Tragic Hollywood, Beautiful, Glamorous And Dead Read online

  When the reviews for Jailhouse Rock rolled in, they were polite to— when they were not raving for—Judy. The Los Angeles Herald Express wrote “Judy Tyler, as the pretty record promoter who helps the crude singer to success only to receive shameful treatment in return, gives a performance that makes her untimely death seem all the sadder.” Margaret Harford, in the Los Angeles Mirror, lamented “Youthful Miss Tyler’s death is a real loss, for she was a talented, fresh-looking beauty who probably would have done very well in the movies.” Judy Tyler is just a footnote now, but once she was vibrant, gorgeous woman with a bright future, who turned Elvis Presley’s head, both on and offscreen.

  Judy Tyler’s Ashes

  Heath Ledger

  "I wish I could quit you"

  Heath Ledger delivered this iconic line to Jake Gyllenhaal, in the critically acclaimed 2005 film about bisexual cowboys, Brokeback Mountain. Just three years later, as he stood on the precipice of super-stardom, he would be found in his New York apartment, in the middle of the afternoon, dead. What could have gone so terribly wrong for this young man who seemed to have it all: youth, looks, charisma and serious talent?

  Heath was a shy, sometimes withdrawn individual who turned to acting as a way of allowing his hidden personality to shine. He was born in Australia in 1979, and reportedly named after the character Heathcliff in the Emily Bronte novel, Wuthering Heights. He developed an early aptitude for playing chess, winning Australia’s junior chess championship at the age of ten. His first foray into acting was in a grammar school production of Peter Pan, that same year.

  When he was just sixteen, he struck out on his own, and moved to Sydney with his best friend, Trevor DiCarlo. After struggling in small roles, he was cast in the hit series, Roar, an adventure drama set in 400AD Ireland. The series was backed by the Fox network in the US. Fox executives quickly understood Heath’s potential, and urged him to move across the pond to Hollywood.

  His first major role was opposite Mel Gibson in the big-budget period piece, The Patriot. Next, a juicy role as the son of Billy Bob Thornton in critic’s darling, Monsters Ball. He went from supporting to lead actor in a series of moderately successful films, such as A Knights Tale, The Brothers Grimm and Casanova. In 2001, he was named one of People Magazine’s fifty most beautiful people. But Heath, by all accounts, was more embarrassed by his good looks than proud.

  From 2001 to 2005, Heath stayed out of the limelight, concentrating on films that were independent, rather than mainstream. It’s an odd choice, given that he appeared to be on the verge of serious commercial success. Perhaps he did not like the direction his career was taking, the type of press he was receiving, or the roles he was being offered by the studios. From the start, he was determined to be taken seriously as an actor, and not be known for only that last commercial success, or the pretty face.

  In 2005, one of these independent films would thrust Heath back into the spotlight, and boost his image from edgy supporting actor to full-fledged star. The film was Brokeback Mountain, and in it, Heath played against type, as the doomed bisexual cowboy, Ennis Del Mar, who falls in love with fellow cowboy Jack Twist, played by Jake Gyllenhaal. This was a daring role for Heath to tackle, as his image as a heterosexual romantic lead could be tarnished. Heath cared more about acting than he did his image, however, putting his all into the role. It showed. Critics and audiences alike were stunned at the realism and subtle nature of his performance. Rolling Stone magazine’s film critic, Peter Travers wrote: “Ledger’s magnificent performance is an acting miracle. He seems to tear it from his insides. Ledger doesn’t just know how Ennis moves, speaks, listens, he knows how he breathes. To see him inhale the scent of a shirt hanging in Jack’s closet is to take measure of the pain of love lost.” For this performance, Heath won the New York Critics Choice Award, as well as the San Francisco Film Critics Circle Award. He received a nomination for best actor from The Golden Globes, and The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, but was passed over for both. Heath didn’t care. He knew winning awards was not what it was about.

