Ask 411 Movies for 11.5.07: Wanted Dead or Alive!
Posted by Leonard Hayhurst on 11.05.2007
Halloween might be over, but this week’s column is devoted to the dead!
Ben Piper wanted me to wish him a happy birthday. I believe it was Saturday. Ben moderates Fact or Fiction and reviews Lost for us along with other articles. I hope it's not a bad omen for him that this week's column deals so heavily with suicide. Read on, ghouls.
Here's a weird one for you. My friend Mike flew in from California over the weekend. Between L.A. and Arizona there was a guy on the plane with him that he swears he saw in some movies recently, but he can't place him. He's probably a D-list guy at best. The man he described sounded a lot like MC Gainey to me. He was a bigger guy in his early forties, long black hair and a big nose that look like it had been busted a few times. The kind of guy that would probably play bikers and thugs. We probably have no hope of indetifying the guy, but what the hey.
Robert Goulet passed away last Tuesday awaiting a lung transplant for pulmonary fibrosis. He was 73. While modern audiences might know him best by being parodied by Will Ferrell on Saturday Night Live and Goulet's recent commercial for Emerald Nuts, he had a long career as one of the most gifted baritones in musical theater and popular recordings. Goulet shot to stardom in 1960 as Lancelot in "Camelot!." Goulet made a handful of films including Naked Gun 2 ½, Beetle Juice, I'd Rather be Rich and Honeymoon Hotel.
Country music singer Porter Wagoner passed away October 28th of lunch cancer. He was 80. Wagoner had his own show from 1967 to 1973 where he discovered Dolly Parton. Wagoner made several television appearances and popped up in the Clint Eastwood film Honky Tonk Man. His hits include "Satisfied Mind," "Uncle Pen," "Misery Loves Company," "Sorrow on the Rocks," "The Cold Hard Facts of Life," "The Carroll County Accident" and many duets with Parton.
From YouTube this week we have Kinky Friedman and Bob Dylan singing on a Jewish telethon circa 1991. No further explanation can give this clip justice.
Q: Hey leonard, great work. I've got a couple of questions for you.
I wanted to ask this after I heard about the Owen Wilson "situation", but thought it might be too soon. It may still be morbid, but here goes. How many genuine A-List celebrity have ever killed themselves while they were in their prime. I know some who commited suicide after their career started to fall, and some B-listers, but I can't off the top of my head think of any that were at as high of a peak as Wilson.
And changing the topic completely, who do you think is the biggest star to come from Saturday Night Live? Murray, Murphy, Sandler?
Keep up the good work.
-JW
A: In terms of longevity, money earned and popular influence I would go with Eddie Murphy as the biggest star ever to come from "Saturday Night Live." Just about every black comedian today, and some of the white ones too, take liberally from Murphy in his style, material and stage presence. Despite his many flops, Murphy is still the fourth highest grossing actor of all time with nearly $3.5 billion in grosses over 33 films for an average gross just over $100 million. That is according to the-numbers.com
A lot of Hollywood figures have committed suicide. As you state, many have been B-list at best or on the downside of their careers, hence them committing suicide. Most who have died in their primes have been due to homicides or accidents. Although questions always persist about those who died of drug overdoses on if they were intentional or not, from Marilyn Monroe to Chris Farley. Below is a list of notable Hollywood suicides although most wouldn't qualify as A-list at the time of their unfortunate endings. Wikipedia was helpful with pictures and double checking my information.
Stanley Adams: A character actor best known for his appearances on cult favorite television shows, most notably as Cyrano Jones in the "Trouble with Tribbles" episode of "Star Trek." He shot himself in 1977 at the age of 62.
Ross Alexander: Alexander was a minor actor for Warner Brothers in the early thirties, appearing in Captain Blood and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Alexander was a homosexual who was forced to hide this due to his career and married starlet Aleta Freel in 1934. She shot herself a little over a year later presumably due to the sham her marriage was. Alexander killed himself with the same gun shortly after Christmas two years later. He left no note and his current wife stated that he was in the best mood he had been in weeks the day he died. He was only 30. In an odd note, Alexander was obsessed with Bette Davis and wrote her several unnerving letters of his devotion.
