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Tony Scott was a British-born film director and producer. He was the youngest of three brothers, one of whom is fellow film director Ridley Scott. He was born in North Shields, Northumberland, England to parents Jean and Colonel Francis Percy Scott. As a result of his father's career in the British military, his family moved around a lot. Their mother loved the going to the movies and instilled a love of cinema in her children. At age 16, Tony made his first appearance on screen as 'the boy' in his brother's directorial debut, the short film Boy and Bicycle (1965). In 1969, Tony directed his own short film One of the Missing (1969) about a soldier in the American civil war.
Tony had a talent for art and painting. He spent a year in Leeds College of Art and Design and went on to study for a fine arts degree at the School of Art at the University of Sunderland. He won a scholarship to study for his Masters of fine arts at the Royal College of Art. Following university, he spent several years as a painter. But life as a painter proved a struggle, so he decided to forge a different career path and partnered with Ridley in advertising at Ridley Scott Associates. It was there that he began shooting commercials. In 1971 he wrote, produced and directed Loving Memory however his vampire movie The Hunger (1983) starring Susan Sarandon, David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve wasn't a critical success but it attracted attention from Hollywood. He was asked by producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer to direct Top Gun (1986) starring Tom Cruise. He would work again with Cruise on another high adrenaline film Days of Thunder (1990), which proved less successful. He followed the success of Top Gun with the sequel Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) with Eddie Murphy, which was well received.
In 1993, he directed True Romance (1993), which was written by emerging director Quentin Tarantino. Scott had a lot of control over the film and received some great reviews.
Tony has worked five times with actor Denzel Washington with Crimson Tide (1995), The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009), Deja Vu (2006), Man on Fire (2004) and Scott's final film in the director's chair Unstoppable (2010).
Tony Scott passed away at age 68 on August 19, 2012 in California, USA.Sprung von einer Brücke in den Freitod- Actor
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Robin McLaurin Williams was born on Saturday, July 21st, 1951, in Chicago, Illinois, a great-great-grandson of Mississippi Governor and Senator, Anselm J. McLaurin. His mother, Laurie McLaurin (née Janin), was a former model from Mississippi, and his father, Robert Fitzgerald Williams, was a Ford Motor Company executive from Indiana. Williams had English, German, French, Welsh, Irish, and Scottish ancestry.
Robin briefly studied political science at Claremont Men's College and theater at College of Marin before enrolling at The Juilliard School to focus on theater. After leaving Juilliard, he performed in nightclubs where he was discovered for the role of "Mork, from Ork", in an episode of Happy Days (1974). The episode, My Favorite Orkan (1978), led to his famous spin-off weekly TV series, Mork & Mindy (1978). He made his feature starring debut playing the title role in Popeye (1980), directed by Robert Altman.
Williams' continuous comedies and wild comic talents involved a great deal of improvisation, following in the footsteps of his idol Jonathan Winters. Williams also proved to be an effective dramatic actor, receiving Academy Award nominations for Best Actor in a Leading Role in Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Dead Poets Society (1989), and The Fisher King (1991), before winning the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in Good Will Hunting (1997).
During the 1990s, Williams became a beloved hero to children the world over for his roles in a string of hit family-oriented films, including Hook (1991), FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992), Aladdin (1992), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Jumanji (1995), Flubber (1997), and Bicentennial Man (1999). He continued entertaining children and families into the 21st century with his work in Robots (2005), Happy Feet (2006), Night at the Museum (2006), Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009), Happy Feet Two (2011), and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (2014). Other more adult-oriented films for which Williams received acclaim include The World According to Garp (1982), Moscow on the Hudson (1984), Awakenings (1990), The Birdcage (1996), Insomnia (2002), One Hour Photo (2002), World's Greatest Dad (2009), and Boulevard (2014).
On Monday, August 11th, 2014, Robin Williams was found dead at his home in Tiburon, California USA, the victim of an apparent suicide, according to the Marin County Sheriff's Office. A 911 call was received at 11:55 a.m. PDT, firefighters and paramedics arrived at his home at 12:00 p.m. PDT, and he was pronounced dead at 12:02 p.m. PDT.Suizid durch Erhängen- Actor
- Composer
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Popular but troubled renegade French actor Patrick Dewaere was christened Jean-Marie Patrick Bourdeaux on January 26, 1947, at Saint-Brieuc in Britanny in the north-west region of France. The third of six children born to actress Mado Maurin (1915-2011), his mother made acting a family affair. All of his siblings -- Jean-Pierre Maurin (1941-1996), Yves-Marie Maurin (1944-2009), Dominique Maurin (1949- ), Jean-François Vlerick (also known as Jean-Francois Maurin) (1957- ) and Marie-Véronique Maurin (1960- ) -- all became thespians. Patrick made his film debut at the age of four under the name Patrick Maurin in Amazing Monsieur Fabre (1951).
While growing up, he was taunted by his schoolyard friends for his young film endeavors, he learned sensitivity and isolation at an early age. Other films during this adolescent period of time included his playing an unbilled child role in Gene Kelly's The Happy Road (1957).
As a young adult in the early 1960s Patrick appeared on French television, then joined the "Café de Gare" theatrical troupe in 1968 where he remained for nearly a decade. It was during these stage years that he changed his stage name to Dewaere, the maiden name of his great grandmother. He also met and became romantically involvement with fellow troupe member Miou-Miou. A child, Angele, was born to this liaison in 1974, but the couple broke up after only two years. Another daughter, Lola, was born in the early 1980s from a later marriage.
After numerous film bits, stardom was finally his with the leading rebel-like role of Pierrot in Bertrand Blier's anarchic comedy Going Places (1974) [Going Places], which also starred up-and-coming actor Gérard Depardieu and lady love Miou-Miou. He and Depardieu earned instant "anti-hero" stardom in this tale of two wanderlust petty thugs. Patrick's genius for dark, offbeat comedy was apparent in the number of black comedies that came his way. Catherine & Co. (1975) [Catherine & Co.] co-starred Patrick with Jane Birkin, a social commentary on the prostitution business. He followed this with the crime drama The French Detective (1975) [The French Detective] as Lino Ventura's inspector sidekick. Dewaere earned high marks for his off-balanced role in La meilleure façon de marcher (1976) [The Best Way], then paired up again with Depardieu in the Oscar-winning cross-over comedy Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (1978) [Get Out Your Handkerchiefs].
Infinitely more interested in searching out complex roles than fame, his work in films were more often than not experimental, low budget and quirky in style. He appeared innately drawn to playing sensitive, scruffy, miserable neurotics, misfits and losers, as exemplified by his characters in Hothead (1979) [Hothead], Serie Noire (1979), Heat of Desire (1981) [Heat of Desire], Hotel America (1981) [Hotel America] which co-starred Catherine Deneuve, and the critically-acclaimed Beau-père (1981).
This obsession may have triggered a deep and profound suffering in his own off-screen personal life. Unlike his counterpart Depardieu, Patrick's fame never branched out internationally, but he was recognized consistently throughout Europe for his superlative portrayals. Amazingly, he was nominated for seven César awards (the French equivalent of the "Oscar") but never won.
Patrick's career ended in tragic and still mysterious circumstances. Shortly before the release of the film Paradis pour tous (1982) [Paradise for All], a dark comedy in which his character commits suicide, the 35-year-old actor decided to end his own life by shooting himself with a rifle in his Paris home on July 16, 1982. At the time he was working on the Claude Lelouch's film Edith and Marcel (1983). A shocking, inexplicable end to friends, fans and family alike, Dewaere later became the subject of a full-length French documentary Patrick Dewaere (1992), which was shown at the Cannes Film Festival. The Patrick Dewaere Award was established in France in 1983.hat sich mit einem Gewehr erschossen- Actor
- Soundtrack
River Phoenix was born River Jude Bottom in Madras, Oregon. His mother, Arlyn (Dunetz), a Bronx-born secretary, and his father, John Bottom, a carpenter, met in California in 1968. They worked as itinerant fruit pickers, and later joined the Children of God religious group (John was originally Catholic, while Arlyn was born Jewish). By the time River was two, they were living in South America, where John was the sect's Archbishop of Venezuela. They later left the group and, in 1977, moved back to the United States, changing their last name to "Phoenix". They lived with River's maternal grandparents in Florida, and later moved to Los Angeles. His parents encouraged all of their children to get into movies and, by age ten, River was acting professionally on TV. His film debut was in Explorers (1985), followed rapidly by box-office successes with Stand by Me (1986) and The Mosquito Coast (1986), and as young Indiana in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). His role as Danny Pope in Running on Empty (1988) earned him an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor. His best role was probably Mike, the hustler in My Own Private Idaho (1991).
A dedicated animal-rights activist and environmentalist, River was a strict vegetarian and a member of PeTA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). River was a talented musician as well as an actor, and he played guitar, sang, and wrote songs for his band, Aleka's Attic, which also included his sister Rain Phoenix, while living in Gainsville, Florida. Although the band never released its own album, their song "Across the Way" can be found on PeTA's "Tame Yourself" album, used to fight animal abuse. River was in the middle of filming Dark Blood (2012), playing the character Boy when he died. The film couldn't be finished due to too many unfilmed crucial scenes. His mother was later sued.
River died of acute multiple drug intoxication involving lethal levels of cocaine and morphine at age 23 outside the Viper Room, Johnny Depp's Los Angeles club.Überdosis Drogen, kein Suizid- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Director
Born in Danbury, Connecticut, USA, to Greg and Mary, Jonathan Brandis began his career at age 5, acting in several television commercials. He also appeared in small parts in several films and TV shows before his first starring role in the 1990 film The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter (1990). He starred in popular films such as Ladybugs (1992) and starred as Lucas Wolenczak in Steven Spielberg's television series SeaQuest 2032 (1993). He doubled up his high school courses so he could finish a year early for his role on SeaQuest. After his career stalled for a bit, he was hoping his role in serious drama film Hart's War (2002) would relaunch it. However, most of his scenes ended up being cut from the finished film. This caused him to fall into a deep depression in which he would drink heavily and tragically end his own life on November 12th, 2003.Selbstmord- Actor
- Stunts
- Additional Crew
Christopher Crosby Farley was born on February 15, 1964, in Madison, Wisconsin, to Mary Anne (Crosby) and Thomas Farley, who owned an oil company. Among his siblings are actors Kevin P. Farley and John Farley. He was of Irish heritage. Farley studied theatre and communications on Marquette University. After finishing university he was in the cast of the Second City Theatre, where he was discovered by the producer of the great comedy show Saturday Night Live (1975), Lorne Michaels. Farley worked on Saturday Night Live (1975) for five years during which he appeared in movies like Wayne's World (1992), Coneheads (1993), Billy Madison (1995) and finally Tommy Boy (1995), with his comic partner and SNL cast member David Spade. The duo later made one more movie called Black Sheep (1996). From that time on, Farley was one of the big comedy stars, and his fame was growing and growing.
After some more time, he made another "lone" movie, Beverly Hills Ninja (1997), which featured former SNL member Chris Rock. Farley was made even more famous, but with his growing fame, his problems grew bigger as well; he didn't want to be the "fat guy who falls down" any longer. Farley had several other problems, too, with alcohol and drug dependency. On December 18th, 1997, he died from a heroin (opiate) and cocaine overdose in his apartment in Chicago, where his body was found by his brother John the next day. Farley's weight of 296 pounds was a contributing factor in his death, but according to his autopsy the alcohol, marijuana and Prozac that was also found in his body, were not. Less than two months prior to his death, he had appeared alongside Chevy Chase on what would be Farley's only SNL show as host. Not unlike his idol John Belushi, he was credited for one more appearance after having left SNL and died at age 33. His death cause was also the same. In the year after Farley's departing, the movie Almost Heroes (1998), where he plays the leading role alongside Matthew Perry was released. He also makes cameo appearances in Dirty Work (1998)Überdosis Kokain, kein Suizid- Actor
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George Sanders was born of English parents in St. Petersburg, Russia. He worked in a Birmingham textile mill, in the tobacco business and as a writer in advertising. He entered show business in London as a chorus boy, going from there to cabaret, radio and theatrical understudy. His film debut, in 1936, was as Curly Randall in Find the Lady (1936). His U.S. debut, the same year, with Twentieth Century-Fox, was as Lord Everett Stacy in Lloyd's of London (1936). During the late 1930s and early 1940s he made a number of movies as Simon Templar--the Saint--and as Gay Lawrence, the Falcon. He played Nazis (Maj. Quive-Smith in Fritz Lang's Man Hunt (1941)), royalty (Charles II in Otto Preminger's Forever Amber (1947)), and biblical roles (Saran of Gaza in Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949)). He won the 1950 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor as theatre critic Addison De Witt in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's All About Eve (1950). In 1957 he hosted a TV series, The George Sanders Mystery Theater (1957). He continued to play mostly villains and charming heels until his suicide in 1972.Überdosis Schlaftabletten, Suizid- Lee Thompson Young was born as the son of Velma Love and Tommy Scott Young. When he was in second grade his parents split up and he went to live with his mother. At age ten, he portrayed Dr. Martin Luther King in a play called "A Night of Stars and Dreams". That's when Lee decided he wanted to be an actor. After doing community theater for a while, he traveled to New York during the spring break of 1996 and got himself an agent. He moved to NY in June but it wasn't until next year that he got to audition for the part of Jett Jackson. Lee filmed the pilot. He found out in June 1998 from Disney that the show had been picked up.Selbstmord mit Schusswaffe
- Actress
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- Music Department
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, comedienne, singer, and model. Monroe is of English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh descent. She became one of the world's most enduring iconic figures and is remembered both for her winsome embodiment of the Hollywood sex symbol and her tragic personal and professional struggles within the film industry. Her life and death are still the subjects of much controversy and speculation.
She was born Norma Jeane Mortenson at the Los Angeles County Hospital on June 1, 1926. Her mother, Gladys Pearl (Monroe), was born in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, to American parents from Indiana and Missouri, and was a film-cutter at Consolidated Film Industries. Marilyn's biological father has been established through DNA testing as Charles Stanley Gifford, who had been born in Newport, Rhode Island, to a family with deep roots in the state. Because Gladys was mentally and financially unable to care for young Marilyn, Gladys placed her in the care of a foster family, The Bolenders. Although the Bolender family wanted to adopt Marilyn, Gladys was eventually able to stabilize her lifestyle and took Marilyn back in her care when Marilyn was 7 years old. However, shortly after regaining custody of Marilyn, Gladys had a complete mental breakdown and was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and was committed to a state mental hospital. Gladys spent the rest of her life going in and out of hospitals and rarely had contact with young Marilyn. Once Marilyn became an adult and celebrated as a film star, she paid a woman by the name of Inez Melson to look in on the institutionalized Gladys and give detailed reports of her progress. Gladys outlived her daughter, dying in 1984.
