps.
In the 104 episodes, Reeves showed gentlemanly behavior to his fellow actors. Larson, who played Jimmy Olsen, recalled that Reeves enjoyed playing practical jokes on the crew and cast, as depicted during a scene in the biopic Hollywoodland. Reeves insisted his original Lois Lane, Phyllis Coates, be given equal billing in the credits. He also stood by Robert Shayne (who played Police Inspector William "Bill" Henderson) when Shayne was subpoenaed by FBI agents on the set of Superman. (Shayne's political activism in the Screen Actors Guild in the 1940s was used by his embittered ex-wife as an excuse to label him a Communist, although Shayne had never been a Communist Party member.) When Coates was replaced by Noel Neill (who had played Lois Lane in the Kirk Alyn serials), Reeves defended her nervousness on her first day when he felt that the director was being too harsh with her. On the other hand, he liked to stand outside camera range, mugging at the other cast members to see if he could break them up. According to Larson, Reeves took on-set photos with his Minox and handed out prints. By all accounts, there was strong camaraderie among the show's actors.
After two seasons, Reeves was dissatisfied with the one-dimensional role and low salary. Now 40 years old, he wished to quit and move on with his career. The producers looked elsewhere for a new star,[12] allegedly contacting Kirk Alyn, the actor who had first portrayed Superman in the original movie serials and who had initially refused to play the role on television. Alyn turned them down again.
Reeves established his own production company and conceived a TV adventure series, Port of Entry, which would be shot on location in Hawaii and Mexico, writing the pilot script himself. However, Superman producers offered him a salary increase and he returned to the series.[13] He was reportedly making $5,000 per week, but only while the show was in production (about eight weeks each year).[11] As to Port of Entry, Reeves was never able to gain financing for the project, and the show was never made.
In 1957, the producers considered a theatrical film, Superman and the Secret Planet. A script was commissioned from David Chantler, who had written many of the TV scripts. In 1959, however, negotiations began for a renewal of the series, with 26 episodes scheduled to go into production. (John Hamilton, who had played Perry White, died in 1958, so the former film-serial Perry White Pierre Watkin was to replace him.)
By mid 1959, contracts were signed, costumes refitted, and new teleplay writers assigned. Noel Neill was quoted as saying that the cast of Superman was ready to do a new series of the still-popular show.[14] Producers reportedly promised Reeves that the new programs would be as serious and action-packed as the first season, guaranteed him creative input, and slated him to direct several of the new shows as he had done with the final three episodes of the 1957 season. In the documentary Look, Up in the Sky: The Amazing Story of Superman, Neill remembered that Reeves was excited to go back to work. Jack Larson, however, told biographer Beaver: "Anyone who thought another season of Superman would make George Reeves happy didn't know George."
In between the first and second seasons of Superman, Reeves got sporadic acting assignments in one-shot TV anthology programs and in two feature films, Forever Female (1953) and Fritz Lang's The Blue Gardenia (1953). But by the time the series was airing nationwide, Reeves found himself so associated with Superman and Clark Kent that it was difficult for him to find other roles. A false but often-repeated story suggests that he was upset when his scenes as Sergeant Maylon Stark in the classic film From Here to Eternity were cut after a preview audience kept yelling "There's Superman!" whenever he appeared on screen. Eternity director Fred Zinnemann, the screenwriter Daniel Taradash and others have maintained that every scene written for Reeves's character was shot and included as part of the released film. Zinnemann has also asserted that there were no post-release cuts, nor was there even a preview screening. Everything in the first production draft of the script is still present in the final product seen since 1953.[15]
Attempting to showcase his versatility, Reeves sang on the Tony Bennett show in August 1956.[16] He appeared memorably on I Love Lucy (Episode #165, Lucy Meets Superman") in 1956 as Superman. Character actor Ben Welden had acted with Reeves in the Warner Bros. days and frequently guest-starred on Superman. He said, "After the I Love Lucy show, Superman was no longer a challenge to him.... I know he enjoyed the role, but he used to say, 'Here I am, wasting my life.'"[17] His good friend Bill Walsh, a producer at Disney Studios, gave Reeves a prominent role in Westward Ho, The Wagons! (1956), in which Reeves wore a beard and mustache. It was to be his final feature film appearance.