Clara Blandick: She's best known as Auntie Em from The Wizard of Oz, but Blandick had a long career in film and on the stage. She committed suicide in 1962 at the age of 86 due to the early stages of blindness and crippling arthritis. She overdosed on sleeping pills and then tied a plastic bag over her head.
Jonathan Brandis: Brandis was best known for his role as the requisite genius teen on "Seaquest DSV." He also appeared in the films Ladybugs with Rodney Dangerfield and Sidekicks with Chuck Norris. Brandis had his role in Hart's War largely cut out, which led to him hanging himself in 2003 at the age of 27.
Ray Combs: A standup comedian, Combs scored his greatest success as the host of "Family Feud." Combs was fired from the series, was in a terrible car accident, had his comedy club in Cincinnati closed and his wife left him with their six children. This became too much to bear and he hung himself with a bed sheet in a closet after checking into a psychiatric ward. He was 40. Johnny Carson paid for the funeral.
Pete Duel: Duel was a struggling actor for years until he became one half of the title pair in "Alias Smith and Jones." The series did very well in its first season against the strong "Flip Wilson Show." Duel liked the increase in fame, but not the long hours and limitations on other projects a series put on him. Duel shot himself on New Year's Eve 1971 at the age of 31 after an all night drinking binge.
Richard Farnsworth: Farnsworth was a long time character actor in westerns who managed to score two Oscar nominations in his career; best supporting actor for Comes a Horsemen in 1979 and best actor for The Straight Story in 1999. The latter proved to be his last role. Farnsworth was suffering from terminal bone cancer and shot himself at the age of 80.
Ed Flanders: Flanders played Harry Truman in numerous productions, but is best known as Dr. Westphal from "St. Elsewhere." Flanders was still working steadily in the mid-nineties, but a divorce from his second wife led to severe depression. He shot himself in 1995 at the age of 60.
Richard Jeni: Jeni was a standup comic who starred in the short lived series "Platypus Man" and appeared as Jim Carrey's pal in The Mask. Jeni shot himself in March of this year. He was 49. Jeni had been diagnosed with clinical depression and psychotic paranoia.
Brian Keith: Keith starred in "Family Affair" as Uncle Bill and as the wily title Judge Hardcastle in "Hardcastle and McCormick." Keith made several film appearances as well, including as Teddy Roosevelt in The Wind and the Lion and as the father of Haley Mills in the original Parent Trap. Keith was suffering from terminal lung cancer when he shot himself in 1997. He was 75. Keith was a life long smoker and did ads for Camel cigarettes. Keith used the same gun his daughter committed suicide with just two months before him.
Alan Ladd: Ladd died of an overdose of alcohol and sedatives in 1964. He was 50. His family has disputed the status of his death as a suicide for years. They even sued the makers of the film Wonder Boys to remove Ladd's name from a list of suicides that Tobey Maguire's character reels off at the end of a dinner party. Ladd was a top star of the forties and fifties. One of his most famous films was the title part in Shane. Ladd was probably still considered A-list at the time of his death.
Phillip Loeb: Loeb had just broke big at the dawn of television as the husband on the CBS series "The Goldbergs." Loeb was named a Communist in a released pamphlet of supposed Hollywood Communists. Loeb admitted to having been in the party at one time, but left it years previous. CBS felt pressure from sponsors to drop Loeb from the show. Series creator and star Gertrude Berg refused, but Loeb resigned for the good of the series. Unable to find much work Loeb overdosed on barbiturates in 1955 at the age of 63.
Hugh is first on the left. His father is in the center
Hugh O'Connor: Hugh was the son of Carroll O'Connor and co-starred with him on "In the Heat of the Night." Hugh had a long history of drug abuse and decided to kill himself on his third wedding anniversary in 1995. He was 32. Carroll championed a California law now known as the Hugh O'Connor memorial law that allows the family of one who has died of drug abuse to sue the drug dealer for expenses incurred due to treatment and rehabilitation efforts.
Dana Plato: Plato played the adopted sister of Arnold and Willis on "Diff'rent Strokes." After the series went off the air Plato spiraled down into a world of drugs and crime, ending with her overdose of Vicodin and Vanadom in 1999. She was 35. Plato made several softcore erotic films before her death in an effort to keep working. Plato was also one of the first known celebrities to star in a video game with the infamous Night Trap in 1992.