Marilyn was then taken in by Gladys' best friend Grace Goddard, who, after a series of foster homes, placed Marilyn into the Los Angeles Orphan's Home in 1935. Marilyn was traumatized by her experience there despite the Orphan's Home being an adequate living facility. Grace Goddard eventually took Marilyn back to live with her in 1937 although this stay did not last long as Grace's husband began molesting Marilyn. Marilyn went to live with Grace's Aunt Ana after this incident, although due to Aunt Ana's advanced age she could not care properly for Marilyn. Marilyn once again for the third time had to return to live with the Goddards. The Goddards planned to relocated and according to law, could not take Marilyn with them. She only had two choices: return to the orphanage or get married. Marilyn was only 16 years old.
She decided to marry a neighborhood friend named James Dougherty; he went into the military, she modeled, they divorced in 1946. She owned 400 books (including Tolstoy, Whitman, Milton), listened to Beethoven records, studied acting at the Actors' lab in Hollywood, and took literature courses at UCLA downtown. 20th Century Fox gave her a contract but let it lapse a year later. In 1948, Columbia gave her a six-month contract, turned her over to coach Natasha Lytess and featured her in the B movie Ladies of the Chorus (1948) in which she sang three numbers : "Every Baby Needs a Da Da Daddy", "Anyone Can Tell I Love You" and "The Ladies of the Chorus" with Adele Jergens (dubbed by Virginia Rees) and others. Joseph L. Mankiewicz saw her in a small part in The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and put her in All About Eve (1950) , resulting in 20th Century re-signing her to a seven-year contract. Niagara (1953) and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) launched her as a sex symbol superstar.
When she went to a supper honoring her in the The Seven Year Itch (1955) , she arrived in a red chiffon gown borrowed from the studio (she had never owned a gown). That same year, she married and divorced baseball great Joe DiMaggio (their wedding night was spent in Paso Robles, California). After The Seven Year Itch (1955) , she wanted serious acting to replace the sexpot image and went to New York's Actors Studio. She worked with director Lee Strasberg and also underwent psychoanalysis to learn more about herself. Critics praised her transformation in Bus Stop (1956) and the press was stunned by her marriage to playwright Arthur Miller . True to form, she had no veil to match her beige wedding dress so she dyed one in coffee; he wore one of the two suits he owned. They went to England that fall where she made The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) with Laurence Olivier , fighting with him and falling further prey to alcohol and pills. Two miscarriages and gynecological surgery followed. So had an affair with Yves Montand . Work on her last picture The Misfits (1961) , written for her by departing husband Miller, was interrupted by exhaustion. She was dropped from the unfinished Something's Got to Give (1962) due to chronic lateness and drug dependency.
On August 4, 1962, Marilyn Monroe's day began with threatening phone calls. Dr. Ralph Greenson, Marilyn's physician, came over the following day and quoted later in a document "Felt it was possible that Marilyn had felt rejected by some of the people she had been close to." Apart from being upset that her publicist slept too long, she seemed fine. Pat Newcombe, who had stayed the previous night at Marilyn's house, left in the early evening as did Greenson who had a dinner date. Marilyn was upset he couldn't stay, and around 7:30pm she telephoned him to say that her second husband's son had called her. Peter Lawford also called Marilyn, inviting her to dinner, but she declined. Lawford later said her speech was slurred. As the evening went on there were other phone calls, including one from Jose Belanos, who said he thought she sounded fine. According to the funeral directors, Marilyn died sometime between 9:30pm and 11:30pm. Her maid unable to raise her but seeing a light under her locked door, called the police shortly after midnight. She also phoned Ralph Greenson who, on arrival, could not break down the bedroom door. He eventually broke in through French windows and found Marilyn dead in bed. The coroner stated she had died from acute barbiturate poisoning, and it was a 'probable suicide' though many conspiracies would follow in the years after her death.Überdosis Barbiturate, genaue Umstände unklar- Actress
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One of the brightest, most tragic movie stars of Hollywood's Golden Era, Judy Garland was a much-loved character whose warmth and spirit, along with her rich and exuberant voice, kept theatre-goers entertained with an array of delightful musicals.
She was born Frances Ethel Gumm on 10 June 1922 in Minnesota, the youngest daughter of vaudevillians Ethel Marian (Milne) and Francis Avent "Frank" Gumm. She was of English, along with some Scottish and Irish, descent. Her mother, an ambitious woman gifted in playing various musical instruments, saw the potential in her daughter at the tender age of just 2 years old when Baby Frances repeatedly sang "Jingle Bells" until she was dragged from the stage kicking and screaming during one of their Christmas shows and immediately drafted her into a dance act, entitled "The Gumm Sisters," along with her older sisters Mary Jane Gumm and Virginia Gumm. However, knowing that her youngest daughter would eventually become the biggest star, Ethel soon took Frances out of the act and together they traveled across America where she would perform in nightclubs, cabarets, hotels and theaters solo.
Her family life was not a happy one, largely because of her mother's drive for her to succeed as a performer and also her father's closeted homosexuality. The Gumm family would regularly be forced to leave town owing to her father's illicit affairs with other men, and from time to time they would be reduced to living out of their automobile. However, in September 1935 the Gumms', in particular Ethel's, prayers were answered when Frances was signed by Louis B. Mayer, mogul of leading film studio MGM, after hearing her sing. It was then that her name was changed from Frances Gumm to Judy Garland, after a popular '30s song "Judy" and film critic Robert Garland.
Tragedy soon followed, however, in the form of her father's death of meningitis in November 1935. Having been given no assignments with the exception of singing on radio, Judy faced the threat of losing her job following the arrival of Deanna Durbin. Knowing that they couldn't keep both of the teenage singers, MGM devised a short entitled Every Sunday (1936) which would be the girls' screen test. However, despite being the outright winner and being kept on by MGM, Judy's career did not officially kick off until she sang one of her most famous songs, "You Made Me Love You," at Clark Gable's birthday party in February 1937, during which Louis B. Mayer finally paid attention to the talented songstress.
Prior to this her film debut in Pigskin Parade (1936), in which she played a teenage hillbilly, had left her career hanging in the balance. However, following her rendition of "You Made Me Love You," MGM set to work preparing various musicals with which to keep Judy busy. All this had its toll on the young teenager, and she was given numerous pills by the studio doctors in order to combat her tiredness on set. Another problem was her weight fluctuation, but she was soon given amphetamines in order to give her the desired streamlined figure. This soon produced the downward spiral that resulted in her lifelong drug addiction.
In 1939, Judy shot immediately to stardom with The Wizard of Oz (1939), in which she portrayed Dorothy, an orphaned girl living on a farm in the dry plains of Kansas who gets whisked off into the magical world of Oz on the other end of the rainbow. Her poignant performance and sweet delivery of her signature song, 'Over The Rainbow,' earned Judy a special juvenile Oscar statuette on 29 February 1940 for Best Performance by a Juvenile Actor. Now growing up, Judy began to yearn for meatier adult roles instead of the virginal characters she had been playing since she was 14. She was now taking an interest in men, and after starring in her final juvenile performance in Ziegfeld Girl (1941) alongside glamorous beauties Lana Turner and Hedy Lamarr, Judy got engaged to bandleader David Rose in May 1941, just two months after his divorce from Martha Raye. Despite planning a big wedding, the couple eloped to Las Vegas and married during the early hours of the morning on July 28, 1941 with just her mother Ethel and her stepfather Will Gilmore present. However, their marriage went downhill as, after discovering that she was pregnant in November 1942, David and MGM persuaded her to abort the baby in order to keep her good-girl image up. She did so and, as a result, was haunted for the rest of her life by her 'inhumane actions.' The couple separated in January 1943.
By this time, Judy had starred in her first adult role as a vaudevillian during WWI in For Me and My Gal (1942). Within weeks of separation, Judy was soon having an affair with actor Tyrone Power, who was married to French actress Annabella. Their affair ended in May 1943, which was when her affair with producer Joseph L. Mankiewicz kicked off. He introduced her to psychoanalysis and she soon began to make decisions about her career on her own instead of being influenced by her domineering mother and MGM. Their affair ended in November 1943, and soon afterward Judy reluctantly began filming Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), which proved to be a big success. The director Vincente Minnelli highlighted Judy's beauty for the first time on screen, having made the period musical in color, her first color film since The Wizard of Oz (1939). He showed off her large brandy-brown eyes and her full, thick lips and after filming ended in April 1944, a love affair resulted between director and actress and they were soon living together.
Vincente began to mold Judy and her career, making her more beautiful and more popular with audiences worldwide. He directed her in The Clock (1945), and it was during the filming of this movie that the couple announced their engagement on set on January 9, 1945. Judy's divorce from David Rose had been finalized on June 8, 1944 after almost three years of marriage, and despite her brief fling with Orson Welles, who at the time was married to screen sex goddess Rita Hayworth, on June 15, 1945 Judy made Vincente her second husband, tying the knot with him that afternoon at her mother's home with her boss Louis B. Mayer giving her away and her best friend Betty Asher serving as bridesmaid. They spent three months on honeymoon in New York and afterwards Judy discovered that she was pregnant.
On March 12, 1946 in Los Angeles, California, Judy gave birth to their daughter, Liza Minnelli, via cesarean section. It was a joyous time for the couple, but Judy was out of commission for weeks due to the cesarean and her postnatal depression, so she spent much of her time recuperating in bed. She soon returned to work, but married life was never the same for Vincente and Judy after they filmed The Pirate (1948) together in 1947. Judy's mental health was fast deteriorating and she began hallucinating things and making false accusations toward people, especially her husband, making the filming a nightmare. She also began an affair with aspiring Russian actor Yul Brynner, but after the affair ended, Judy soon regained health and tried to salvage her failing marriage. She then teamed up with dancing legend Fred Astaire for the delightful musical Easter Parade (1948), which resulted in a successful comeback despite having Vincente fired from directing the musical. Afterwards, Judy's health deteriorated and she began the first of several suicide attempts. In May 1949, she was checked into a rehabilitation center, which caused her much distress.
She soon regained strength and was visited frequently by her lover Frank Sinatra, but never saw much of Vincente or Liza. On returning, Judy made In the Good Old Summertime (1949), which was also Liza's film debut, albeit via an uncredited cameo. She had already been suspended by MGM for her lack of cooperation on the set of The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), which also resulted in her getting replaced by Ginger Rogers. After being replaced by Betty Hutton on Annie Get Your Gun (1950), Judy was suspended yet again before making her final film for MGM, entitled Summer Stock (1950). At 28, Judy received her third suspension and was fired by MGM, and her second marriage was soon dissolved.
Having taken up with Sidney Luft, Judy traveled to London to star at the legendary Palladium. She was an instant success and after her divorce from Vincente Minnelli was finalized on March 29, 1951 after almost six years of marriage, Judy traveled with Sid to New York to make an appearance on Broadway. With her newfound fame on stage, Judy was stopped in her tracks in February 1952 when she became pregnant by her new lover, Sid. At the age of 30, she made him her third husband on June 8, 1952; the wedding was held at a friend's ranch in Pasadena. Her relationship with her mother had long since been dissolved by this point, and after the birth of her second daughter, Lorna Luft, on November 21, 1952, she refused to allow her mother to see her granddaughter. Ethel then died in January 1953 of a heart attack, leaving Judy devastated and feeling guilty about not reconciling with her mother before her untimely demise.
After the funeral, Judy signed a film contract with Warner Bros. to star in the musical remake of A Star Is Born (1937), which had starred Janet Gaynor, who had won the first-ever Academy Award for Best Actress in 1929. Filming soon began, resulting in an affair between Judy and her leading man, British star James Mason. She also picked up on her affair with Frank Sinatra, and after filming was complete Judy was yet again lauded as a great film star. She won a Golden Globe for her brilliant and truly outstanding performance as Esther Blodgett, nightclub singer turned movie star, but when it came to the Academy Awards, a distraught Judy lost out on the Best Actress Oscar to Grace Kelly for her portrayal of the wife of an alcoholic star in The Country Girl (1954). Many still argue that Judy should have won the Oscar over Grace Kelly. Continuing her work on stage, Judy gave birth to her beloved son, Joey Luft, on March 29, 1955. She soon began to lose her millions of dollars as a result of her husband's strong gambling addiction, and with hundreds of debts to pay, Judy and Sid began a volatile, on-off relationship resulting in numerous divorce filings.
In 1961, at the age of 39, Judy returned to her ailing film career, this time to star in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), for which she received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress, but this time she lost out to Rita Moreno for her performance in West Side Story (1961). Her battles with alcoholism and drugs led to Judy's making numerous headlines in newspapers, but she soldiered on, forming a close friendship with President John F. Kennedy. In 1963, Judy and Sid finally separated permanently, and on May 19, 1965 their divorce was finalized after almost 13 years of marriage. By this time, Judy, now 41, had made her final performance on film alongside Dirk Bogarde in I Could Go on Singing (1963). She married her fourth husband, Mark Herron, on November 14, 1965 in Las Vegas, but they separated in April 1966 after five months of marriage owing to his homosexuality. It was also that year that she began an affair with young journalist Tom Green. She then settled down in London after their affair ended, and she began dating disk jockey Mickey Deans in December 1968. They became engaged once her divorce from Mark Herron was finalized on January 9, 1969 after three years of marriage. She married Mickey, her fifth and final husband, in a register office in Chelsea, London, England on March 15, 1969.
She continued working on stage, appearing several times with her daughter Liza. It was during a concert in Chelsea, London, England that Judy stumbled into her bathroom late one night and died of an overdose of barbiturates, the drug that had dominated her much of her life, on June 22, 1969 at the age of 47. Her daughter Liza Minnelli paid for her funeral, and her former lover James Mason delivered her touching eulogy. She is still an icon to this day with her famous performances in The Wizard of Oz (1939), Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Easter Parade (1948), and A Star Is Born (1954).versehentlich Zuviel Schlafmittel genommen- Actor
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The athletically gifted 6' 7" Charles Aaron "Bubba" Smith played defensive end / defensive tackle for the National Football League's Baltimore Colts (1967-1971), Oakland Raiders (1973-1974), and Houston Oilers (1975-1976). After the conclusion of his football career, Smith moved into a TV & film career, with initial guest appearances on prime time TV shows including Wonder Woman (1975), Charlie's Angels (1976) and Eight Is Enough (1977).
Smith is best known to international film audiences as the softly spoken police officer "Moses Hightower" from the Police Academy (1984) series of comedies, in which he has appeared in all but one of the numerous sequels.Überdosis Diätpillen- Music Artist
- Actor
- Composer
Michael Joseph Jackson was born on August 29, 1958 in Gary, Indiana, and entertained audiences nearly his entire life. His father, Joe Jackson (no relation to Joe Jackson, also a musician), had been a guitarist, but was forced to give up his musical ambitions following his marriage to Michael's mother Katherine Jackson (née Katherine Esther Scruse). Together, they prodded their growing family's musical interests at home. By the early 1960s, the older boys Jackie, Tito and Jermaine had begun performing around the city; by 1964, Michael and Marlon had joined in.
A musical prodigy, Michael's singing and dancing talents were amazingly mature, and he soon became the dominant voice and focus of the Jackson 5. An opening act for such soul groups as the O-Jays and James Brown, it was Gladys Knight (not Diana Ross) who officially brought the group to Berry Gordy's attention, and by 1969, the boys were producing back-to-back chart-busting hits as Motown artists ("I Want You Back," "ABC," "Never Can Say Goodbye," "Got to Be There," etc.). As a product of the 1970s, the boys emerged as one of the most accomplished black pop / soul vocal groups in music history, successfully evolving from a group like The Temptations to a disco phenomenon.