Reeves, Noel Neill, Natividad Vacío, Gene LeBell, and a trio of musicians toured with a public appearance show from 1957 onward. The stage show was a gigantic hit for the excited children who got to see their hero in person, though apparently not a huge moneymaker for Reeves. The first half of the show was a Superman sketch in which Reeves and Neill performed with LeBell as a villain called "Mr. Kryptonite," who captured Lois. Kent then rushed offstage to return as Superman, who came to the rescue and fought ("wrestled") with the bad guy. The second half of the show was Reeves out of costume and as himself, singing and accompanying himself on the guitar. Vacio and Neill accompanied him in duets.[18]
Reeves broke up with Toni Mannix in 1958 and announced his engagement to society playgirl Leonore Lemmon. He complained to friends, columnists, and his mother of his financial problems. He received royalties from syndication of the Superman show, but these were insubstantial, particularly in view of his lifestyle. Under these circumstances, the planned revival of Superman was apparently a small lifeline. Reeves had also hoped to direct a low-budget science-fiction film written by a friend from his Pasadena Playhouse days, and he had discussed the project with his first Lois Lane, Phyllis Coates, the previous year.[19] However, Reeves and his partner failed to find financing and the film was never made. There was another Superman stage show scheduled for July,[20] and a planned stage tour of Australia. Reeves had options for making a living, but those options apparently all involved playing Superman again.
Jack Larson and Noel Neill both remembered Reeves as a noble Southern gentleman (even though he was from Illinois) with a sign on his dressing room door that said Honest George, the people's friend.[21] After Reeves had been made an "honorary Colonel" during a publicity trip in the South, the sign on his dressing room door was replaced with a new one which read, Honest George, also known as "Col. Reeves," created by the show's prop department. A photo of a smiling Reeves and the sign appear in Gary Grossman's book about the show.
Death
According to the Los Angeles Police Department report, between approximately 1:30 and 2:00 a.m. on June 16, 1959, George Reeves died of a gunshot wound to the head in the upstairs bedroom of his Benedict Canyon home. He was 45 years old.
Police arrived within the hour. Present in the house at the time of death were Leonore Lemmon, William Bliss, writer Robert Condon, and Carol Van Ronkel, who lived a few blocks away with her husband, screenwriter Rip Van Ronkel.
According to all the witnesses, Lemmon and Reeves had been dining and drinking earlier in the evening in the company of writer Condon, who was ghostwriting an autobiography of prizefighter Archie Moore. Reeves and Lemmon argued at the restaurant, and the trio returned home. However, Lemmon stated in interviews with Reeves's biographer Jim Beaver that she and Reeves had not accompanied friends dining and drinking, but rather to wrestling matches. Contemporary news items indicate that Reeves's friend Gene LeBell was wrestling that night—yet LeBell's own recollections are that he did not see Reeves after a workout session earlier in the day. In any event Reeves went to bed, but some time near midnight an impromptu party began when Bliss and Carol Van Ronkel arrived. Reeves angrily came downstairs and complained about the noise. After blowing off steam, he stayed with the guests for a while, had a drink, and then retired upstairs again in a bad mood.
The house guests later heard a single gunshot. Bliss ran into Reeves's bedroom and found George Reeves dead, lying across his bed, naked and face up, his feet on the floor. This position has been attributed to his sitting on the edge of the bed when he shot himself, after which his body fell back on the bed and the 9mm Luger pistol fell between his feet.
Statements made to police and the press essentially agree. Neither Lemmon nor the other witnesses made any apology for their delay in calling the police after hearing the gunshot, but the shock of the death, the lateness of the hour, and their state of intoxication were given as reasons for the delay. Police said that all of the witnesses present were extremely inebriated, and that their coherent stories were very difficult to obtain.
In contemporary news articles, Lemmon attributed Reeves's apparent suicide to depression caused by his "failed career" and inability to find more work. The police report states, "[Reeves was]... depressed because he couldn't get the sort of parts he wanted." Newspapers and wire-service reports frequently misquoted LAPD Sergeant V.A. Peterson as saying: "Miss Lemmon blurted, 'He's probably going to go shoot himself.' A noise was heard upstairs. She continued, 'He's opening a drawer to get the gun.' A shot was heard. 'See, I told you so.'"' However, this statement may have been embellished by journalists. Lemmon and her friends were downstairs at the time of the shot with music playing. It would be nearly impossible to hear a drawer opening in the upstairs bedroom. Lemmon later claimed that she'd never said anything so specific but rather had made an offhand remark along the lines of "Oh, he'll probably go shoot himself now."
Witness statements and examination of the crime scene led to the conclusion that the death was self-inflicted. A more extensive official inquiry concluded that the death was indeed suicide. Reeves's will, dated 1956, bequeathed his entire estate to Toni Mannix, much to Lemmon's surprise and devastation. Her statement to the press read, "Toni got a house for charity, and I got a broken heart," referring to the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation.
A popular urban legend states that Reeves died because he believed that he had acquired Superman's powers and killed himself trying to fly.[22]
He is interred at Mountain View Cemetery and Mausoleum in Altadena, California.
