Sad tales from Old Hollywood

I had sex with Jeff Richards. NYC. 1970s. He was still so, so masculine and handsome, but very fucked up. I think there was a drug problem. Talked a lot about his baseball career. Had a sad apartment, I can't remember where, I think Hells Kitchen. Maybe the Camelot on 8th. I was very young and it was a long time ago.

Are you a guy R1?

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is such a sexy, masculine movie

R2 Yes, I'm a guy.

I had sex with r1.

Susan Peters's life story is one of the most tragic—possibly the most tragic—I can think of.

Well then, we know now that one of Jeff’s problems was he was a closeted gay

In a recent interview of Lucie Arnaz by Mo Rocca, Lucie mentions that Susan Peters was a dear friend of her mother.

In fact Lucy wanted to name her daughter Susan, in honor of her friend but Desi decided she should be named Lucie and so it was.

[quote]spent his later years living off disability in a trailer

His disability BTW was a back problem.

Carole Landis

Speaking of Lucy, her cousin, actress Suzan Ball, had to have a leg amputated and died at age 21

I didn't know Jeff Richards was family. Might be part of the reason why his career didn't work out

Suzan and her cat are both very pretty.

Susan Peters is one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen—a truly exquisite woman. She was a good actress, too. I loved her in “Keep Your Powder Dry” with Lana Turner and Laraine Day.

Susan Peters was great in Sign of the Ram

Jeff Richards' big Hollywood build up was in the MGM remake of The Women, called The Opposite Sex, in which he played the singing cowboy and Romeo of the Reno divorce ranches, Buck Winston. He was so handsome but he came to MGM just as the studio and its contract players were falling apart.

I wonder if Joan Collins, who played Crystal Allen in the film, ever spoke of him?

I get Susan Peters mixed up with Andrea Leeds (from Stage Door). Didn't she also have a tragic life?

IIRC Susan is featured prominently in the first row of that famous MGM anniversary photo with LB Mayer and all of MGM's stars.

Constance Smith: from starring at 20th Century Fox in the early 1950s, to Her Majesty's Prison in the 1960s, and ending up on and off the streets of London, an old "bag lady."

Andrea Leeds wiki.

Ah, interesting. I guess I was wrong about Andrea Leeds. I think in my old young mind I had confused her own life with the sad character she portrayed in Stage Door.

Thanks for linking the wiki, r18.

Great thread

Margaret Sullavan. Mental Breakdown, hearing loss, suicide.

Ross Alexander was a hot mess who committed suicide

Then there's Gene Tierney, who battled mental illness

William Holden's death makes me very sad.

He drunkenly slipped in the bathroom, hit his head on the sink, and bled to death, only to be discovered 4 days later.

What a sad end to a great guy.

Barbara Payton, died an alcoholic and former prostitute at age 40 in 1967.

Stunningly beautiful when young, her youth, fame, and beauty were quickly extinguished by irresponsible behavior and alcohol. A really sad tale. I read her autobiography, "I am not Ashamed." Fascinating yet depressing.

From Goodreads:

I Am Not Ashamed, Barbara Payton One of the great "lost" autobiographies of Hollywood Babylon history, I Am Not Ashamed is the memoir of Barbara Payton, the 1950s film noir star who acted alongside greats like Jimmy Cagney and Gregory Peck – only to be fired by the studios for her wild (and very public) love-life... and ultimately walk the streets of Hollywood as an alcoholic prostitute. But, as she says throughout, she is not ashamed of her life. She achieved rare success in the Hollywood system and went down in an archconservative era, when McCarthy threatened the country’s free speech and Hollywood producers ran terrified of even a whiff of scandal. When Payton's boyfriend, actor Tom Neal, pounded a concussion into his effete romantic rival Franchot Tone, the whole incident went public and made Payton the Hollywood bad girl - too bad, as it turned out, for Warner Brothers to handle. Describing her downfall, Payton also talks about her relationships with Cagney, Sinatra, Peck and other big names. Lost for decades after its original 1963 release, I Am Not Ashamed leapt back into the limelight when Jack Nicholson lent it to Jessica Lange to help her prepare for her part in The Postman Always Rings Twice. Now Holloway House Publications has finally released this classic Hollywood tell-all.