Solo success for Michael was inevitable, and by the 1980s, he had become infinitely more popular than his brotherly group. Record sales consistently orbited, culminating in the biggest-selling album of all time, "Thriller" in 1982. A TV natural, he ventured rather uneasily into films, such as playing the Scarecrow in The Wiz (1978), but had much better luck with elaborate music videos.
In the 1990s, the downside as an 1980s pop phenomenon began to rear itself. Michael grew terribly child-like and introverted by his peerless celebrity. A rather timorous, androgynous figure to begin with, his physical appearance began to change drastically, and his behavior grew alarmingly bizarre, making him a consistent target for scandal-making, despite his numerous charitable acts. Two brief marriages -- one to Elvis Presley's daughter Lisa Marie Presley -- were forged and two children produced by his second wife during that time, but the purposes behind them appeared image-oriented.
Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. His passion and artistry as a singer, dancer, writer and businessman were unparalleled, and it is these prodigious talents that will ultimately prevail over the extremely negative aspects of his troubled adult life.Überdosis Narkotika- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Producer
Anna Nicole Smith was born on 28 November 1967 in Houston, Texas, USA. She was an actress and producer, known for Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994), Be Cool (2005) and Illegal Aliens (2007). She was married to J. Howard Marshall II and Billy Smith. She died on 8 February 2007 in Hollywood, Florida, USA.Überdosis Medikamente- Maria Kwiatkowsky was born on 23 April 1985 in Berlin, Germany. She was an actress, known for En garde (2004), The Invention of Love (2013) and Liebe Amelie (2005). She died on 4 July 2011 in Berlin, Germany.Überdosis Kokain
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Anna Maria Pierangeli was born June 19, 1932, in Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy. Anna and her twin sister, Marisa Pavan, both had their eyes on becoming film stars, since that was one of the big Italian pastimes. Anna adopted her surname and split it in half, and it was as Pier Angeli that she would find fame. Her first role was an uncredited part in 1948's The Million Dollar Nickel (1952), an Italian production. Pier was 16 at the time and it was to be the first of many roles for this beautiful woman. The film was largely forgettable but it was a start. The following year she played in another Italian production, Tomorrow Is Too Late (1950). Again it was a very small role, and she was not seen on the screen again until 1951. Between 1949 and 1951 she appeared in stage productions and found work in menial jobs. When she did return it was in the film The Light Touch (1951) as Anna Vasarri. Later that year she won the title role in Teresa (1951). However, she again hit a drought with only one film in 1952 and two in 1953. The next year things began to pick up, however, with Hollywood beckoning. After the Italian Miss Nitouche (1954) she caught the eyes of Hollywood moguls, who cast her in Flame and the Flesh (1954) and The Silver Chalice (1954). Now she divided her time between Italy and the US making movies. She married Vic Damone in 1954, a union that lasted only four years and produced one son.
No film offers came in 1955, but in 1956 Pier landed the role of Norma Graziano (wife of fighter Rocky Graziano) in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956) opposite Paul Newman. The film was well received at the box office and she had hopes that things were going to pick up again. She played Ynez in Port Afrique (1956) later that year and then another drought ensued. After The Vintage (1957), Merry Andrew (1958) and SOS Pacific (1959), she made three more films in 1960. Then once again 1961 saw no appearances. In 1962 Pier played Ildith in Sodom and Gomorrah (1962) and later that year played in a French production entitled White Slave Ship (1961). After the Italian production of Shadow of Evil (1964) she returned in the hit European-American co-production Battle of the Bulge (1965).
After a handful of films between 1966 and 1970, Pier realized her dreams of super-stardom were not to be. She had divorced her second husband (Armando Trovajoli) in 1969 and made her final appearance on the screen in 1971 in the low-budget sci-fi opus Octaman (1971). On September 10th of that year Pier was found dead of a barbiturate overdose in her Beverly Hills home. She was only 39 years old.versehentliche Überdosis Medikamente- Actor
- Director
- Cinematographer
When hunky, twenty-year-old heart-throb Heath Ledger first came to the attention of the public in 1999, it was all too easy to tag him as a "pretty boy" and an actor of little depth. He spent several years trying desperately to sway this image, but this was a double-edged sword. His work comprised nineteen films, including 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), The Patriot (2000), A Knight's Tale (2001), Monster's Ball (2001), Ned Kelly (2003), The Brothers Grimm (2005), Lords of Dogtown (2005), Brokeback Mountain (2005), Casanova (2005), Candy (2006), I'm Not There (2007), The Dark Knight (2008) and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009). He also produced and directed music videos and aspired to be a film director.
Heath Ledger was born on the fourth of April 1979, in Perth, Western Australia, to Sally (Ramshaw), a teacher of French, and Kim Ledger, a mining engineer who also raced cars. His ancestry was Scottish, English, Irish, and Sephardi Jewish. As the story goes, in junior high school it was compulsory to take one of two electives, either cooking or drama. As Heath could not see himself in a cooking class he tried his hand at drama. Heath was talented, however the rest of the class did not acknowledge his talent. When he was seventeen he and a friend decided to pack up, leave school, take a car and rough it to Sydney. Heath believed Sydney to be the place where dreams were made or, at least, where actors could possibly get their big break. Upon arriving in Sydney with a purported sixty-nine cents to his name, Heath tried everything to get a break.
His first real acting job came in a low-budget movie called Blackrock (1997), a largely unimpressive cliché; an adolescent angst film about one boy's struggle when he learns his best mate raped a girl. He only had a very small role in the film. After that small role Heath auditioned for a role in a T.V. show called Sweat (1996) about a group of young Olympic hopefuls. He was offered one of two roles, one as a swimmer, another as a gay cyclist. Heath accepted the latter because he felt to really stand out as an actor one had to accept unique roles that stood out from the bunch. It got him small notice, but unfortunately the show was quickly axed, forcing him to look for other roles. He was in Home and Away (1988) for a very short period, in which he played a surfer who falls in love with one of the girls of Summer Bay. Then came his very brief role in Paws (1997), a film which existed solely to cash in on guitar prodigy Nathan Cavaleri's brief moment of fame, where he was the hottest thing in Australia. Heath played a student in the film, involved in a stage production of a Shakespeare play, in which he played "Oberon". A very brief role, this offered him a small paycheck but did nothing to advance his career. Then came Two Hands (1999). He went to the U.S. trying to audition for film roles, showcasing his brief role in Roar (1997) opposite then unknown Vera Farmiga.
Then Australian director Gregor Jordan auditioned him for the lead in Two Hands (1999), which he got. An in your face Aussie crime thriller, Two Hands (1999) was outstanding and helped him secure a role in 10 Things I Hate About You (1999). After that, it seemed Heath was being typecast as a young hunk, which he did not like, so he accepted a role in a very serious war drama The Patriot (2000).
What followed was a stark inconsistency of roles, Ledger accepting virtually every single character role, anything to avoid being typecast. Some met with praise, like his short role in Monster's Ball (2001), but his version of Ned Kelly (2003) was an absolute flop, which led distributors hesitant to even release it outside Australia. Heath finally had deserved success with his role in Brokeback Mountain (2005). For his portrayal of Ennis Del Mar in in the film, Ledger won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor and Best International Actor from the Australian Film Institute, and was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role and for the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Ledger was found dead on January 22, 2008 in his apartment in the Manhattan neighborhood of SoHo, with a bottle of prescription sleeping pills near-by. It was concluded weeks later that he died of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs that included pain-killers, sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication. His death occurred during editing of The Dark Knight (2008) and in the midst of filming his last role as Tony in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009).
Posthumously, he shared the 2007 Independent Spirit Robert Altman Award with the rest of the ensemble cast, the director, and the casting director for the film I'm Not There (2007), which was inspired by the life and songs of American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. In the film, Ledger portrayed a fictional actor named Robbie Clark, one of six characters embodying aspects of Dylan's life and persona.
A few months before his death, Ledger had finished filming his performance as the Joker in 'The Dark Knight (2008). His untimely death cast a somber shadow over the subsequent promotion of the $185 million Batman production. Ledger received more than thirty posthumous accolades for his critically acclaimed performance as the Joker, the psychopathic clown prince of crime, in the film, including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, a Best Actor International Award at the 2008 Australian Film Institute Awards (for which he is the second actor to win an acting award posthumously after Peter Finch who won an Oscar for Network (Best Actor 1977)), the 2008 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor, the 2009 Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture, and the 2009 BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor.Überdosis Medikamente, vermutlich versehentlich- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Brad Renfro was born on July 25, 1982 in Knoxville, Tennessee, to Angela Denise McCrory and Mark Renfro, a factory worker. He was discovered at age 10 by director Joel Schumacher and was cast in the motion picture The Client (1994), which starred Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones. Although this would be his zenith, he went on to appear in other films, including The Cure (1995), Tom and Huck (1995), Sleepers (1996), and Apt Pupil (1998). Renfro won The Hollywood Reporter's Young Star Award in 1995 and was nominated as one of People magazine's "Top 30 Under 30," though addiction problems in his teens and early 20s led to several police arrests and hampered his career. He died of a drug overdose in January 2008, aged 25.Überdosis Heroin- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Cory Monteith was born on May 11, 1982 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada as Cory Allan Michael Monteith. He was an actor, known for playing the singing jock Finn on the American TV show Glee (2009) and films such as Monte Carlo (2011), and Final Destination 3 (2006). He died on July 13, 2013 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.Überdosis Medikamente und Alkohol- Silvia Seidel was born on 23 September 1969 in Munich, Bavaria, West Germany. She was an actress, known for Anna (1987), Halfway Across the Galaxy and Turn Left (1993) and Storm of Love (2005). She died on 31 July 2012 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.Selbstmord
- Sawyer Sweeten was born on 12 May 1995 in Brownwood, Texas, USA. He was an actor, known for Everybody Loves Raymond (1996), Frank McKlusky, C.I. (2002) and Even Stevens (2000). He died on 23 April 2015 in Austin, Texas, USA.Selbstmord
- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Nick Santino was born in Brooklyn, New York, at the age of 5 months he was put in St. Joseph's orphanage home. For the next 16 years, he bounced around several foster homes for a total of 9. At age 16/17 he decided to make his own life. He managed to get a small apartment and started several neighborhood businesses in addition to construction and garbage hauling. He put himself through college earning an Engineering Degree, and then an MBA in Finance. Upon entering the business world he realized that his New York accent was not going to be an asset to his future and proceeded to learn better diction. Living in NYC surrounded with actors and actresses somehow Nick ended up doing a two year program at American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and was cast for an off Broadway version of Frankie and Johnny (1991), then Fool for Love (1985). He continued to do several theater ensembles and improvisation groups before he was cast as Officer Anton in All My Children (1970). After a year of being on sets of Soaps and independent films Nick observed and was intrigued by the technical aspects of film and television production and decided to do a test project with no training or experience and took a small leap as a producer /director. This resulted in a light hearted short called Steel Crossings (1998). Nick's Steel Crossings (1998) was presented to several networks for series consideration. From 1999 to 2001 Steel Crossings (1998)was screened at several film festivals and won awards including "Best Short Drama".Selbstmord- Austrian-born Max Grießer was a famous Bavarian folk-play actor and has played many roles on "Komödienstadel", a famous Bavarian folk-play that usually is performed in the "Kleine Komödie" in Munich, Germany. For some years he personified "Father Barnabas" during the famous Salvator celebrations on Nockherberg in Munich where Bavarian and German politicians are mocked each March when the new brand of the strong beer "Salvator" is issued.Selbstmord durch Erhängen
- Mick Werup was born on 16 November 1958 in Hamburg, Germany. He was an actor, known for Diese Drombuschs (1983), Drei Schwedinnen auf der Reeperbahn (1980) and A Case for Two (1981). He died on 7 January 2011 in Hamburg, Germany.Selbstmord durch Erhängen
- Edwin Noel was born on 11 July 1944 in Rimpar, Bavaria, Germany. He was an actor, known for Buddenbrooks (1979), Große Freiheit (1996) and Blankenese (1994). He was married to Barbara Hasselbach. He died on 27 June 2004 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.Selbstmord
- Born Karen Bach outside of Lyons, France, Karen Lancaume came from a wealthy family. The bi-racial beauty (French father, Moroccan mother) married at 17 while she was attending college. Even though her husband was a disc jockey and she worked weekends at a nightclub to make ends meet, the couple was soon awash in debt. They saw an opportunity to make a good amount of money quickly by performing in porn films, and in 1996 they both entered the industry. Unfortunately, the marriage didn't last past their first film together, and while her ex-husband left the porn industry, she stayed in it. She soon divided her time between making porn films in Europe and the US. She appeared in a documentary about porn performers called Exhibition 99 (1998). It was while making this film that she began to have second thoughts about her chosen career, and after appearing in the controversial mainstream film Baise-moi (2000)--in which she performed hardcore sex scenes--she began to ease out of the industry, finally quitting altogether in 2002.
Karen Lancaume died in Paris, France, on January 28, 2005. She committed suicide by taking an overdose of prescription drugs in her boyfriend's apartment.Überdosis Benzodiazepine, Suizid - Actor
- Music Department
- Writer
Leslie Cheung was the youngest of 10 children. His father was tailor to the late William Holden. Leslie's parents divorced when he was young, and he claims this is one reason for his disinterest in marriage. Following graduation from secondary school, he studied at Leeds University in Great Britain. Upon his return to Hong Kong, he entered the 1976 ATV Asian Music Contest, where he took second prize. He went on to perform on stage, television and in teeny-bopper movies. It wasn't until he was cast in the role of "Kit" in John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (1986) that his acting career took off; he has since performed in some of the best-known Hong Kong movies of the last decade, working under the direction of such directors as Kaige Chen, Kar-Wai Wong, Hark Tsui and, of course, Woo. Leslie emigrated to Canada in 1992, but soon returned to Hong Kong, demonstrating his intention to remain past the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to China through his purchase of real estate and opening of a coffee shop in the colony.
Leslie jumped from the landmark Mandarin Oriental hotel in the central business district early in the evening on 1st April 2003, leaving a suicide note that was found on the body.Selbstmord durch Sprung aus Hotelfenster- Actress
- Writer
- Director
Christine Pascal was born on 29 November 1953 in Lyon, Rhône, France. She was an actress and writer, known for The Little Prince Said (1992), Félicité (1979) and Let Joy Reign Supreme (1975). She was married to Robert Boner. She died on 30 August 1996 in Garches, Hauts-de-Seine, France.Selbstmord in der Psychatrie- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Michael Pfleghar was born on 20 March 1933 in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. He was a director and writer, known for Dead Woman from Beverly Hills (1964), Klimbim (1973) and Serenade für zwei Spione (1965). He was married to Wenche Myhre, Bibi Johns and Inge Brück. He died on 23 June 1991 in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.Selbstmord mit Schusswaffe- A tall, athletic bear of a man, Raimund Harmstorf rose to stardom on the strength of a single role: the amoral, brutal, self-righteous captain Wolf Larsen (a Nietzschean 'superman', if there ever was one) in Jack London's Der Seewolf (1971). Harmstorf's was a genuinely chilling, mesmerizing performance, which captivated audiences and contributed to this German/Austrian/French/Romanian co-production (with a nominal American-born lead) to be sold to numerous countries worldwide. The role not only defined his career but led to various myths about the actor himself. The most famous of these related to Larsen/Harmstorf squashing a raw potato with one hand, by all accounts not an easy thing to do. Detractors claimed the potato had been a cooked one, which it almost certainly was. Nonetheless, Harmstorf proved in subsequent appearances on national television that he was more than capable of pulverizing a raw spud with one paw. A publicity stunt had him issuing forth a nationwide challenge (with prize money offered) for anyone capable of emulating his feat.