Controversy
Many people at the time, and many more in later years, have refused to believe the idea that George Reeves would kill himself. Laymen have commented on the fact that no powder stippling from the gun's discharge was found on the actor's skin, leading them to believe that the weapon would therefore have to have been held several inches from the head upon firing.[23] Forensic professionals report that powder tattooing is left only when the weapon is not in contact with the skin, while a contact wound (which skull fracture patterns clearly reveal Reeves's wound to be) results in "a round entrance with blackened and seared margins, an entrance wound with a muzzle imprint around it, or a stellate entrance," but no powder tattoo.[24] Followers of the case also point to the absence of fingerprints on the gun and of gunshot-residue testing on the actor's hands as evidence in support of one theory or another. Police, however, found the gun too thickly coated in oil to hold fingerprints, and gunshot-residue testing was not commonly performed by the Los Angeles Police Department in 1959; thus, no inferences can be drawn in support of any theory from these elements separately.[23]
Reeves's incredulous mother, Helen Bessolo, employed attorney Jerry Geisler and the Nick Harris Detective Agency. Their operatives included a fledgling detective named Milo Speriglio, who would later falsely claim to have been the primary investigator. A cremation of Reeves's body was postponed. No substantial new evidence was ever uncovered, but Reeves's mother never accepted the conclusion that her son had committed suicide. Notably, she also publicly denied that her son planned to marry Leonore Lemmon, since he had never told her. However, he had announced this to any number of friends and strangers, even referring to her on occasions as "my wife."
An after-the-fact article quoted "pallbearers" at Reeves's funeral (actors Alan Ladd and Gig Young) as not believing that Reeves was the "type" who would kill himself. However, neither of these men actually served as pallbearers, and only one, Young, was a friend of Reeves. "Anti-suicide" proponents argue that Reeves would have no desire to end his life with so many prospects in sight.
The central thesis of the partially fictionalized Reeves biography Hollywood Kryptonite states as fact that Reeves was murdered by order of Toni Mannix as punishment for their breakup. This is illustrated as a potential scenario in Hollywoodland, with the blame more clearly leveled at Eddie Mannix than at Toni, although the film ultimately suggests the death was a suicide. However, the authors of Hollywood Kryptonite were forced to create a "hit man" to make the plot of their book work, and no such person appears to have ever existed.
In the Grossman book, Jack Larson was quoted as having accepted that it was suicide. Although he suggested in a 1982 Entertainment Tonight/This Weekend interview that he had had a momentary slight questioning of the verdict based on a comment from a friend near the time of the interview, he has stated publicly on several occasions that he always believed that Reeves had taken his own life and that quotations implying that he ever believed otherwise were either in error or deliberately falsified.
"Jack and I never really tried to get anyone to re-open George's death," Noel Neill said. "I am not aware of anyone who wanted George dead. I never said I thought George was murdered. I just don't know what happened. All I know is that George always seemed happy to me, and I saw him two days before he died and he was still happy then."
Hollywoodland dramatizes the investigation of Reeves's death. The movie stars Ben Affleck as Reeves and Adrien Brody as fictional investigator Louis Simo, suggested by real-life detective Milo Speriglio. The movie shows three versions of his death: killed semi-accidentally by Lemmon, murdered by an unnamed hitman under orders from Eddie Mannix, and, finally, suicide.
Toni Mannix suffered from Alzheimer's disease for years and died in 1983. In 1999, following the resurrection of the Reeves case by TV shows Unsolved Mysteries and Mysteries and Scandals, Los Angeles publicist Edward Lozzi claimed that Toni Mannix had confessed to a Catholic priest in Lozzi's presence that she was responsible for having George Reeves killed. Lozzi made the claim on TV tabloid shows, including Extra, Inside Edition, and Court TV. In the wake of Hollywoodland's publicity in 2006, Mr. Lozzi repeated his story to the tabloid The Globe and to the LA Times, where the statement was refuted by Jack Larson. Larson stated that facts he knew from his close friendship with Toni Mannix precluded Lozzi's story from being true. According to Lozzi, he lived with and then visited the elderly Mannix from 1979 to 1982, and that on at least a half-dozen occasions he called a priest when Mrs. Mannix feared death and wanted to confess her sins. Mannix suffered from Alzheimer's disease and senile dementia, but Lozzi insists that her "confession" was made during a period of lucidity in Mannix's home before she was moved from her house to a hospital. Mannix lived in a hospital suite for the last several years of her life, having donated a large portion of her estate a priori to the hospital in exchange for perpetual care. Lozzi also told of Tuesday night prayer sessions that Toni Mannix conducted with him and others at an altar shrine to George Reeves which she had built in her home. Lozzi stated, "During these prayer sessions she prayed loudly and trance-like to Reeves and God, and without confessing yet, asked them for forgiveness." Lozzi's claim, however, is unsupported by independent evidence.