I love this thread. Nothing like diving down the Old Hollywood rabbit hole.

Interested to learn that one of Jeff Richards' short-lived marriages (now we know why they didn't last) was to Vicki Flaxman, a successful female surfer of her day who later married actor Van Williams. I don't remember him in The Opposite Sex, wasn't fond of that film, I much prefer the original version, The Women. June Allyson annoys me, as she did in The Opposite Sex. Too chirpy, I'd cheat on her too.

I'm happy to learn that Andrea Leeds does not have a sad tale to tell but the character she played in Stage Door sure did. She was fabulous in that role, bringing the melancholy and despair in spades.

We can't leave out Peg Entwistle, who leapt to her death from the Hollywood sign at 24.

A truly tragic tale. Out of luck and money in Hollywood, she died before learning a job offer was on its way. She was much prettier in life than she appears in that dramatic photo you usually see. She appeared in Thirteen Women (1931), her only Hollywood film, released after her death. It was a haunting tale starring Myrna Loy as an Indian woman who kills her classmates at a reunion.

Jan-Michael Vincent:

^^Actually, my apologies -- JMV was not "old" Hollywood.

interesting thread; more please (not that I'm a doom queen or anything)

I have to laugh at how Barbara Payton named her book I am not ashamed. Honey, when you get fat and become a toothless prostitute, you should be ashamed.

R24 William Holden lacerated his forehead by slipping on a rug and hit a bedside table. He was not in the bathroom.

Bobby Driscoll. From Disney star to back alley heroin addict, buried in Potter's Field at 31.

Walt Disney star Tommy Kirk.

"Tommy Kirk, whose career as a young leading man in Disney films like Old Yeller, The Shaggy Dog and Son of Flubber came to an end, he said, after the studio discovered he was gay, has died. He was 79."

Kirk lived alone in Las Vegas and was found dead Tuesday, actor Paul Petersen announced on Facebook. TMZ reported that he died at home, and no foul play is suspected.

R31, I posted this before, but oh well... after Barbara Stanwyck read "I Am Not Ashamed," the horrified star deadpanned, "She jolly well ought to be!"

Handsome and sexy Steve Cochran ended up a bloated and stinking corpse when he was discovered on a boat at sea off the coast of Guatemala.

Wow! Vicki Flaxman married Jeff Richards (briefly) and then stayed married to the even hotter hunk Van Williams for 57 years...

Bow down DL bitches!

There's also the sad tale of MGM costume designer Irene (no credited last name and not to be confused with the other costume designer/mega dyke Irene Sharaff) who left the studio to run her own fashion retail business and then committed suicide from jumping out of her office window in downtown LA after an unsuccessful affair with Gary Cooper.

Linda Darnell suffered serious burns in an apartment that caught on fire after she fell asleep and dropped her lit cigarette. She died from her injuries.

Wow, r39, that's what happened to me!

Lupe Velez. When I heard her story in Frasier's pilot episode I thought she and her story was made up. It looks like the story may be true, albeit unverified.

Lupe Velez had relationship troubles and wanted to end her life. That much is true. This is - unverified - how her demise unraveled: Vélez planned to stage an elaborate suicide scene atop her satin bed, but the Seconal did not mix well with the "Mexi-Spice Last Supper" she had eaten earlier that evening. As a result, she became violently ill, stumbled to the bathroom to vomit, slipped on the bathroom floor tile, and fell head first into the toilet, where she subsequently drowned.

Be it true or not. It's a sad life and legacy either way.

r39 = WRONG

James Anderson, who co-starred with Barbara Payton in The Great Jesse James Raid and with Jeff Richards in The Marauders, and is probably best known for portraying evil Bob Ewell in To Kill a Mockingbird was a hot mess, too. He was an alcoholic who used to end up in the drunk tank a lot and had to promise not to drink to get the role in Mockingbird. He died from barbiturate intoxication on the set of Little Big Man in Montana

It’s ok, r29. Some of these stories are so sad they defy any era.

[quote]He died from barbiturate intoxication on the set of Little Big Man in Montana

Well, at least he was not drinking.