Raimund Harmstorf grew up in Hamburg where he studied medicine and then attended the local college for music and the performing arts. He made the rounds of auditions for plays with modest success, leading to engagements in Hamburg and Berlin. He spent two years in South America cultivating his image as a macho adventurer, returning to Germany with two Deutschmarks in his pocket. A lover of action sports (paragliding, surfing and fast cars), he was also an accomplished athlete (in a 1972 issue of 'Bravo' magazine, he claimed to have been a regional decathlon youth champion). By the mid-1960's, he started to establish himself on screen, initially in small TV roles. After 'Wolf Larsen' put him on the map, he had further success in the title role of Jules Verne's Michel Strogoff (1975) and as the vernacular protagonist of Götz von Berlichingen mit der eisernen Hand (1979) (a role, he also played on the stage). He also made appearances in several spaghetti westerns along with such genre favorites as Franco Nero and Terence Hill.
By the early 1990's, Harmstorf's life as an action hero began to unravel. He had sustained numerous sporting injuries (broken arms and legs, a hole in his knee after a botched operation), lost two teeth in a screen fight with Bud Spencer and was (during shooting of the same film) accidentally shot in the foot. His restaurant, "Zum Seewolf", had gone bankrupt. In 1994, Harmstorf was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. He unwisely self-medicated to the extent of causing severe side effects, including bouts of paranoia and depression. Scurrilous tabloids reported on the minutiae of his psychiatric condition and one even published a premature report of his suicide. What was left of Harmstorf's fragile state of mind broke and he hanged himself on the night of May 3 1998.Selbstmord, ein Tag nachdem die Presse seine psychischen Probleme bekannt gab - Actor
- Director
- Writer
Carlos Thompson was born on 7 June 1923 in Santa Fe, Santa Fe, Argentina. He was an actor and director, known for Mistress of the World (1960), A Matter of Resistance (1966) and El túnel (1952). He was married to Lilli Palmer. He died on 10 October 1990 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.Selbstmord- Actor
- Soundtrack
David Strickland was born in Glen Cove, Long Island, New York, on October 14, 1969. Raised in Princeton, New Jersey, he never thought about an acting career until moving to the LA suburb of Pacific Palisades while in high school. Instead of going to college, he joined a theater company and began performing comedy sketches that he wrote along with a friend. To gain some acting experience, Strickland also participated in 64 student films. His stage credits include Biloxi Bluesues, Bye Birdie, Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Pizza Man, and I Won't Dance. He went on to earn guest-starring roles on Roseanne (1988) and Dave's World (1993), as well as recurring roles on Sister, Sister (1994) and Mad About You (1992) (as Paul Reiser's backstabbing co-worker at the Explorer Channel). When not acting, his pastimes included golf, making fruit smoothies, and playing "a mean game of paddle-tennis." He will best be remembered by TV fans for his co-starring role of Todd, the magazine's music critic, on the NBC sitcom Suddenly Susan (1996) (which stars Brooke Shields). Recent movie achievements, before his untimely death, included a lead role in the independent film Delivered (1998) (a dark comedy directed by Guy Ferland) and the role of 'Steve' in the hit movie Forces of Nature (1999).Selbstmord durch Erhängen- Actor
- Director
- Additional Crew
Arno Assmann was born on 30 July 1908 in Breslau, Silesia, Germany [now Wroclaw, Dolnoslaskie, Poland]. He was an actor and director, known for Immer will ich dir gehören (1960), Der Opernball (1978) and Die Ersten und die Letzten (1966). He was married to Lore Ostermann and Heide Heidemann. He died on 30 November 1979 in Herrsching am Ammersee, Bavaria, West Germany.Überdosis Medikamente, Suizid- Actress
- Soundtrack
Lucy Gordon was born on 22 May 1980 in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Spider-Man 3 (2007), The Four Feathers (2002) and Serendipity (2001). She died on 20 May 2009 in Paris, France.Selbstmord durch Erhängen- Actor
- Soundtrack
Peter Vogel was born on 22 March 1937 in Munich, Germany. He was an actor, known for Charley's Tante (1963), Flying Classroom (1954) and Kottan ermittelt (1976). He was married to Gertraud Jesserer. He died on 21 September 1978 in Vienna, Austria.Überdosis Medikamente, Suizid- Actor
- Soundtrack
Rex Gildo was born on 2 July 1936 in Straubing, Germany. He was an actor, known for Zwei blaue Vergissmeinnicht (1963), Jetzt dreht die Welt sich nur um dich (1964) and Schlagerparade 1961 (1961). He was married to Marion Hirtreiter. He died on 26 October 1999 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.Sturz aus dem Fenster, vermutlich Selbstmord- Writer
- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Mario Monicelli was born on 16 May 1915 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He was a writer and director, known for The Organizer (1963), Speriamo che sia femmina (1986) and Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958). He was married to Chiara Rapaccini and Antonella Salerni. He died on 29 November 2010 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.Sprung aus dem Krankenhaus-Fenster, Suizid- Michael Dorn was born on 22 December 1968 in Germany. He was an actor, known for The Silence (2010), Mondscheinsonate (2009) and 3 (2010). He died on 10 March 2012 in Berlin, Germany.Selbstmord
- Ben Wettervogel was born on 18 December 1961 in Klein-Reken, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He was an actor, known for Tatort (1970), Das NRW Duell (2006) and Morgenmagazin (1992). He died on 2 February 2015 in Berlin-Friedrichshain, Berlin, Germany.Selbstmord
- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Film and stage actor and theater director Philip Seymour Hoffman was born in the Rochester, New York, suburb of Fairport to Marilyn (Loucks), a lawyer and judge, and Gordon Stowell Hoffman, a Xerox employee, and was mostly of German, Irish, English and Dutch ancestry. After becoming involved in high school theatrics, he attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, graduating with a B.F.A. degree in Drama in 1989.
He made his feature film debut in the indie production Triple Bogey on a Par Five Hole (1991) as Phil Hoffman, and his first role in a major release came the next year in My New Gun (1992). While he had supporting roles in some other major productions like Scent of a Woman (1992) and Twister (1996), his breakthrough role came in Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights (1997).
He quickly became an icon of indie cinema, establishing a reputation as one of the screen's finest actors, in a variety of supporting and second leads in indie and major features, including Todd Solondz's Happiness (1998), Flawless (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia (1999), Almost Famous (2000) and State and Main (2000). He also appeared in supporting roles in such mainstream, big-budget features as Red Dragon (2002), Cold Mountain (2003) and Mission: Impossible III (2006).
Hoffman was also quite active on the stage. On Broadway, he has earned two Tony nominations, as Best Actor (Play) in 2000 for a revival of Sam Shepard's "True West" and as Best Actor (Featured Role - Play) in 2003 for a revival of Eugene O'Neill (I)'s "Long Day's Journey into Night". His other acting credits in the New York theater include "The Seagull" (directed by Mike Nichols for The New York Shakespeare Festival), "Defying Gravity", "The Merchant of Venice" (directed by Peter Sellars), "Shopping and F*@%ing" and "The Author's Voice" (Drama Desk nomination).
He was the Co-Artistic Director of the LAByrinth Theater Company in New York, for which he directed "Our Lady of 121st Street" by Stephen Adly Guirgis. He also directed "In Arabia, We'd All Be Kings" and "Jesus Hopped the A Train" by Guirgis for LAByrinth, and "The Glory of Living" by Rebecca Gilman at the Manhattan Class Company.
Hoffman consolidated his reputation as one of the finest actors under the age of 40 with his turn in the title role of Capote (2005), for which he won the Los Angeles Film Critics Award as Best Actor. In 2006, he was awarded the Best Actor Oscar for the same role.
On February 2, 2014, Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead in an apartment in Greenwich village, New York. Investigators found Hoffman with a syringe in his arm and two open envelopes of heroin next to him. Mr. Hoffman was long known to struggle with addiction. In 2006, he said in an interview with "60 Minutes" that he had given up drugs and alcohol many years earlier, when he was age 22. In 2013, he checked into a rehabilitation program for about 10 days after a reliance on prescription pills resulted in his briefly turning again to heroin.Drogencocktail, vermutlich Unfall- Misty Anne Upham, born in Kallispell, Montana, grew up in south Seattle, the fourth of five children. She began her career at the age of thirteen when she joined a community theater group, Red Eagle Soaring. What began as a summer workshop soon turned into a full-time job. By the age of fourteen she was writing and directing short skits and performing on tours throughout the northwest. In the next four years she would be accepted to several Seattle theater companies, all while attending high school. Her first break came in 2001 when she landed the role of Mrs. Blue Cloud in Chris Eyre's sophmore project Skins (2002), where she portrayed a victim of domestic abuse on the Pine Ridge reservation. She also had a large role in the family drama August: Osage County (2013), playing Johnna Monevata, a live-in housekeeper.
Misty died in 2014, in Auburn, Washington, of blunt-force trauma.in einem Wald tot aufgefunden, vermutlich Selbstmord - Bekim Fehmiu was born on 1 June 1936 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Yugoslavia. He was an actor, known for The Adventurers (1970), I Even Met Happy Gypsies (1967) and Protest (1967). He was married to Branka Petric. He died on 15 June 2010 in Belgrade, Serbia.Selbstmord nach einem Schlaganfall
- Actor
- Composer
- Writer
Dean Reed was born September 22, 1938, in Denver Colorado. He went to Hollywood where he signed a record contract with Capitol Records in 1958, but his third single, "Our Summer Romance" was so popular in South America he went to tour there. More popular than Elvis Presley, he stayed to enjoy his incredible fame in Chile, Peru, Argentina. He made albums, starred in movies and had his own television show in Buenos Aires. He was known as Mr. Simpatia because he worked free in barrios and prisons and protested US policy, nuclear bomb tests etc. His politics moved to the left but he never joined the Communist party. He was deported from Argentina in 1966 and ended up in Rome, where he made "spaghetti westerns" for several years. He made his first concert tour of the Soviet Union in 1966 and became a mega star there and in Eastern Europe. He continually got into trouble with US State Department for protesting Vietnam War and attending International Peace Conferences. He moved to East Germany (GDR) in 1973, made numerous albums, starred in several films, and wrote and directed his own.
His last visit to the States in late 1985 encouraged him to dream of making a career for himself back home, especially if he could return with his current project in hand, a movie about the war between AIM and the FBI at Wounded Knee, 1973. A GDR/Soviet Union co-production, the film had taken years to get off the ground. Just days before shooting was due to start in the Crimea, Dean Reed's body was found in the lake near his home outside of East Berlin. He had been missing for several days. Many close to him in the GDR suspected suicide; his family and friends in America believed he was murdered.Selbstmord, Pulsadern und Schlaftabletten- John was born in Wichita Falls, Texas on April 5, 1949 to parents Dr. Owen C. Berg and Evelyn van Emden Berg. John graduated from Wichita Falls High School in 1967. John attended the University of Chicago, Tulane University and the school of life.
During his life, John had a diverse career path - holding many jobs including restaurant manager, rock and roll band manager, bartender, Top 40 and Country Western DJ, ski resort marketing manager in Crested Butte Colorado, production assistant for Wide World of Sports, and writer for publications such as Sports Illustrated. He also became a graphic artist for Merrill Lynch in NY, did voice-over work for radio and television commercials as well as being the voice of Dial-a-Pope. John became an actor appearing in recurring roles in General Hospital, The Bold and the Beautiful, Port Charles, Passions and The Young & the Restless. John moved to LA and became increasingly more active as an actor appearing in movies such as Star Trek Nemesis and It could happen to you. More recently, John made guest appearances in series television on shows such as Monk, Brothers & Sisters, Navy NCIS, Boston Legal, House MD, and many others.
John's most recent focus was to create a world peace movement named "Unplug for Peace" which encouraged people to unplug and listen to the small, still voice inside for one day per month in order to create a more peaceful world. The effort was backed by people such as Jean Houston (one of the principal founders of the Human Potential Movement) and Mark Victor Hansen (Chicken Soup for the Soul). The target goal for Unplug for Peace was one National Day in which people would unplug on January 28th, 2008 -- the 60th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's death. John was also very active in helping others reach sobriety and peace in their lives.
John's other passions included snow skiing, travel, trapeze, hiking and mountain climbing. In recent trips, he visited Havasu Falls, hiking about 10.5 miles each way with about 2500 feet of vertical. He also took a cruise to Istanbul. One of John's big achievements in the last few years was his climb of Mt. Whitney for which he prepared for weeks. John and his friends actually made it to the summit of Mt. Whitney, the tallest mountain in the Continental United States.Selbstmord, Kohlenmonoxid - Music Artist
- Actress
- Producer
Whitney Elizabeth Houston was born into a musical family on 9 August 1963, in Newark, New Jersey, the daughter of gospel star Cissy Houston (née Emily Lee Drinkard) and John Russell Houston, Jr., and cousin of singing star Dionne Warwick.
She began singing in the choir at her church, The New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, as a young child and by the age of 15 was singing backing vocals professionally with her mother on Chaka Khan's 1978 hit, 'I'm Every Woman'. She went on to provide backing vocals for Lou Rawls, Jermaine Jackson and her own mother and worked briefly as a model, appearing on the cover of 'Seventeen' magazine in 1981.
She began working as a featured vocalist for the New York-based funk band Material and it was the quality of her vocal work with them that attracted the attention of the major record labels, including Arista with whom she signed in 1983 and where she stayed for the rest of her career.
Her debut album, 'Whitney Houston', was released in 1985 and became the biggest-selling album by a debut artist. Several hit singles, including 'Saving All My Love For You', 'How Will I Know', 'You Give Good Love', and 'The Greatest Love of All', were released from the album, setting her up for a Beatles-beating seven consecutive US number ones. The album itself sold 3 million copies in its first year in the US and went on to sell 25 million worldwide, winning her the first of her six Grammies.
The 1987 follow-up album, 'Whitney', which included the hits 'Where Do Broken Hearts Go' and 'I Wanna Dance With Somebody', built on her success but it was the 1992 film The Bodyguard (1992) that sealed her place as one of the best-selling artists of all time. While the movie itself and her performance in it were not highly praised, the soundtrack album and her cover of the Dolly Parton song 'I Will Always Love You' topped the singles and albums charts for months and sold 44 million copies around the world.
That same year she married ex-New Edition singer Bobby Brown with whom she had her only child, their daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown in March 1993. It was about this time that her much documented drug use began and by 1996 she was a daily user.