  He followed Brokeback Mountain with another amazing, non-mainstream performance as young Bob Dylan—in the quirky, semi-autobiographical independent film, I’m Not There. Heath did not rest on his laurels, declaring in a 2007 interview “The day I say it’s good is the day I should start doing something else.”

  A relationship blossomed between Heath and young Brokeback Mountain costar: Michelle Williams. Becoming parents in October of 2005, they set up a nest in Brooklyn, but Health still went home to Australia often. After several run-ins with the Australian paparazzi, whom he felt did not respect his privacy, Heath moved full-time into the Brooklyn nest with Michelle and baby.

  When Heath was cast in Christopher Nolan’s elaborate Batman film, The Dark Knight, he began suffering severe insomnia. His role as the maniacal Joker proved to be emotionally and physically draining, leaving him teetering on the edge of nervous collapse. He told reporters that he barely averaged two hours sleep a night while playing the “psychopathic, mass murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy.” Heath said, “I couldn’t stop thinking. My body was exhausted, but my mind was still going.” His relationship with Michelle suffered, and they broke up shortly after filming wrapped.

  Early peeks at Ledger’s Joker inspired serious prerelease buzz as the date for the film’s premiere drew closer. The word was that this was the film that was going to make Heath a major star, and an artist who could stand proud in the ranks of Brando and Penn, as one of the greatest actors of modern cinema. Sadly, this prophecy would only be fulfilled within the confines of this single performance, as six months before The Dark Knight was released, Heath Ledger was dead.

  On January 22, 2008, at approximately 2:45 PM, his housekeeper and his masseuse found Heath unconscious in his bed. Scattered on a nearby nightstand were several sleep medications, both prescription and over-the-counter. Oddly, instead of notifying authorities immediately, the masseuse, Diana Wolozin, used Heath’s cell phone to call Mary-Kate Olsen, a good friend of Heath’s, for advice. It was unclear what Olsen told her, but Wolozin ended up calling Olsen a second time, several minutes later, this time expressing her fears that Heath was dead. It is highly likely that she placed a third call to Olsen as well. Forty-five minutes passed between Heath being discovered, and the paramedics being finally called. Really? Though it probably wouldn’t have made a difference if they had called immediately, we will never know.

  Despite the swarming suicide rumors, the coroner’s report—released two weeks later—lists the cause of death as an accidental overdose of oxycodone, hydrocodone(Vicodin), diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine. Vicodin and oxycodone alone would have done it. Heath’s death was another sad example of the problem of prescription drug abuse that has plagued the celebrity community since the days of silent movies.

  People were shocked and saddened. When the world finally got a look at Heath’s final performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight—a role that likely contributed to the conditions that led to his death—his loss was all the more keenly felt. The snarling, grinning, evil monster who took pleasure in death and destruction will go down in history as one of the best villain performances ever filmed. Film critic Tim Teeman wrote, “With his face a peeling façade of clown paint and his mouth a blurred slash, the joker is the embodiment of anarchy and anti-order. Ledger is so terrifying and unpredictable that his very presence on screen makes you horribly nervous.” Peter Travers of Rolling Stone agreed: “I can only speak superlatives of Ledger, who is mad crazy blazing brilliant as the Joker.” Total Film wrote: “Dig out the thesaurus and run through the superlatives: chilling, gleeful, genius. It’s a masterpiece of a performance...This is the definitive joker.”

  The posthumous awards flowed in: two People’s Choice Awards, The Golden Globe Award, and finally, the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Audiences flocked to see the film, and Heath’s hypnotic performance, making The Dark Knight the fourteenth
highest grossing film of all time. It is still considered the best film in its genre ever made.

  Heath saw none of this, of course. His daughter will grow up without ever having known her father, and his potential as a brilliant actor will never fully be realized. His legacy is undeniable though, and rests with two performances that are not easily forgotten, even by the fickle standards of Hollywood. Goodnight, sweet prince. May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

  The Heath Ledger memorial in Melville, Australia.

  Suzan Ball

  * * *

  Everyone loved Lucy, but not many seem to remember her younger—and more striking—cousin, Suzan Ball. This may be because Suzan did not live to see her twenty-second birthday.