R42 - ok it was a housefire, not an apartment.

Barbara Payton for the win. She was selling her body for money and wine and sometimes would pass out before even getting those. They would find her unconscious next to the dumpster. She was ripped from her navel down in a knife fight. She lived in squalor.

Barbara.

Barbara.

And yet, Helen Lawson still lives.

Dues paying member of Daughters Of Bilitis and

a Sister Of Sapho

Kate was hardly a sad tale.

There's also Barbara Payton's paramour, Tom Neal, who was a murderer!

Did any of them die in a grease fire?

R28, r29

It's ok

Jan-Michael was one of the most handsome men ever

He can be in any thread

James Anderson was the younger brother of Mary Anderson, who played DL fave Maybelle Merriwether in Gone With The Wind.

The best Barbara Payton book is Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye

[quote] I didn't know Jeff Richards was family. Might be part of the reason why his career didn't work out.

I don't get it. He was married twice and if he was gay, he sure didn't come across like it. How would that have hurt his career?

Gail Russell. Best known for “The Uninvited” and “Angel and the Badman” she was Guy Madison’s first wife. There are differing reports on who first suggested alcohol to help with Gail’s crippling stage fright but she was on her way to becoming a booze bag by age 20. This was followed by arrests for driving drunk, driving into someone’s car while drunk and driving into a restaurant (that was not a drive-in) while drunk. Perhaps she drank so much because she knew what Guy Madison was really doing on his “fishing trips” with Rory Calhoun, but her drinking ended that marriage. She died of acute and chronic alcoholism. She was only 36.

Poor Gail Russell, I really liked her in The Uninvited

Helen Wood: started at the stop at MGM (GIVE A GIRL A BREAK), and then sank lower and lower to the outermost fringes of showbiz, ending up "playing second banana" to Linda Lovelace (DEEP THROAT).

Gee, that sucks about Helen Wood. She was a really good dancer--obviously good enough to get that part in Give a Girl A Break, with all those other dancers (The Champions, Bob Fosse), directed by Stanley Donen. Couldn't act, really, but going on to do porn...

Didn't Aldo Ray wind up appearing in porn?

Diana Barrymore. Too much, too soon. The little nepo baby squandered all she was blessed with because of her predeliction for drugs and alcohol. Having blown through her inheritance, Diana didn't even have money for candles when her power was shut off. She died at 38 looking like she was 58.

I'd kill to see Aldo Ray in porn

R64 if that image appeared without any identifying information people would swear it was Drew.

That's who I saw r66

I saw Ethel.

MOAR

You mustn't start similar threads. There's limited room on the internet.

You wouldn't want to use it all up.

Dorothy Dandridge…

Preston Sturges. Very successful, then very unsuccessful--and alcoholic.

Diana newsclip.

If you were a child of John Barrymore I don't think you had much of a chance.

Jean Brooks.

Jean Brooks was really striking in The Leopard Man and The Seventh Victim. I didn't know about her alcoholism

The Seventh Victim...

I give you that hot mess, Frances Farmer.

You may not of heard of her, but you know, Marilyn Monroe.

Where's AJ Benza when ya need him?

r80, didn't she play Hotch's wife on Criminal Minds?

No, but she did play one of Charlie's Angels.

The link I posted at R80 sucks, Wiki has a lot more info and detail about Marilyn Monroe.

Poor Pa Kettle came to an abrupt end. And is rumored to be gay.

[quote]And is rumored to be gay.

With a name like Percy Kilbride...

On his Noir Alley intro a few weeks ago Eddie Muller talked about Percy Kilbride being hit by a car. Poor Pa Kettle!

[quote]Didn't Aldo Ray wind up appearing in porn?

Yes, but it was a non-sexual role.

R61 The Rialto Report did a 4-part profile of Helen Wood and it's absolutely heartbreaking.

The final installment has a voice message recording from her to her then-boyfriend, and it brought me to tears listening to it.

R63 Aldo Ray appeared in a porn movie in 1979, "Sweet Savage," starring Carol Connors (mother of Thora Birch), but he didn't have any sex scenes in it.