Her 1998 album, 'My Love Is Your Love' was well reviewed but the drug abuse began to affect her reputation and press reports at the time said that she was becoming difficult to work with, if she turned up at all. She was dropped from a performance at The 72nd Annual Academy Awards (2000) because she was "out of it" at rehearsals. Her weight fluctuated wildly - she was so thin at a 'Michael Jackson' tribute in 2001 that rumors circulated the next day that she had died - and her voice began to fail her. She was twice admitted to rehab and declared herself drug-free in 2010 but returned to rehab in May 2011.
Her 2009 comeback album 'I Look To You' was positively received and sold well, but promotional performances were still marred by her weakened voice. Her final acting performance was in Sparkle (2012) (a remake of the 1976 movie, Sparkle (1976)), released after her death.
She was found dead in a Beverly Hills hotel room on 11 February 2012.Ertrinken in der Badewanne, Kokainmissbrauch, Suizid unklar- Music Artist
- Actor
- Writer
Ike Turner is best known for his career as half of the duo Ike & Tina Turner with his former wife Tina Turner, but before he discovered her, Turner was already a pioneer in rhythm & blues and rock & roll.
Izear Luster Turner Jr. was born on November 5, 1931 in Clarksdale, Mississippi. His father Izear Luster Turner Sr. was a Baptist minister and his mother Beatrice Cushenberry was a seamstress. His father was beaten by a white mob and succumbed to his injuries when Turner was 5 years old. Turner was sexually abused by multiple older women beginning at the age of 6. He quit school in the eighth grade and became an elevator operator at the Alcazar Hotel in downtown Clarksdale, eventually becoming a DJ at the radio station WROX located inside the hotel.
Turner was taught how to play piano by Delta blues pianist Pinetop Perkins. He performed locally as a roadie for Robert Nighthawk and Sonny Boy Williams. As a teenager, he formed his own band called the Kings of Rhythm. In 1951, Turner and his band recorded "Rocket 88" at Sam Phillips' Memphis Recording Studio, later known as Sun Studio. The single was very successful, reaching No. 1 on the various Billboard R&B charts, but the record was credited to Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats. This caused friction between band members, so the band was disbanded for a few years. In the meantime, Turner became a session musician and talent scout for Phillips as well as the Bihari Brothers at Modern Records. Blues musicians Turner recorded with include Junior Parker, Willy Nix, Bobby Bland, Howlin' Wolf, B.B. King, Rosco Gordon, Albert King, and Johnny Ace.
Turner made the transition from playing piano to playing guitar in the mid-1950s and moved to East St. Louis, Illinois where he became a sensation by introducing Rhythm & Blues to the predominantly Jazz town and neighboring cities. One of his fans, a teen-aged Anna Mae Bullock, joined his band as his lead vocalist in 1957. He renamed her Tina Turner, and they released their first record as the duo Ike & Tina Turner in 1960 with the "A Fool In Love" which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard R&B chart. A string of R&B hits soon followed. Throughout the 1960s they toured relentlessly and put on high energy performances with their revue which included the Ikettes, a backing group known for the Turner penned single "I'm Blue (The Gong-Gong Song)." Their dynamic act is showcased in the concert film The Big T.N.T. Show (1965), which led to Tina Turner recording "River Deep - Mountain High" with producer Phil Spector. Following their tour with the Rolling Stones in 1969, the duo crossed over to mainstream success. They appeared in the concert films Gimme Shelter (1970), It's Your Thing (1970), Soul to Soul (1971), and they made a cameo performance in Taking Off (1971). The duo had their biggest success with their rendition of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Proud Mary" which won them a Grammy Award in 1972. However, Turner's drug use and volatile behavior was taking a toll on their personal relationship and they separated in 1976.
After the Duo broke up, Turner went on a downward spiral with run-ins with the law, which resulted in a 18-month prison term for a drug conviction in the early 1990s. Following the release of his ex-wife's book which she recounted incidents of domestic violence, and the subsequent movie, What's Love Got to Do with It (1993), dramatizing their tumultuous relationship, Turner received media scrutiny which further hindered his career. He eventually revived his band the Kings of Rhythm in the late 1990s and resurrected his career by returning to his blues roots. In 2003, Turner was featured in the PBS documentary series The Blues (2003). He released two critically acclaimed albums, Here and Now (2001) and Risin' with the Blues (2006). The latter album won him a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues album the year he died in 2007. Turner had been drug free for over a decade, but he relapsed and died from a cocaine overdose on December 12, 2007. His hypertensive cardiovascular disease and pulmonary emphysema were also contributing factors.Überdosis Kokain- Actor
- Writer
- Music Department
John Belushi was born in Chicago, Illinois, USA, on January 24, 1949, to Agnes Demetri (Samaras) and Adam Anastos Belushi, a restaurant owner. His father was an Albanian immigrant, from Qytezë, and his mother was also of Albanian descent. He grew up in Wheaton, where the family moved when he was six. Though a young hellion in grade school, John became the perfect all-American boy during his high school years where he was co-captain of the Wheaton Central High School football team and was elected homecoming king his senior year. He also developed an interest in acting and appeared in the high school variety show. Encouraged by his drama teacher, John decided to put aside his plans to become a football coach to pursue a career in acting.
After graduation in 1967, John performed in summer stock in rural Indiana in a variety of roles from "Cardinal Wolsey" in "Anne of a Thousand Days" to a comic detective in "Ten Little Indians". In the fall of his freshman year at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater, John changed his image into a bad-boy appearance by growing his hair long and began to have problems with discipline and structure of attending classes.
Dropping out of Wisconsin, John spent the next two years at the College of DuPage, a junior college a few miles from his parents' Wheaton home, where his father began persuading him to become a partner in his restaurant, but John still preferred acting. While attending DuPage, John helped found the "West Compass Players", an improv comedy troupe patterned after Chicago's famous "Second City" ensemble.
In 1971, John made the leap to "Second City" itself where he performed in various on-stage comic performances with others, who included Harold Ramis and Joe Flaherty. John loved his life at "Second City" where he performed six nights a week, perfecting the physical "gonzo" style of comedy he later made famous.
A year later, John and his live-in girlfriend from his high school years, Judith Belushi-Pisano, moved to New York because John had joined the cast of National Lampoon's Lemmings, an off-Broadway rock musical revue that was originally booked for a six-week run but played to full crowds for nearly 10 months.
In 1973, John was hired as a writer for the syndicated National Lampoon's Radio Hour which became the National Lampoon Show in 1975. John's big break came that same year when he joined the ground-breaking TV variety series Saturday Night Live (1975) which made him a star. The unpredictable, aggressively physical style of humor that he began on "Second City" flowered on SNL.
In 1978, while still working on Saturday Night Live (1975), John appeared in the movie Goin' South (1978) which starred and was directed by Jack Nicholson. It was here that director John Landis noticed John and decided to cast him in his movie National Lampoon's National Lampoon's Animal House (1978). John's minor role as the notorious, beer-swilling "Bluto" made it a box-office smash and the year's top grossing comedy. Despite appearing in only a dozen scenes, John's performance stole the movie, which portrays college fraternity shenanigans at a small college set in the year 1962.
In 1979, John along with fellow SNL regular Dan Aykroyd quit the series to pursue movie projects. John and Dan Aykroyd appeared in minor roles in Steven Spielberg's financially unsuccessful 1941 (1979) and, the following year, in John Landis' The Blues Brothers (1980). Around this time, John's drug use began escalating. Cocaine, which was ubiquitous in show-business circles in the 1970's, became his drug of choice. After he first experimented with cocaine in the mid 1970s, John almost immediately became addicted to it. His frequent cocaine sniffing binges became a source of friction between him and Judy, whom he married in 1976.
John's love for blues and soul music inspired the "Blues Brothers". He and Aykroyd first appeared as Joliet Jake and Elwood Blues, a pair of white soul men dressed in black suits, skinny ties, fedora hats and Rayban sunglasses, as a warm-up act before the telecasts of Saturday Night Live (1975). Building on the success of their acts and the release of their album "A Briefcase Full of Blues", John and Dan Aykroyd starred in the movie, which gave John a chance to act with his favorite musical heroes including Ray Charles, James Brown and Aretha Franklin.
Although John's reputation for being an off-screen party animal is legendary, his generous side is less well known. Using some of his money, he bought his father a ranch outside San Diego for him to live. John helped set up some of his Chicago friends with their own businesses and even financially helped his younger brother, Jim Belushi, who followed his older brother's path to both "Second City" and Saturday Night Live (1975).
In 1981, John appeared in the movie Continental Divide (1981), playing a hard-nosed Chicago newspaperman who finds romance in Colorado with eagle expert Blair Brown. That same year, John and Dan Aykroyd appeared again in the movie Neighbors (1981), which gave them a chance to reverse roles, with John playing a straight-arrow family man whose life is turned upside down when a wild family man (Aykroyd) moves in next door.
In January 1982, John began work on the screenplay for another movie to be titled "Noble Rot". Also, John had checked into a bungalow at the Chateau Marmont, a popular celebrity hotel in Los Angeles. John's drug use had been steadily increasing for over a year now, which alarmed his wife and friends, but he continued to promise Judy that he would quit someday. On March 5, 1982, John Belushi was found dead in his hotel room at the age of 33. The local coroner gave the cause of death as a lethal injection of cocaine and heroin. Several years later, John's drug dealing/drug user companion during his final weeks, Cathy Evelyn Smith, was tried and sentenced to three years in prison for supplying John with the drugs. Close friend James Taylor sang "That Lonesome Road" at a memorial service at Martha's Vineyard cemetery where John was buried.nach einer Drogenparty Überdosis von Heroin und Kokain- Actress
- Additional Crew
Herta Kravina was born on 3 June 1926 in Vienna, Austria. She was an actress, known for Aux frontières du possible (1971), Heinz Erhardt Festival (1961) and Solang' noch Unter'n Linden (1958). She was married to Horst Keitel and Paul Milan. She died on 6 November 2015 in Charlottenburg, Berlin, Germany.Selbstmord- Actor
- Director
- Additional Crew
Horst Keitel was born on 22 June 1927 in Meisdorf, Harz, Germany. He was an actor and director, known for Die schwarze Hand (1966), Ein Mann für Jenny (1956) and Madame Princesse (1975). He was married to Herta Kravina. He died on 6 November 2015 in Charlottenburg, Berlin, Germany.Selbstmord- Gig Young was born Byron Barr to parents John and Emma Barr in Minnesota, and raised in Washington, DC, where he developed a passion for theatre while appearing in high school plays. After gaining some amateur experience, he applied for and received a scholarship to the acclaimed Southern California's Pasadena Community Playhouse. While acting in "Pancho", a south-of-the-border play by Lowell Barrington, he was spotted by a Warner Brothers talent scout, leading to his signing contracts with the studio. Still acting under his given name, Byron Barr, he played bits and extra roles. He experimented with varying screen names because there was already another actor with the same name (see Byron Barr). In 1942, in the picture The Gay Sisters (1942), he was given the role of a character whose name was Gig Young, which he liked well enough to finally adopt it as his permanent stage name. His intermittent roles and, therefore, income, required Young to supplement his income working at a gas station, but success in The Gay Sisters (1942) eventually allowed him the freedom to become a full-time actor. Although service in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II interrupted his ascension, after discharge he quickly established himself as a reliable light leading man, usually the second male lead to stars who were established box office draws. A dramatic part in Come Fill the Cup (1951) resulted in his being nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar; a second Supporting Actor nomination followed seven years later for his comedic performance in Teacher's Pet (1958). A prolific television career later complemented his film work. In 1969, his surprisingly seedy portrayal of a dance-marathon emcee in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969) finally brought him that Supporting Actor Oscar. A succession of marriages, including one to actress Elizabeth Montgomery, failed. In 1978, only three weeks after marrying German actress Kim Schmidt, Young apparently shot her to death in their New York City apartment and then turned the gun on himself. The precise motivation for the sad and grisly murder-suicide remains unclear. Young was not quite 65, his bride, 31.erschoss erst seine Frau, dann sich selbst
- Daniel Pollock was born on 24 August 1968 in Australia. He was an actor, known for Romper Stomper (1992), The Magistrate (1989) and Proof (1991). He died on 13 April 1992 in Newtown, Sydney, Australia.Selbstmord, warf sich vor einen Zug
- Best remembered in Britain for the television series Arthur of the Britons (1972), Ken Russell's The Devils (1971) and as the villain in For Your Eyes Only (1981). His break into films came with Don Levy's Herostratus (1967). His career was intermittently successful, interspersing notable performances with spells of unemployment. Michael was unmarried, living in Hampstead, London, and under treatment for depression at the time of his suicide in 1992.Selbstmord
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- Producer
- Additional Crew
Frank Wolff started his career by acting in several Roger Corman films. However, Wolff had to travel to Europe to be successful. He was finally able to become a well known actor in Italy and Europe with his performance in Salvatore Giuliano (1962) and had roles in many European film productions. Moreover, Wolff became a major star in Spaghetti Westerns. His most famous, but briefest, performances was as Brett McBain, the friendly farmer in Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). He also brought much needed light relief as the sheriff in Sergio Corbucci's The Great Silence (1968). When the time of "Spaghetti-Westerns" was ending, Wolff had several roles in Italian crime movies. Other memorable performances were in Duccio Tessari's Giallo Death Occurred Last Night (1970) or in one of Wolffs last performances as a police commissioner in Fernando Di Leo's Caliber 9 (1972). Sadly, the great actor suffered from depression and killed himself in the Hilton Hotel in Rome in December 1971.Selbstmord- Actor
- Additional Crew
Luisi Pistilli's most notable stage successes were roles in "The Threepenny Opera", "St. Joan of the Stockyards" and a 1972 production, "Lulu". In 1991 he reprised his role in "Lulu" in the first professional collaboration with actress-singer Milva, his partner in previous plays as well as in a four-year offstage relationship. Pistilli's most memorable roles were in Francesco Rosi's Illustrious Corpses (1976), Lino Del Fra's Antonio Gramsci: i giorni del carcere (1977), Carlo Lizzani's Italo-Bulgarian co-production The Bandit (1969) and Sergio Leone's For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), in which he played priest Pablo Ramirez, the brother of Eli Wallach's character Tuco. He also worked frequently in TV, including the Mafia series La piovra (1984), directed by Luigi Perelli.Selbstmord- Actress
- Soundtrack
Dana Michelle Plato was born in Maywood, California, on Saturday, November 7, 1964. Her first excursion into the film world occurred when she was 11 in the television film Beyond the Bermuda Triangle (1975). Dana never made an impact on the TV screen until she landed the role of Kimberly Drummond in the TV hit sitcom Diff'rent Strokes (1978) from 1978-1986. After the series ended, Dana had difficulty finding more acting work. Sometimes she would act in a made-for-TV movie or a low- budget silver-screen film. She was married for Lanny Lambert for seven years and they had a son. She was arrested in 1991 for robbing a Las Vegas video store and placed on probation; the next year she was arrested again, this time for forging a Valium prescription. She had just finished an interview with Howard Stern in the spring of 1999 when she and her fiancé, Robert Menchaca, were headed back to California. She hoped the interview would revive her stalled career. They stopped at his parents' house in Moore, Oklahoma for a Mother's-Day-weekend visit; on Saturday, May 8, 1999, Dana died of what appeared to be an accidental overdose of the painkiller "Loritab". On May 21, a coroner's inquest ruled her death a suicide because of the large amount of drugs in her body and her history of past suicide attempts. Dana Plato was 34 years old.Medikamentencocktail, Suizid fraglich- With classic patrician features and an independent, non-conformist personality, Capucine began her film debut in 1949 at the age of 21 with an appearance in the film Rendezvous in July (1949). She attended school in France and received a BA degree in foreign languages. Married for six months in her early twenties, she never remarried. In 1957, she was discovered by director Charles K. Feldman while working as a high-fashion model for Givenchy in Paris and was brought to Hollywood to study acting under Gregory Ratoff. She was put under contract by Columbia studios in 1958 and had her first leading part in the movie Song Without End (1960). She made six more major movies in the early to mid 1960s, two of which (The Lion (1962) and The 7th Dawn (1964)) starred William Holden, with whom she had a two-year affair. Moving from Hollywood to a penthouse apartment in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1962, she continued making movies, mostly in Europe, until her suicide in 1990.Selbstmord, Sturz aus dem 8. Stock
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- Producer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Alan Walbridge Ladd was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, the only child of Ina Raleigh (aka Selina Rowley) and Alan Harwood Ladd, a freelance accountant. His mother was English, from County Durham. His father died when he was four. At age five, he burned his apartment playing with matches, and his mother moved them to Oklahoma City. He was malnourished, undersized and nicknamed Tiny. His mother married a house painter who moved them to California--a la "The Grapes of Wrath"--when he was eight. He picked fruit, delivered papers, and swept stores. In high school he discovered track and swimming. By 1931 he was training for the 1932 Olympics, but an injury put an end to those plans. He opened a hamburger stand called Tiny's Patio, and later worked as a grip at Warner Brothers Pictures. He married his friend Midge in 1936, but couldn't afford her, so they lived apart. In 1937, they shared a friend's apartment. They had a son, Alan Ladd Jr., and his destitute alcoholic mother moved in with them, her agonizing suicide from ant poison witnessed a few months later by her son. His size and coloring here regarded as not right for movies, so he worked hard at radio, where talent scout and former actress Sue Carol discovered him early in 1939. After a string of bit parts in "B" pictures--and an unbilled part in Orson Welles' classic Citizen Kane (1941)--he tested for This Gun for Hire (1942) late in 1941. His fourth-billed role as psychotic killer Raven made him a star. He was drafted in January 1943 and discharged in November with an ulcer and double hernia. Throughout the 1940s his tough-guy roles packed audiences into theaters and he was one of the very few males whose cover photos sold movie magazines. In the 1950s he was performing in lucrative but unrewarding films (an exception being what many regard as his greatest role, Shane (1953)). By the end of the 1950s liquor and a string of so-so films had taken their toll. In November 1962 he was found unconscious lying in a pool of blood with a bullet wound near his heart, a probable suicide attempt. In January 1964 he was found dead, apparently due to an accidental combination of alcohol and sedatives.Medikamente und Alkohol, versehentliche Überdosis- Trevor Goddard was born in Croydon, Surrey, England on October 14, 1962. His parents, Eric and Clara, and baby Trevor moved to Bromley, Kent, where he grew up. As a natural athlete, Trevor was highly interested in sports. As a youngster, he played football (soccer) and cricket and enjoyed running as well as many other recreational activities. But his greatest passion was boxing. He was a light heavyweight with a 58-1-1 record out of a total of 60 fights. He had also been invited to fight in the U.S.