Footnotes
1.^ Reeves's Mausoleum plaque erroneously lists his birthdate as "1/6/1914," or January 6, 1914. However, a variety of sources state that his actual birthdate was January 5, 1914, such as his Clarion County, Iowa, birth certificate and the website FindAGrave. Retrieved 2010-01-19.
2.^ The Death of George Reeves - The Original Superman. Retrieved 2010-01-19.
3.^ Henderson, Jan Alan, Speeding Bullet, M. Bifulco, 1999 ISBN 0961959649
4.^ Clarion County, Iowa birth certificate
5.^ California death certificate
6.^ "Superman Homepage"
7.^ Pasadena Junior College Courier, 1934
8.^ U.S. World War II Army Enlistment Records 1938-1946, dated 24 March 1943
9.^ "George Reeves Returns," HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, April 11, 1951, p.6
10.^ "Reeves Now Superman," HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, June 25, 1951, p. 7.
11.^ Grossman, p. 121.
12.^ Variety, September 27, 1954.
13.^ Variety, October 27, 1954.
14.^ DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World's Favorite Comic Book Heroes, no page cited.
15.^ "From Here to Eternity" screenplay drafts file, Billy Rose Theatre Collection, New York Public Library.
16.^ Grossman, p. 45.
17.^ Grossman, p. 151.
18.^ Grossman, p. 54.
19.^ Grossman, p. 58.
20.^ New York Post, June 17, 1959.
21.^ Look, Up in the Sky: The Amazing Story of Superman.
22.^ Mikkelson, Barbara (May 1999). "Superman"
23.^ The Straight Dope Mailbag: Was "Superman" star George Reeves a suicide—or murder victim?
24.^ DiMaio, Vincent J. M. and Dana, Suzanna E., Handbook of Forensic Pathology, CRC Press, 2006 ISBN 084939287X
References
Grossman, Gary Superman: Serial to Cereal, Popular Library, 1977 ISBN 0445040548
Daniels, Les & Kahn, Jenette, DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World's Favorite Comic Book Heroes, Bulfinch, 1995 ISBN 0821220764
Kashner, Sam & Schoenberger, Nancy Hollywood Kryptonite, St. Martin's Mass Market Paper, 1996 ISBN 0312964021
Henderson, Jan Alan, Speeding Bullet, M. Bifulco, 1999 ISBN 0961959649
Neill, Noel & Ward, Larry, Truth, Justice and the American Way, Nicholas Lawrence Books, 2003 ISBN 0972946608
Henderson, Jan Alan & Randisi, Steve, Behind the Crimson Cape, M. Bifulco, 2005 ISBN 0961959665
Your humble editor.
Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996) also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz vocalist. With a vocal range spanning three octaves, she was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing and intonation, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing.
She is widely considered one of the supreme interpreters of the Great American Songbook. Over a recording career that lasted 59 years, she was the winner of 13 Grammy Awards and was awarded the National Medal of Art by Ronald Reagan and the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George H. W. Bush.
Quote from Ella Fitzgerald: "Just don't give up trying to do what you want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong."
Fitzgerald married at least twice, and there is evidence that she may have married a third time. In 1941 she married Benny Kornegay, a convicted drug dealer. The marriage was annulled after two years.
Her second marriage, in December 1947, was to the famous bass player Ray Brown, whom she had met while on tour with Dizzy Gillespie's band a year earlier. Together they adopted a child born to Fitzgerald's half-sister, Frances, whom they christened Ray Brown, Jr. With Fitzgerald and Brown often busy touring and recording, the child was largely raised by her aunt, Virginia. Fitzgerald and Brown divorced in 1953, owing to the various career pressures both were experiencing at the time, though they would continue to perform together.
In July 1957, Reuters reported that Fitzgerald had secretly married Thor Einar Larsen, a young Norwegian, in Oslo. She had even gone as far as furnishing an apartment in Oslo, but the affair was quickly forgotten when Larsen was sentenced to five months hard labor in Sweden for stealing money from a young woman to whom he had previously been engaged.
Fitzgerald was also notoriously shy. Trumpet player Mario Bauza, who played behind Fitzgerald in her early years with Chick Webb, remembered that "[s]he didn’t hang out much. When she got into the band, she was dedicated to her music….She was a lonely girl around New York, just kept herself to herself, for the gig." When, later in her career, the Society of Singers named an award after her, Fitzgerald explained, "I don't want to say the wrong thing, which I always do. I think I do better when I sing."
Already blinded by the effects of diabetes, Fitzgerald had both her legs amputated in 1993. In 1996 she died of the disease in Beverly Hills, California at the age of 79. She is interred in the Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California. Several of Fitzgerald's awards, significant personal possessions and documents were donated to the Smithsonian Institution, the library of Boston University, the Library of Congress, and the Schoenberg Library at UCLA.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.JPG)
.jpg)