Freddie Prinze: Prinze was a rising standup comedian who was the star of the top rated NBC sitcom "Chico and the Man." In 1976 Prinze was arrested for driving under the influence of Quaaludes. Shortly after his wife filed for divorce and a restraining order due to his rising drug addiction. Without his wife and his young son, Freddie Prinze, Jr., Prinze decided to commit suicide. Prinze made several phone calls to say goodbye to family and friends from a hotel room. His agent rushed to his side and tried to stop him, but Prinze produced a gun and shot himself. He was 22. Mere months before his death Prinze signed a $6 million five year contract with NBC to make him one of the highest paid actors on television at the time.
David Rappaport: The dwarf actor played the leader of the thieves in Time Bandits and the friend of the Frankenstein Monster in The Bride. He starred in the short lived series "The Wizard" and made frequent television appearances. Rappaport battle depression for much of his life and it finally got the better of him when he shot himself in 1990 at the age of 39.
Charles Rocket: Rocket spent a year on "Saturday Night Live" in 1980 to 1981. He was fired after dropping the f-word during a skit where he was playing JR Ewing. Rocket had small parts in various television shows and movies following. He was found in October of 2005 in the yard of his home in Connecticut with his throat slit.
George Sanders: Sanders was a Russian born character actor who originated the roles of the Saint and the Falcon in their film series. He also had parts in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and The Picture of Dorian Gray. He provided the voice of Shere Khan in The Jungle Book and played Mr. Freeze on "Batman." He was also one of the many husbands of Zsa Zsa Gabor. Sanders shot himself in 1972 at the age of 65. His suicide note listed the reason as boredom.
Jean Seberg: Seberg made her film debut as Joan of Arc in Saint Joan, but her most lasting performance is that in the French new wave film Breathless. Seberg disappeared in 1979 and was found 11 days later in a parked car. She died of a barbiturate overdose. She was 40. Questions of her death persist due to her not having her driving glasses and how she could have driven so far with the level of drugs and alcohol found in her body.
Walter Slezak: The Austrian born actor appeared in numerous films, television shows and plays. He won a Tony award in 1955 for "Fanny." He played the Clock King on "Batman." Slezak shot himself in 1983 at the age of 83 due to increasing physical illnesses plaguing him.
Everett Sloane: Sloane was a member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theater players. He appeared for Welles in Citizen Kane, Journey into Fear and The Lady from Shanghai. Sloane killed himself in 1965 at the age of 55 due to creeping blindness from glaucoma.
Inger Stevens: Stevens appeared in Hang ‘em High, Five Card Stud and Madigan. On television she starred in "The Farmer's Daughter" and "The Most Deadly Game." She overdosed on barbiturates in 1970 at the age of 36. Stevens had a secretive marriage to black actor Ike Jones, but had relationships with several other well known actors including Anthony Quinn, Mario Lanza and Burt Reynolds.
Herve Villecahaize: The dwarf actor is best known for playing Nick Nack in the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun and Tattoo on "Fantasy Island." Villecahaize shot himself in 1993 after illness and physical problems due to his status as a dwarf caused him depression and alcoholism. He was 50.
Gig Young: Young was nominated for Oscars in the early fifties for Come Fill the Cup and Teacher's Pet. He finally won the Oscar for They Shoot Horses Don't They? in 1969. Alcoholism derailed his later career. He lost out on the role of the Waco Kid in Blazing Saddles and Charlie on "Charlie's Angels" because he was too drunk to perform on the first days of shooting. Young's last film proved to also be the last for Bruce Lee in Game of Death. Young died in 1978 at the age of 65. Young killed his wife of only three weeks and half his age before shooting himself. His motives remain unclear. Young left his daughter in his will only $10.
Do I really need to say the usual here? Don't die.
"Darkness falls across the land / The midnight hour is close at hand / Creatures crawl in search of blood / To terrorize y'all's neighbourhood / And whosoever shall be found / Without the soul for getting down / Must stand and face the hounds of hell / And rot inside a corpse's shell. / The foulest stench is in the air / The funk of 40,000 years / And grizzy ghouls from every tomb / Are closing in to seal your doom / And though you fight to stay alive / Your body starts to shiver / For no mere mortal can resist / The evil of the thriller."