And come to America he did, in 1986, with a couple of his friends. Trevor and his mates enjoyed a great deal during their stay in New York. Trevor even bought a car. After three weeks of entertainment and relaxation, Trevor phoned his father and, with a heavy heart, told him "I'm going to try to make it here, Dad. I like it very much. I'm in love with the country, I like the people." His friends returned home, and Trevor remained in the U.S.
In the early '90s, he began a career as an actor. Trevor worked regularly on TV. He made guest appearances on such TV series as "Baywatch" (1989) and "Silk Stalkings" (1991). Eventually he landed a leading role as the villainous, psychotic, yet charismatic, "Keefer" in Men of War (1994), opposite action star Dolph Lundgren, as well as Kevin Tighe, Catherine Bell, Tom Wright and BD Wong. From that moment on, Trevor was usually typecast as crazy, offbeat villains. That was borne out again in the popular video-game-based motion picture Mortal Kombat (1995), in which Trevor played a criminal called "Kano". With his rugged looks, muscular physique and gruff voice, he made this "Kano" internationally famous, even providing him with an Australian accent. Although he was English-born, Trevor had quite an ability to disguise his accent as Australian, which he continued to do in voice acting roles for subsequent video games.
Trevor played supporting roles in such movies (usually action films) as Illegal in Blue (1995) (V), Yesterday's Target (1996) (TV), Fast Money (1996), Prey of the Jaguar (1996) (V), and Assault on Devil's Island (1997) (TV) in which he costarred with Hulk Hogan, Carl Weathers, Billy Drago and Martin Kove. He appeared in a few dramatic comedies such as She's Too Tall (1999) as a crazy-in-love parking lot attendant and in Some Girl (1998) as "Ravi". He appeared in an uncredited role in Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000), opposite such famous names as Nicolas Cage, Angelina Jolie, Robert Duvall, Vinnie Jones, Timothy Olyphant and Delroy Lindo, and also in When Billie Beat Bobby (2001) (TV).
Once again, Trevor achieved international fame with the popular TV series "JAG" (1995), where he appeared from 1998 to 2001 as "Lt. Cmdr. Mic Brumby". This show made Trevor a well-known personality to the world audience and greatly increased his fan base.
Trevor played his first and only leading role in Hollywood Vampyr (2002) as a gothic vampire called "Blood". His last film was the blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), where he utters the line "Say good-bye" to Orlando Bloom's character. Alas, "Grapple" (Goddard) was dispensed of pretty rapidly in the film.
Prior to his death, Trevor was considered to replace Pierce Brosnan as James Bond in Casino Royale (2006).
On June 7, 2003, Goddard was found dead in his home in North Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. He was 40 years old. Initial reports indicated that Goddard was in the process of getting a divorce and that suicide was suspected. An autopsy later showed that Goddard died from a drug overdose of heroin, cocaine, temazepam and vicodin. However, his death was ruled accidental.Medikamentencocktail, fraglicher Suizid - Freddie Prinze was born Frederick Karl Pruetzel in New York City, New York, to a Puerto Rican mother, Aurea Elena Ruiz, and a German immigrant father, Edward Karl Pruetzel. Freddie grew up in the Washington Heights section of New York City. As a chubby child, he was often bullied, but was quite creative and bright in his extracurricular activities (he was known to have handmade a ham radio, which he used regularly). Early on, he aspired to become famous, and, after enrolling at Fiorella LaGuardia High School of the Performing Arts, he obtained a job at the Improv Club, in New York, where people started to take notice of his comedic talent (but the long hours he worked at night, balanced by increasing absences in school, caused him to drop out of high school to pursue comedy full-time). He changed his name to Freddie Prinze (to indicate that he was "The Prince of Comedy"). In December 1973, he was invited to perform on "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson", which proved to be a breakthrough performance, as he was invited to chat with Johnny after his performance (only two other comedians have enjoyed that privilege). Soon afterwards, he won the role of "Chico Rodriquez" in an NBC-produced TV series called Chico and the Man (1974)(he and co-star Jack Albertson forged a great friendship while working on the show). In 1975, he released a comedy album, titled "Looking Good", and further boosted his popularity with appearances on various TV shows (such as the "Tony Orlando & Dawn" show). In Las Vegas in August 1975, he married Katherine Cochran, with whom he had a son, Freddie Prinze, Jr. (born on March 8, 1976 in Albuquerque, New Mexico). He loved his role as a father, and his growing popularity. But all the fame had a downside to it: Freddie developed an addiction to drugs (namely Quaaludes and cocaine), and was subsequently arrested in Nov. 1976 for DUI. His marriage was dissolving, and he separated from his wife. He started to mention thoughts of suicide to many of his close friends and family including his friends singer Tony Orlando and comedian David Brenner. In January 1977, following his final public appearance at the Inaugural Ball for President Jimmy Carter, 22-year-old Freddie called his mother, friends and manager and announced that he was committing suicide. While his manager tried to stop him, he placed a .32 caliber pistol against his temple and pulled the trigger.He was rushed to UCLA Medical Center with a massive head wound. He was kept on life support until January 29, 1977, when his family decided to turn off the life support.schoss sich in den Kopf
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Carole Landis was born on New Year's Day in 1919 in Fairchild, Wisconsin, as Frances Lillian Mary Ridste. Her father, a railroad mechanic, was of Norwegian descent and her mother was Polish. Her father walked out, leaving Carole, her mother and an older brother and sister to fend for themselves.
After graduating from high school, she married Jack Robbins (Irving Wheeler), but the union lasted a month (the marriage was annulled because Carole was only 15 at the time). The couple remarried in August 1934, and the two headed to California to start a new life. For a while she worked as a dancer and singer, but before long the glitter of show business drew her to Los Angeles.
She won a studio contract with Warner Brothers but was a bit player for the most part in such films as A Star Is Born (1937), A Day at the Races (1937), and The Emperor's Candlesticks (1937). The following year started out much the same way, with more bit roles. By 1939, she was getting a few speaking roles, although mostly one-liners, and that year ended much as had the previous two years, with more bit roles; also, she and Wheeler were divorced.
In 1940 she was cast as Loana in the Hal Roach production of One Million B.C. (1940); she finally got noticed (the skimpy outfit helped), and her career began moving. She began getting parts in B pictures but didn't star in big productions -- although she had talent, the really good roles were given to the established stars of the day.
Her busiest year was 1942, with roles in Manila Calling (1942), The Powers Girl (1943), A Gentleman at Heart (1942), and three other movies. Unfortunately, critics took little notice of her films, and when they did, reviewers tended to focus on her breathtaking beauty. By the middle 1940s, Carole's career was beginning to short-circuit. Her contract with 20th Century-Fox had been canceled, her marriages to Willis Hunt Jr. and Thomas Wallace had failed, and her current marriage to Horace Schmidlapp was on the skids; all of that plus health problems spelled disaster for her professionally and personally.
Her final two films, Brass Monkey (1948) and The Silk Noose (1948) were released in 1948. On July 5, 1948, Carole committed suicide by taking an overdose of Seconal in her Brentwood Heights, California, home. She was only 29 and had made 49 pictures, most of which were, unfortunately, forgettable. If Hollywood moguls had given Carole a chance, she could have been one of the brightest stars in its history.Selbstmord, Tabletten- Actor
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Charles Boyer studied philosophy before he went to the theater where he gave his debut in 1920. Although he had at first no intentions to pursue a career at the movies (his first movie was Man of the Sea (1920) by Marcel L'Herbier) he used his chance in Hollywood after several filming stations all over Europe. In the beginning of his career his beautiful voice was hidden by the silent movies but in Hollywood he became famous for his whispered declarations of love (like in movies with Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich or Ingrid Bergman). In 1934 he married Pat Paterson, his first and (unusual for a star) only wife. He was so faithful to her that he decided to commit suicide two days after her death in 1978.Selbstmord, unmittelbar nach dem Krebstod seiner Frau- Actor
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British actor David Rappaport earned more roles and respect than most guys his size (or any size for that matter) who attempted a professional acting career. Born with the genetic condition dwarfism (he was 3' 11"), he was often typecast in bizarre, sometimes silly and demeaning roles; but, like others before (Michael Dunn) and after (Peter Dinklage), he rose to the challenge and proved himself a talent to be reckoned with.
He was born David Stephen Rappaport on November 23, 1951, to a London Jewish family and showed musical prowess at an early age. He learned how to play both the drums and the accordion, which helped him out financially during the lean years. He studied psychology at the University of Bristol in 1969 and graduated with a degree while developing a side interest in theatre and performing in plays and revues. Following graduation, he married his college girlfriend, Jane, and had a son, Joe, the following year. He gave school teaching a try but left in 1977 to focus on his first love - acting.
Returning to England, he built up his reputation on TV and developed celebrity status. He acted in and wrote for the program "Beyond the Groove" and performed in a couple of children's series to boot. Film showcases for David came unexpectedly with the scene-stealing role of "Randall", the ringleader of a motley group of time-traveling thieves, in Time Bandits (1981), and in The Bride (1985) as "Rinaldo", a little person who befriends a giant. American audiences were given a good taste of David's charm, intelligence and razor-sharp wit with the popular but short-lived series, The Wizard (1986), as "Simon McKay", the inventor of odd and exciting toys who derived great pleasure out of being a good Samaritan. He followed this with the attention-getting role of slick attorney "Hamilton Skylar" in a few episodes of L.A. Law (1986).
Despite his successful professional career, David was beset by personal unhappiness and acute depression. He was booked to play the darkly comic role of Zibalian trader Kivas Fajo on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (episode "The Most Toys," subsequently played by gifted Canadian actor Saul Rubinek). However, on May 2, 1990, Rappaport's third suicide attempt was successful, as he shot himself in the chest with a .38 caliber revolver he had bought 15 days earlier. The 38-year-old actor was buried at the Waltham Abbey cemetery in England.Dritter Selbstmordversuch war dann mit einer 38er erfolgreich- Actress
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Born in Norfolk, Virginia to wealthy stockbroker Cornelius Hancock Sullavan and heiress Garland Council Sullavan, Margaret Brooke overcame a muscle weakness in her childhood to go on to become a rebellious teenager at posh private schools. She went on to perform with the University Players at Harvard and made her Broadway debut in Hello, Lola in 1926. Her Christmas Day marriage in 1931 to Henry Fonda lasted only 15 months, and her later marriages to director William Wyler and agent Leland Hayward were also tempestuous. Two of her three children, Bridget and Bill, would spend some time in mental institutions, and commit suicide. Friends noted that the collapse of her family life led to her breakdown. Her condition worsened over time, until she was discovered unconscious from barbiturate poisoning in a hotel room. Her death was ruled accidental by the county coroner.Überdosis Medikamente, vermutlich Unfall- Director
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James Whale was an English film director, theatre director and actor. He is best remembered for his four classic horror films: Frankenstein (1931), The Old Dark House (1932), The Invisible Man (1933) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935). He also directed films in other genres, including what is considered the definitive film version of the musical Show Boat (1936).
In 1931 Universal Pictures signed him to a five-year contract and his first project was Waterloo Bridge (1931). Based on the Broadway play by Robert E. Sherwood, the film starred Mae Clarke. That same year Universal chief Carl Laemmle Jr. offered Whale his choice of any property the studio owned. Whale chose Frankenstein (1931), mostly because none of Universal's other properties particularly interested him and he wanted to make something other than a war picture.