Gay actor David Bacon was murdered. The murder was never solved

R59 She was so beautiful when she was young. My mother was a big fan of hers when she was popular in the 1940s.

I saw the last film she did, "The Silent Call," on TCM a few months ago. Although she was only 36, she looked at least 50. She died shortly after making the movie.

Montgomery Clift

The Silent Call

She doesn't look 50 in that clip, come on.

She doesn't look well, but she looks about 40.

What about Hollywood's first Superman George Reeves?

Barbara Payton’s story is THE story. No one can top it. It’s completely insane and fascinating.

I can top it.

Thank you, R79. I wondered when Frances Farmer would be mentioned.

I'd add Rita Hayworth in her later career. Her erratic behavior was thought to be alcohol abuse, when in fact she was suffering from the onset of Alzheimer's.

Betty Hutton became a cook in a convent.

R100 It was a rectory. A priest counseled her and helped her get on her feet. (In Rhode Island.)

She brought it on herself, r97. There are much *sadder* stories.

I consider the black dahlia case old Hollywood adjacent. She had a sad life. I hope she at least had a lot of fun going out

Dorothy Stratten had a tragic ending at the hands of her estranged husband, Paul Snider

R95 I dunno. I think she looks pretty old there. Way older than her 30s.

On a side note, I once read that Lee Remick patterned her character in "Days of Wine and Roses" off of Gail Russell. Remick's character was a young and innocent girl who was introduced to alcohol, and as her life grew more complicated, used it to try and cope.

Russell was also a young and innocent girl who was terribly nervous in front of the camera and who was introduced to alcohol by a production person as a way to calm her nerves. As she became more famous, she developed a dependency on alcohol to try and cope with the world she was living in.

I've now become obsessed with learning more about Barbara Payton.

For those of you who have read her books, which one do you recommend I read first?

re Steve Cochran's death. Yikes, those poor people on that boat. 10 days on a boat with a stinking corpse before being rescued.

[quote] Cochran recruited two “young women” and a 14-year-old girl to accompany him on a sailing trip from Acapulco to Costa Rica, ostensibly to take part in an upcoming film. The yacht lost one of its two masts in a storm a few days into the trip. Cochran fell ill and died two days later, on June 15, 1965, at the age of 48, of what was later determined to be an acute lung infection. The women who were accompanying him did not know how to sail the boat and were trapped with the decomposing body for ten days before being rescued out at sea. The boat, still carrying his corpse, was later found drifting off the coast of Guatemala

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye:: The Barbara Payton Story

By: John O’Dowd

I bought the kindle version on Amazon. It’s fast read and so good

The sad fate of Danny Lockin, who played Barnaby Tucker in the movie version of "Hello, Dolly!" and also on Broadway.

Back in the 70s I met Jan Michael Vincent in a restaurant in Statesboro, Ga.. I was driving from Atlanta to Savannah and we stopped off in Statesboro for a bite to eat. After we were seated he was seated at the table right next to us. I recognized him immediately and we caught eyes and he smiled. I said "fancy seeing you here". He said "yeah, I'm in town doing some work". I said simply "well it's nice to see you - I've enjoyed your work" and he got a big smile on his face and replied "well thank you very much". I got the feeling he didn't get many compliments, and I felt a little sad that he was there eating alone. But he was so handsome and sexy it almost hurt to look at him. He was there shooting the movie "Buster & Billie".

[quote] Dorothy Stratten had a tragic ending at the hands of her estranged husband, Paul Snider

Snider was the sleazeyest sleazebag who ever sleazed.

Hello, bitches!

So, wait. The women on Steve Cochran's boat survived??

Yes.

R106 it depends I am not ashamed is a great short read but Kids Tomorrow Goodbye is a huge book. It has way more information though. The author was in contact with her son who has a sympathetic take on her life.

Maggie McNamara.

R111 Looks like had a fat one though.

R105 Okay we disagree, but I wouldn't have guessed her age as 50. She doesn't move like an older person. Her body doesn't look older, or pulled down by gravity. Mainly, her face looks puffy and like she's a heavy drinker.

R59 Poor Gail. I still love what she said to the police when they asked her how much she had to drink after she crashed her car into the restaurant:

"I had two drinks. No, four. Oh, I don't know how many."