  She was born in Jamestown, New York—just like her famous cousin—in 1934. She began her career singing with Mel Baker’s Orchestra, after moving with her family to North Hollywood in 1947. Inspired by cousin Lucille, and by having Universal Studios just around the corner from her house, she decided to strike out on her own and try to break into the movie business. She moved into a flophouse for struggling actresses, known as The House Of The Seven Garbos, high up in the Hollywood Hills. There she met fellow actress, Mary Castle, who arranged a meeting for Suzan with the big wigs at Universal-International. They set her up with a standard contract, and began casting her straightaway as the exotic love interest in a number of films.

  Suzan had jet-black hair and olive complexion, so she was ideal for ethnically themed parts such as the Persian harem girl in Aladdin and His Lamp, and the Native American maiden in War Arrow. Captivated by her beauty, and her exotic (seeming) persona, the press dubbed her “Cinderella Girl of 1952”. Hedda Hopper picked her as one of the stars to watch in 1953. Suzan’s life was like something out of dream, and she had barely turned eighteen. In just three short years, however, her charmed ascent would slow, stop, reverse, and as the world looked on, burn up on reentry.

  The trouble started when she was cast in the big-budget adventure film, City Beneath The Sea. Suzan, naïve and barely nineteen, fell head over heels in love with her quite married and much older costar, Anthony Quinn. Quinn, not renowned for his high moral standards where women were concerned, happily engaged in a yearlong romance with Suzan. Onlookers watched her prance and primp for him, taking just about every opportunity to keep his gaze, no matter what was going on around them. Every one of the onlookers knew it could only end in heartbreak for the beautiful starlet.

  That same year, she suffered a series of injuries to her right leg that would eventually lead to a devastating diagnosis. While filming a dance number in East of Sumatra, she suffered the first injury, to her right knee. A few months later, she was involved in a car accident that re-injured that same knee. Later that year, she broke off her dead-end relationship with Quinn, but never truly got over him. She decided to retreat to her apartment with her many pets for solace, and while in the kitchen, she tripped on water that spilled from a dog dish. Her right leg was broken. Clearly, something was terribly wrong.

  Suzan was taken to the hospital, where she received the news that she had developed tumors in her leg: cancer. The doctors said they would have to amputate the limb to save her life. By this time, she had been dating Richard Long (who would also die of cancer two decades later), and they were engaged. Their marriage had to be postponed, however, due to the impending operation.

  The procedure appeared successful, and Suzan moved on with her life, marrying Long, and starting on her next film, Chief Crazy Horse (wow, typecast much?). By the end of the film, however, it was clear she was very ill. She had lost fifteen pounds, and looked exhausted. The cancer was not only back, it had progressed. There would be no more movies for Suzan. Undaunted, she immediately embarked on a grueling nightclub tour, and a series of television appearances, as if pretending her cancer wasn’t there would make it go away. It didn’t.

  She collapsed while rehearsing a scene for an appearance on the television drama Climax, and was rushed to the hospital. The news was bad. The disease had spread to her lungs. Suzan had just weeks to live. She and Long retired to the comfort of the rented mansion that Universal had graciously offered to allow her to spend her final days in. It was there that she passed away, on August 5, 1955, two weeks past her twenty-first birthday. Her last word, whispered hoarsely as her devoted husband strained to hear, was rumored to have been “Tony.”

  Vivien Leigh

  The fire raged higher and higher up the distressed building’s fragile walls, as producer David O. Selznick heard his brother, Myron, come up behind him. He was busy of filming one of the most iconic scenes in movie history—the burning of Atlanta—for one of the most anticipated films of all time: Gone with the Wind. He had spent nearly two years searching for his heroine: the incorrigible, dazzling, and unforgettable Scarlett O’Hara. He had tested almost every actress in Hollywood in full view of a diligent public, wasting countless hours and funds in delayed production costs. Still, the part remained maddeningly difficult to fill. “Hey genius!” Myron said as he walked up to the set with two other people. “Meet your Scarlett O’Hara!” Selznick turned, and found himself staring into two of the deepest blue eyes he’d ever seen, set in a face so lovely it took his breath away. “Hello Mr. Selznick. I’m Vivien Leigh.” Selznick recalled the encounter later, saying “I never recovered from that first look.” Finally, his Scarlett O’Hara stood before him in the flesh, somehow far more beautiful and imposing than he’d ever imagined.