In 1933 Whale directed The Invisible Man (1933), based on the book by H.G. Wells. Shot from a script approved by Wells, the film blended horror with humor and confounding visual effects. It was critically acclaimed, with "The New York Times" listing it as one of the ten best films of the year, and it broke box-office records in cities across America. So highly regarded was the film that France, which restricted the number of theaters in which undubbed American films could play, granted it a special waiver because of its "extraordinary artistic merit". Also in 1933 Whale directed the romantic comedy By Candlelight (1933). He directed Bride of Frankenstein (1935), a sequel of sorts to "Frankenstein", which Whale was somewhat apprehensive about making because he feared being pigeonholed as a horror director. "Bride" hearkened back to an episode from Mary Shelley's original novel in which the Monster promises to leave Frankenstein and humanity alone if Frankenstein makes him a mate. He does, but the mate is repelled by the monster who then, setting Frankenstein and his wife free to live, chooses to destroy himself and his "bride." The film was a critical and box office success. However, his next major project, The Road Back (1937), was a critical and financial disaster, and contributed to his retiring from the film industry in 1941.
Beset by personal, health and professional problems, James Whale committed suicide by drowning himself in the swimming pool of his Pacific Palisades (CA) home on 29 May 1957 at the age of 67. He left a suicide note, which his longtime companion David Lewis withheld until shortly before his own death decades later. Because the note was suppressed, the death was initially ruled accidental.Selbstmord, im Pool ertrunken- Actress
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Thelma Todd was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, an industrial city near the New Hampshire state line. She was a lovely child with good academic tendencies, so much so that she decided early on to become a schoolteacher. After high school she went on to college but at her mother's insistence entered several beauty contests (apparently her mother wanted her to be more than just a "schoolmarm"). Thelma was so successful in these endeavors that she entered on the state level and won the title of "Miss Massachusetts" in 1925 and went on to the "Miss America" pageant; though she didn't win, the pageant let her be seen by talent scouts looking for fresh new faces to showcase in films. She began to appear in one- and two-reel shorts, mostly comedy, which showcased her keen comic timing and aptitude for physical comedy--unusual in such a beautiful woman.
She had been making shorts for Hal Roach when she was signed to Paramount Pictures. Her first role--at age 21--was as Lorraine Lane in 1927's Fascinating Youth (1926), a romantic comedy that was Paramount's showcase vehicle for its new stars. Thelma received minor billing in another film that year, God Gave Me Twenty Cents (1926). The next year she starred with Gary Cooper and William Powell in the western Nevada (1927). That year also saw her in three more films, with The Gay Defender (1927) being the most notable. It starred Richard Dix as a man falsely accused of murder.
As the 1920s closed, Thelma began to get parts in more and more films. In 1928 and 1929 alone she was featured in 20 pictures, and not just comedies--she also did dramas and gothic horror films. Unlike many silent-era stars whose voices didn't fit their image or screen persona, Thelma's did. She had a bright, breezy, clear voice with a pleasant trace of a somewhat-aristocratic but unsnobbish New England accent and easily made the transition to sound films. In 1930 she added 14 more pictures to her resume, with Dollar Dizzy (1930) and Follow Thru (1930) being the most notable. The latter was a musical with Thelma playing a rival to Nancy Carroll for the affections of Buddy Rogers. It was a box-office hit, as was the stage production on which it was based. The following year Thelma appeared in 14 more films, among them Let's Do Things (1931), Speak Easily (1932), The Old Bull (1932), and On the Loose (1931). Her most successful film that year, however, was the Marx Brothers farce Monkey Business (1931). While critics gave the film mixed reviews, the public loved it. In 1932 Thelma appeared in another Marx Brothers film directed by Norman Z. McLeod, Horse Feathers (1932). She also starred in This Is the Night (1932), a profitable film which featured Cary Grant in his first major role. In 1934 Thelma made 16 features, but her career would soon soon come to a grinding halt. In 1935 she appeared in such films as Twin Triplets (1935) and The Misses Stooge (1935), showcasing her considerable comic talents. She also proved to be a savvy businesswoman with the opening of "Thelma Todd's Sidewalk Café", a nightclub/restaurant that catered to show-business people. Unfortunately, it also attracted some shady underworld types as well, and there were rumors that they were trying to take over her club and use it as a gambling establishment to fleece the wealthy Hollywood crowd. According to these tales, Thelma and her boyfriend, director Roland West, wouldn't sell their establishment once they found out what the gangsters had in mind, which incurred the enmity of the wrong people with whom to have differences of opinion. Whether or not the stories were true, on December 16, 1935, 29-year-old Thelma was found dead in her car in her garage in Los Angeles. Her death was ruled suicide-by-carbon-monoxide-poisoning. At the time, as today, many felt that her death was actually a murder connected to the goings-on at her club, a theory that was lent credence by the fact that no one who knew her had ever seen her depressed or morose enough to worry about her committing suicide. Another factor that aroused suspicion was that her death was given a cursory investigation by the--at the time--notoriously corrupt Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office and the case was quickly and unceremoniously closed. Her death has remained controversial to this day.
Three films she made before her death weren't released until the following year: Hot Money (1936), An All American Toothache (1936), and The Bohemian Girl (1936). The latter saw her quite substantial role cut down so much that she was barely glimpsed in the picture. Thelma had made an amazing 115 films in such a short career, and her beauty and talent would no doubt have taken her right to the top if not for her untimely demise.Selbstmord, es wurde vielfach über Mord spekuliert- Actor
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Stanley Adams (born Abramowitz) had a lengthy career on both stage and screen, the majority of which was spent playing minor supporting roles. A possible exception was the part of Rusty Trawler, a pint sized millionaire in the classic romantic comedy Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961). Otherwise, he portrayed innumerable minor ethnic villains, bartenders and avuncular, fast-talking characters, known in the credits only by their first names. On television, conversely, he proved himself more of a scene stealer, particularly in the 1960s and early '70s, when his face popped up on just about every major prime time show. He was at his best as pool hustler Sure-shot Wilson in an episode of The Odd Couple (1970), Rollo, a quirky time-traveling scientist on The Twilight Zone (1959), and - famously - as 'asteroid detecting', tribble-dispensing galactic entrepreneur Cyrano Jones on Star Trek (1966). Alas, he may also be remembered as a sentient space carrot named Tybo on Lost in Space (1965)....
His suicide in April 1977 has been attributed to severe depression as a result of a back injury, sustained earlier in the decade. Apart from the obvious pain, it would almost certainly have limited his employment opportunities.Selbstmord- Actor
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Donald Barry went from the stage to the screen. After four years of playing villains and henchmen at various studios, Barry got the role that changed his image: Red Ryder in the Republic Pictures serial Adventures of Red Ryder (1940). Although he had appeared in westerns for two years or so, this was the one that kept him there. He acquired the nickname "Red" from his association with the Red Ryder character. After the success of "Red Ryder" Barry starred in a string of westerns for Republic. Studio chief Herbert J. Yates got the idea that Barry could be Republic's version of James Cagney, as he was short and had the same scrappy, feisty nature that Cagney had. Unfortunately, while Barry could in fact be a good actor when he wanted to be -- as he showed in the World War II drama The Purple Heart (1944) -- his "feistiness", combative nature and oversized ego caused him to alienate many of the casts and crews he worked with at Republic (ace serial director William Witney detested him, calling him "the midget", and director John English worked with him once and refused to ever work with him again). Barry made a series of westerns at Republic throughout the 1940s, but by 1950 his career had pretty much come to a halt, and he was reduced to making cheaper and cheaper pictures for bottom-of-the-barrel companies like Lippert and Screen Guild. Barry continued to work and still appeared in westerns up through the 1970s, but they were often in small supporting roles, sometimes unbilled. In 1980 he committed suicide by shooting himself.erschoss sich selbst- Hugh was born in Rome, Italy, and adopted by actor Carroll O'Connor and his wife, Nancy. At the age of 16, Hugh was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, but conquered it with the help of chemotherapy. It was around this time that Hugh started taking drugs. He worked as a courier on the set of his father's show, Archie Bunker's Place (1979) during its last season. In 1988, he appeared in another show starring his father, In the Heat of the Night (1988). His character, "Lonnie Jamison", started as a background character, but Hugh soon became one of the show's stars, continuing to work on the show until its 1995 cancellation. (Jamison started out as a patrolman but, by the end of the series, had reached the rank of lieutenant and acting-chief of detectives). On 28 March 1992, Hugh married Angela O'Connor, a wardrobe assistant on "Heat", and the following year, she gave birth to their son, Sean Carroll O'Connor. Throughout his life, the drug problems had continued and increased. On 28 March 1995, exactly three years after his marriage to Angela, Hugh died by suicide in the home they shared.schoss sich in den Kopf
- Edie Sedgwick was a bright social butterfly whose candle of fame burned brightly at both ends. Born into a wealthy White Anglo-Saxon Protestant family of impressive lineage, Edie became a "celebutante" for her beauty, style, wealth and her associations with figures of the 1960s counterculture.
Edie was born in Santa Barbara into a prominent family plagued by mental illness. Her father, Francis Minturn Sedgwick (1904-1967), was a local rancher who had experienced three nervous breakdowns prior to his 1929 marriage to Alice Delano De Forest, Edie's mother. Francis also suffered from bipolar disorder, and his doctors told Alice's father, the Wall Street financier Henry Wheeler De Forest, that the couple should not have any children. They eventually had eight: Edie was the fourth of five daughters and the second-to-last of the Sedgwick children born from 1931 to 1945. Edie later told fellow Warhol superstar Ultra Violet that both her father and a brother had tried to seduce her when she was a child. She once found her father in flagrante delicto with another woman, and after she tried to tell her mother about his offense, her father denounced her as insane and called the doctor. In Edie's confession to Ultra Violet, she claimed, "They gave me so many tranquilizers I lost all my feelings."
The Sedgwicks were an old line of WASPs whose lineage included Judge Theodore Sedgwick (1746-1813), who had served as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts and later Speaker of the House of Representatives in the time of George Washington. The Judge's wife, Pamela Dwight Sedgwick (1753-1807), had lost her sanity mid-life. The roots of the mental illness that plagued the Sedgwick family likely extend as far back as Pamela Dwight Sedgwick.
Edie was raised on a 3,000-acre ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley, bought with money inherited from Alice's father. The family fortunes improved even further in the early 1950s, when oil was discovered on the ranch. The Sedgwick children were educated in a private school constructed on the ranch, and given daily vitamin B shots by a local physician.
Despite their prosperity, Edie's upbringing was plagued with trauma. Her brother Minty was an alcoholic by age fifteen and eventually committed suicide at the Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, Connecticut in 1964, the day before his twenty-sixth birthday. Her other brother, Bobby, also was troubled by psychiatric problems and was institutionalized after suffering a nervous breakdown in the early 1950s while attending Harvard. He crashed his motorcycle into a bus on New Year's Eve 1964 and died two weeks later.
Edie suffered from bulimia in school, which continued into her adult life. Edie was first institutionalized in the fall of 1962 at the Silver Hill mental hospital (where her brother Minty later died). After wasting away to ninety pounds, she was transferred to the far stricter Bloomingdale, New York Hospital's Westchester County facility. On a furlough from Bloomindale, she became pregnant and had an abortion.
In the early 1960s, Edie lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, while attending Radcliffe College. Edie studied sculpture and spent her time partying and driving her Mercedes. At her therapist's office, she met recent Harvard graduate Chuck Wein, who was living a bohemian existence and styled himself as an Edwardian dandy. After she turned 21 in 1964, Eddie left Cambridge for New York, moving into her invalid grandmother's 14-room Park Ave. apartment and spent her nights at the top clubs and discotheques.
Wein came to New York, as well, and became determined to transform Edie into a social butterfly. In January 1965, she was introduced to Andy Warhol, one of the new gods of Pop Art. Wien began bringing her to his work-living space "The Factory" on a regular basis. Warhol had no illusions about Chuck Wein, but he apparently was attracted by the hustler's blonde good looks. Blessed or cursed with the soul of a promoter, Wein was continually plotting a strategy to move Edie up into the New York demimonde and further into society.
During her visits with Wein to The Factory, Warhol began inserting her into his films. She made her first two brief appearances in "Vinyl" and "Horse." Andy took both Edie and Wein to Paris in April 1965 for an opening of a show.
When he returned to New York City, Warhol announced that he was crowning Edie "the queen of The Factory," and commissioned screenplays for her. Wein became his new screenwriter and assistant director, beginning with "Beauty No. 2," which starred Edie and premiered at the Cinematheque on July 17, 1965. "Beauty No. 2" made Edie Sedgwick the leading lady of underground cinema. Her on-screen persona was compared to Marilyn Monroe, and she became famous among the independent film glitterati. Her association with Warhol helped secure both his reputation and hers.
Edie appeared in Vogue in August 1965 as a "youthquaker," as well as a fashion layout for Life magazine in the September 1965 issue. On February 13, 1966, Edie (along with Warhol and Wein) were photographed for The New York Times Magazine. With the glamorous Edie in tow, Warhol made the rounds of parties and gallery openings, and the dynamic duo generated reams of copy and free publicity. Thousands of fans mobbed them at an opening at the University of Pennsylvania. Originally an outsider, Warhol was now wooed by wealthy socialites and becoming a major part of the art establishment.
In 1966, Warhol approached his musical "discovery" Lou Reed with a proposition. According to Reed, "Andy said I should write a song about Edie Sedgwick. I said 'Like what?' and he said, 'Oh, don't you think she's a femme fatale, Lou?' So I wrote 'Femme Fatale' and we gave it to Nico."
Her newfound celebrity would prove to be her undoing, after many urged Edie to leave Warhol for the mainstream cinema. One of these people was Bob Dylan's assistant Bob Neuwirth, who became Edie's lover, wooing her with the promise of starring in a film with his enigmatic boss. Edie was under the impression that Albert Grossman, Dylan's manager, was going to offer her a film contract. She also briefly appeared in D.A. Pennebaker's documentary "Don't Look Back."
Though Edie reportedly also harbored amorous feelings for Dylan, it is unlikely that her feelings were returned or ever consummated. However, Edie is one of the women pictured on the inner sleeve of Dylan's classic "Blonde on Blonde" album (released May 16, 1966), and she was rumored to be the inspiration of the song "Leopard Skin Pill-Box Hat." In February 1966, Warhol told her about Dylan's secret marriage to Sara Lownds. Edie was devastated. According to Paul Morrissey, a Factory regular, Edie realized that "maybe [Dylan] hadn't been truthful."
Edie's and Warhol's relationship was further strained by her dissatisfaction with her decreasing role in Warhol's life. They also argued over money. Edie had always picked up the tab when the Factory regulars hit the town, and she attacked Warhol over his failure to pay her money from the films she had been in. Warhol claimed that the films were unprofitable and told her to be patient.
Edie's last known film with Warhol was "Lupe." (She may also have appeared in "The Andy Warhol Story," a lost film for which the footage was either lost or destroyed.) In February 1966, Edie decided to part ways with Warhol. According to Gerard Malanga, a Factory regular, "Edie disappeared and that was the end of it. She never came back."
In the tapes Edie made for "Ciao! Manhattan," she admitted that she had become addicted to her affair with Neuwirth. While they were together, she was consumed by lust, but when they were apart, she turned to pills for comfort.