Sounds like a typical DLer.

No Lorna?

Datalounge is dead.

I guess Lorna was around "Old Hollywood" if you count when she was a child.

Ramon Novarro was killed by a trick like Danny Lockin was

Wow R109, I can't believe the resemblance between Danny Lockin and Babs Streisand in your pick. Maybe it's the purple dress and hat.

R123 Click on the picture, dear.

Lockin was cast in the 1969 film version of Hello, Dolly! on the basis of his dancing. He underwent 13 screen tests before he got the part. He later said that doing the film was "the dream of my life". He felt a strong need to compete with the film's director, legendary dancer Gene Kelly. At one point during filming, he performed a series of four "butterflies" (a cartwheel in which a person does not put their hands on the ground) while Kelly looked on; Kelly suggested an improvement and, to demonstrate, leaped into six technically superior butterflies of his own. Lockin, chastened, reportedly sulked for three days

Kelly always wanted to be the main character.

As I see it, he was arrogantly challenging Kelly, who cast him, the director of the movie and one of the two most famous dancers in the world. Famously competitive. The kid got what he deserved.

Most (or all) of the supporting cast in Hello, Dolly! was forgettable.

[quote]Poor Gail. I still love what she said to the police when they asked her how much she had to drink after she crashed her car into the restaurant:

[quote]"I had two drinks. No, four. Oh, I don't know how many."

This made me laugh out loud. As if the intake calibration had any special use given the spectacular result. And as if she would have known!

Jeff Richards is terrible in IT'S A DOG'S LIFE, made even worse by the fact that he plays an unlikable character. And you can tell MGM meant it to help break him through. Why is he so much better in SEVEN BRIDES?

I hope he wrecked Richard Chamberlain's hole on the movie they did together, Secret of the Purple Reef, released by Fox. Richards is more wooden than ever in it, barking out his admittedly terrible dialogue, and his hair is dyed, he's lost some of his looks, but still doable. Peter Falk out-acts him.

Anybody have links to episodes of his tv series Jefferson Drum?

R22 He stalked Bette Davis!

Great thread

I don't think Jefferson Drum is available anywhere on streaming, or even DVD

The child actor from the show enjoyed working with Jeff, despite his "personal problems"

[quote]He stalked Bette Davis!

In the name of God, WHY?

Jean Harlow.

Apparently Bette gave Ross Alexander a blow job and then he wouldn't leave her alone. Claimed he was madly in love with her and made her life hell for a while.

His wife Aleta Friele, despondent over marriage and career problems, killed herself with a .22 rifle outside their Laurel Canyon home in December of 1935. Remarrying and moving to Encino, Ross committed suicide with a .22 target pistol shortly after the first anniversary of his wife's death. Both shot themselves in the temple.

According to a "Classic Images" article on Ross written by John R. Allen, Jr., Ross had an unhealthy obsession with Warner Bros. star Bette Davis that lasted for years. He wanted desperately to appear in a romantic picture with her to prove himself to her. This unreciprocated attention apparently annoyed Davis, who supposedly taunted Ross and complained to studio higher-ups.

Became a close friend to Henry Fonda in 1933 while both were performing together in summer stock. Fonda would serve as best man to Ross and Aleta when they married at Aleta's sister's home in East Orange, New Jersey, the following year.

Maybe Bette never did anything with him, I think I'm mixing the story up with another one.

Pretty sure he was gay/closeted or bi/closeted.

He was married a couple times but pings majorly on the screen

[quote]For those of you who have read her books, which one do you recommend I read first?

There are only two. Read both: her memoir, “I Am Not Ashamed,” and “Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye” by John O’Dowd.

Look up her Confidential magazine issues. She was selling stories about fucking Bob Hope and others. She jumped out the window when Frank Sumatra’s wife walked in.

[quote]She jumped out the window when Frank Sumatra’s wife walked in

I heard it was Frank Jakarta's wife.

Frank Jakarta sounds like a big dicked TOTAL top

Frank Sumatra was Larry King's favourite singer.

That middle child on Nanny and the Professor who died at the age of 21 in 1982.

Beverly Wills, daughter of Joan Davis.