  Vivien was born in 1913, in Bengal, India. Her father was an officer in the British-Indian Cavalry, and her mother was an aristocrat. This setting alone was such a rich and exotic beginning for an only child, but she was also spoiled and doted on by her parents. The path to being an actress began began with studying and performing at a convent boarding school in London, at the ripe old age of...five! There, she met and became fast friends with Maureen O’Hara, a fellow waif. Vivien spoke of her dreams of becoming a great actress someday often, and Maureen listened, adoring her passion and purpose.

  After a dream childhood filled with tours of all Europe, and elegant garden parties, the dawn of adolescence brought with it a renewed love for the theater, so she found roles in small stage productions. In 1931, she wed barrister Herbert Leigh Holman, giving birth to a daughter the following year. The wedding was a grand affair, attended by all of London society. The marriage, however, was a disaster almost from the start. They were a poor match, and this could not have been made any clearer than it was in Herbert’s disdain for the people involved in the stage and screen environments his new wife so adored. Herbie didn’t care for the “theater people”, as he called them, not seeming to notice that one of them was sharing his bed and his bath towels.

  Vivien had, of course, known of Laurence Olivier long before they actually met. He was one of the most popular and gifted actors on the British stage, and had just begun to make his mark in movies. They became friends, and when they were cast together in the British film, Fire Over England, the heat transformed the friendship into a passionate affair that would become known throughout the world as the romance of the century. Their relationship would ultimately prove destructive for Vivien, who began to develop the first signs of mental illness shortly after her involvement with Olivier.

  Vivien and Olivier kept working together in several stage productions. They were each striking in appearance, and audiences loved them together. It was during one of these performances that Vivien began to exhibit disturbing behavior. Out of the blue and without cause, she began screaming at Larry backstage one day. Just as suddenly, she fell silent...almost catatonic. She was able to pull herself together, and go on with the performance. The next day, she didn’t remember the incident at all; a dark portent of things to come.

  By the time she was cast as Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, she was already emotionally fragile. Vivien was living in a foreign country, working seven long days a week on a major Hollywood production, while Olivier was ba
nished to New York by the studio out of fear that their “illicit” relationship would be discovered by the prudish American press. Rumors flew of wild mood swings, temper tantrums, and the resulting expensive delays as scenes had to be reshot again and again. Leigh was burning mad at Selznick for firing George Cukor, and hiring Victor Fleming, whose vision of a tougher, angrier Scarlett matched his own. Ironically Vivien, being delicate of health and ladylike in temperament, was closer to Melanie Hamilton than Scarlett, whereas Olivia de Havilland, who played Melanie Hamilton, was a hardened Hollywood pro, and therefore closer in temperament to Scarlett than her own role.

  Vivien became despondent, hysterical, and had a wee nervous breakdown before that four-hour film was in the can. She was in nearly every scene, wore colored contacts that turned her lovely blue eyes “Scarlett O’Hara green”, tight corsets, heavy costumes...often in sweltering heat (curtain dress, anyone?). One day, Olivia walked past her on the set and didn’t recognize her: “She looked so diminished by overwork, her whole atmosphere had changed. She gave something to that film which I don’t think she ever got back.”

  Gone with the Wind was a phenomenon. The premiere in Atlanta nearly turned into a riot. Three hundred thousand people lined seven miles of streets to watch the limousines ferry the stars from the airport, and a million people came to town to see the film. It quickly became the highest grossing movie of all time, winning ten Academy Awards, including an Oscar for best actress for this young foreign-born beauty in her very first American movie.