She tried modeling again and appeared in the March 15, 1966 edition of "Vogue." Her modeling career never took off, however, as the fashion industry shunned people with drug problems. She then turned back to acting, auditioning for Norman Mailer's staging of "The Deer Park," but Mailer turned her down. Edie "wasn't very good," Mailer remembered. "She used so much of herself with every line that we knew she'd be immolated after three performances."
By the end of 1966, Edie's star had gone into eclipse and she never recovered. She was badly addicted to drugs and in six months, she spent $80,000. A typical breakfast in this period was a saucer filled with speed. To support her habit, she stole antiques and art from her grandmother's apartment, and sold them for money. She also turned to dealing but got busted, was briefly incarcerated, and was put on probation for five years. Then, in October 1966, Edie's apartment on East 63rd St. caught on fire by candles. She suffered burns on her arms, legs and back and was treated at Lenox Hill Hospital.
In 1966, Edie returned home to California, where she was committed to a mental hospital. After she was discharged, she moved back to New York and took a room at the Chelsea Hotel, where her drug addiction worsened. By early 1967, her drugged-fueled behavior was so erratic, Neuwirth broke up with her. Edie subsequently took up with her fellow Warhol superstar Paul America. He and Edie Sedgwick became lovers, united in their common lust for drugs, and they lived together for a brief time at the Chelsea Hotel and indulged heavily in speed. Their relationship was an on-again/off-again affair, and eventually, friction over control issues forced them apart.
America later appeared with Edie in the long-gestated film "Ciao! Manhattan". This was supposed to be Edie's breakout role, but the film's execution by Warhol acolytes was amateurish. Shooting on "Ciao! Manhattan," which would prove to be Edie's final film, commenced in April 1967. The shooting was anarchic, with the filmmakers and the actors addicted to speed, which was injected by a physician with whom the production company had set up a charge account. At one point, America left the set and never returned.
After America's departure, Edie wound up in Gracie Square Hospital, where she learned of her father's death, on October 24, 1967.
After her discharge, Edie shacked up in the Warwick Hotel with the screenwriter L.M. Kit Carson, who attracted the fragile Edie with the promise of a screenplay written for her, but ultimately he was unable to deal with the erratic behavior stemming from her drug abuse and left. Edie wound up in Bellevue Hospital, and after being discharged due to the intervention of her personal physician, she overdosed on drugs and was committed to Manhattan State Hospital. By late 1968, Edie was a physical and emotional wreck: by the time she returned to the family ranch for Christmas, she was barely able to walk and talk, the result of poor blood circulation in her brain. She recovered and moved into an apartment near U.C. Santa Barbara in 1969, but by August, she was institutionalized again after a drug bust. She met her future husband, Michael Post, during her stay in the psychiatric ward of Santa Barbara's Cottage Hospital, though upon her discharge, she became the moll of a motorcycle gang in order to obtain drugs. Known as "Princess" by the bikers, she was very promiscuous, sleeping with anyone who would supply her with heroin. She was institutionalized again in 1970.
Edie was furloughed from the hospital in the summer of 1970 to finish filming "Ciao! Manhattan," the last parts of which feature her clearly in the throes of drug dependency. Under the supervision of two nurses, she played out her scenes, including a shock treatment scene (electro-convulsive therapy) filmed in a real clinic. Ironically, she was soon back at the clinic for real, suffering from delirium tremens, where she received actual shock treatment therapy. She underwent a minimum of 20 electro-convulsive treatments from January to June 1971.
Edie married Michael Post on July 24, 1971, managing to stay clean until October. However, that fall, she was prescribed a pain pill to treat a physical debility. In addition, her doctor prescribed barbiturates, possibly to help her sleep, and frequently boosted their effects with alcohol. On the night of November 15, 1971, Edie went to fashion show at the Santa Barbara Museum and was filmed for the last time in her life. The television documentary "An American Family" was being filmed at the museum that night, and Edie - attracted by the cameras as a moth is to flame - walked over and began talking to Lance Loud, one of the subjects of the documentary.
After the fashion show, Edie went to a party but was asked to leave after her presence caused another guest to rave at her for being a heroin addict. Edie, who had been drinking, called her husband to come retrieve her from the soirée. Back at their apartment, Edie took her prescribed pain medication and they both went to sleep. That morning, when Post awoke at 7:30 AM, he found Edie dead next to him. Her death was ascribed as "acute barbiturate intoxication" and was ruled an "Accident/Suicide" by the coroner. Edie is buried in the tiny Oak Hill Cemetery in Ballard, California.Überdosis Barbiturate, fraglicher Suizid - Excellent, prolific, and versatile film, stage, and television actor Steven Keats was born on February 6, 1945 in The Bronx, New York City, to a Danish-born father from Copenhagen and an NY-born mother, both of Polish Jewish descent. Keats grew up in Canarsie, Brooklyn and graduated from the High School for Performing Arts in Manhattan. He served in the Air Force during the Vietnam War in 1965 and 1966. Following his tour of duty, Steven returned to the United States and attended both the Yale School of Drama and Montclair State College. Keat made his Broadway stage debut in 1970 as part of the second cast for "Oh! Calcutta." His most memorable movie roles include spaced-out punk hood Jackie Brown in "The Friends of Eddie Coyle," Charles Bronson's son-in-law Jack Toby in "Death Wish," Carol Kane's Americanized Jewish immigrant husband Jake Putkovsky in "Hester Street," Robert Shaw's Israeli sidekick Moshevsky in "Black Sunday," and obsessive mad scientist Dr. Philip Spires in "Silent Rage." Steven was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series for his exceptional portrayal of ruthless Depression-era rag trade tycoon Jay Blackman in the mini-series "Seventh Avenue." Among the many shows Keats made guest appearances on are "Kojak," "The Streets of San Francisco," "The Rockford Files," "Starsky and Hutch," "Barnaby Jones," "Cagney & Lacey," "The Love Boat," "The A-Team," "Hunter," "T.J. Hooker," "Hill Street Blues," "Miami Vice," "Matlock," and "MacGyver." Moreover, he played Thomas Edison on an episode of "Voyagers!". He was the father of sons Shane and Thatcher. Steven was found dead in his Manhattan apartment on May 8, 1994; the cause of death was ruled an apparent suicide. Keats was only 49 years old.Selbstmord
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Scotty Beckett was one of the cutest, most successful child actors of the 1930s and 1940s. His descent into a life of alcoholism, drugs, and crime remains one of the most tragic of Hollywood stories.
Born Scott Hastings Beckett on October 4, 1929, in Oakland, California, he and his family moved to Los Angeles when Scotty was 3 years old. Shortly after arriving in LA, Beckett's father was hospitalized and Scotty would frequently entertain his dad by singing songs. During one such visit, a Hollywood casting director happened to notice the cherubic youngster and told his parents he had movie potential. Scotty made his debut in Gallant Lady (1933) starring Clive Brook and Ann Harding. Scotty played a boy of three in the film, and Dickie Moore played the same character at the age of six. It was the first of several connections between the two child stars. The next year, he filled the hole vacated by Moore in Our Gang, and they later appeared in Heaven Can Wait (1943), portraying Don Ameche's character as a child. He and Moore finally appeared together in Dangerous Years (1947), which was Marilyn Monroe's screen debut.
Scotty appeared in fifteen Our Gang shorts in two years. Hal Roach noted a resemblance to Jackie Coogan and dressed Beckett accordingly, with an oversized cap and turtleneck sweater reminiscent of Coogan's outfit in The Kid (1921). He was paired with George 'Spanky' McFarland as a kind of partnership within the gang, and their sideline observations and wisecracks highlighted the series from 1934 until 1936, just as Porky and Buckwheat sparked the one-reelers from 1936 on.
After leaving Our Gang, Beckett emerged as one of the top child stars of his era, appearing in many films with the top stars of the late '30s and early '40s. Among his major credits were Dante's Inferno (1935) with Spencer Tracy, Anthony Adverse (1936) with Fredric March, The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936) with Errol Flynn, Conquest (1937) with Greta Garbo, Marie Antoinette (1938) with Norma Shearer, My Favorite Wife (1940) with Cary Grant, and Kings Row (1942) with Claude Rains.
In 1943 Scotty began attending Los Angeles High School and was named treasurer of his freshman class. He also appeared on Broadway that same year in the play "Slightly Married", receiving the only favorable notices of the production, and also played Junior in the hit radio show "The Life of Riley". Adolescence did not slow down his film career, as Scotty continued to win roles in such movies as My Reputation (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck and, most notably, The Jolson Story (1946), wherein he played the young Al Jolson.
He enrolled at USC but dropped out when he began receiving more offers from MGM, beginning with Cynthia (1947) with Elizabeth Taylor, A Date with Judy (1948), again with Taylor and Jane Powell (the future Mrs. Dickie Moore), Battleground (1949) with Van Johnson, Nancy Goes to Rio (1950), again with Powell, and The Happy Years (1950) with fellow child stars Dean Stockwell and Darryl Hickman.
At around the same time, Scotty began to gain notoriety for his nocturnal activities. Part of the young Hollywood set, Beckett was a fixture at parties and would frequently be seen with young stars like Roddy McDowall, Jane Powell, Elizabeth Taylor, and Edith Fellows. His nightlife seemed to become more of a priority than his burgeoning acting career, and it started a trend of reckless, irresponsible behaviors which plagued Beckett the rest of his life. Early success without any sacrifice often breeds a sense of entitlement and a lack of responsibility or consequence. This seems to be an overriding theme, as Beckett began making headlines most Hollywood stars try to avoid.
In 1948 he was arrested for drunk driving after he crashed into another car after attending a frat party where he had "five bourbons". Scotty tried to run from the booking office after being arrested and refused to surrender his possessions. In September of 1949, he eloped with tennis star Beverly Baker. Right from the start, Scotty showed signs that he was not ready for marriage. On their honeymoon in Acapulco, Beckett allegedly threatened to punch a pool bystander in the nose. The couple separated after 5 months of marriage, divorcing in June of 1950. Newspapers covered the divorce, citing Baker's allegations of Beckett's jealousy and controlling, abusive behavior. Scotty tried to get Baker to quit tennis and stop seeing her parents. He also warned her never to have a soft drink "with any boy or man between 6 and 60".
In 1951, Becket met actress Sunny Vickers. Shortly after they began dating , Vickers became pregnant. They married in Phoenix on June 27, 1951, and five months later Scott Hastings Beckett, Jr. was born. The bad publicity of the divorce from Baker plus the forced marriage to Vickers in the conservative 1950s immediately made Beckett a Hollywood outcast. Between 1952 and 1954, Scotty landed only two roles, in relatively minor films, You're Only Young Twice (1952) and Hot News (1953). He was beginning to get desperate.
In early 1954, Beckett landed the role of "Winky" in a low-budget sci-fi show called Rocky Jones, Space Ranger (1954), which today has become a cult classic. However, as former co-stars and ex-friends such as Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Powell emerged as bonafide film stars of the 1950s, a supporting role in a fledgling, unproven industry likely was extremely frustrating for Scotty.
In February of that year, the Cavalier Hotel in Hollywood was robbed of a little more than $130 in cash. The bandit pistol-whipped the desk clerk and disappeared with the loot, or so police thought. Passed out drunk in the basement of the hotel, armed with a gun and a knife, was Scotty Beckett. He was arrested and charged with possession of a weapon, but not with robbery because the money was not found and the clerk could not positively identify the former star as the robber.
After posting bail, Beckett, with his wife and three-year-old son, fled to Mexico. He checked into a Tampico hotel under the name of Sean Bullock, giving Carmel, California as his address. There were two bullet holes in his car that Beckett said were from a gang who tried to rob him south of Juarez.
After running out of cash and options, Scotty wrote several checks on a nonexistent bank to different merchants. After Mexican authorities tracked him to a Ciudad Victoria hotel, he attempted to sneak himself and his family out of the hotel and got into a gunfight with the Mexican police in which 20 shots were exchanged. Miraculously, no one was killed, and Scott and Sunny were eventually captured. Scott Jr. was sent back to Los Angeles.
Scotty served only four months in a Mexican jail before returning to the US in September of 1954. He surrendered to authorities for the weapons charge, pleaded guilty, and amazingly was given only three years' probation. He told newspapers he saw this as an opportunity to pick up the pieces and start over with a clean slate, but it was too little, too late. He was dropped from the Rocky Jones series and replaced with Jimmy Lydon (with whom Beckett had appeared in Cynthia (1947)). A little more than a month later, Beckett was arrested in Las Vegas, once again for bouncing a check.
Scotty re-enrolled at USC to study medicine, but when Our Gang was reissued for TV in 1955 as The Little Rascals, Beckett saw an opportunity to make a comeback in the movies. He appeared in Three for Jamie Dawn (1956) and had walk-ons in The Oklahoman (1957) with Joel McCrea, and Monkey on My Back (1957) with Cameron Mitchell. He proved he could still act and exhibit that same youthful charm, appearing perfectly at ease on camera, particularly in his small role as a Navy corpsman with the Marine Corps in Monkey on My Back (1957). But just when it seemed as though a comeback might happen, Scotty self-destructed again.
In February of 1957, he was caught at a Mexican-US border crossing trying to bring illegal drugs into the US. He said the pills were for his wife, whom he claimed had a nervous ailment. In reality, Sunny Vickers was suffering from alcoholism and had checked herself into Metropolitan State Hospital for treatment. She filed for divorce in August of 1957. After Sunny was awarded custody of Scott Jr., Beckett attempted suicide by swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills. He recovered but realized he was finished as an actor. He tried his hand at selling used cars, among other things. He still had his charm, but he could not stay out of trouble.
In April of 1959, Beckett was arrested on a charge of drunk driving. In August of that same year, he was arrested for driving drunk again, but this time he did not emerge unscathed. He smashed his '52 sedan into a tree, fracturing his skull, thigh, and hip and suffering multiple lacerations to his head. Although he was given probation and a suspended sentence, he remained crippled for the rest of his life.
In September of 1963, he was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon. Now confined to a wheelchair from the near-fatal drunk driving accident, he attempted to stab his neighbor after a dispute. Scotty's wife of two years, Margaret, a divorcée with a teenage daughter named Susan, assisted in breaking up the fight. Three days later Beckett tried to kill himself by slashing his wrists. He recovered from this second suicide attempt, but by that time Margaret had had enough and moved out, taking Susan with her. As she was moving her belongings out, Scotty tried to stop her. He hit Susan over the head with a crutch that he now used after his car accident and was again arrested. He vowed to the judge at his sentencing "never to drink again".
After that, Scotty stayed out of the headlines for a few years. In 1967 he found employment driving an ambulance, perhaps to be close to the prescription drugs to which he was addicted, perhaps to try to revive his interest in becoming a doctor, perhaps to try to forget that he had once graced the screen with Hollywood's biggest stars before his own star had plummeted to earth, or perhaps because he had run out of alternatives.
On May 8, 1968, he checked into the Royal Palms Hotel, a Hollywood nursing home, after suffering a beating in what may have been a drug deal gone wrong. Two days later, he was dead from an overdose of barbiturates; his third suicide attempt was successful. He left behind a note, a son, and some wonderful films and memories.
Leonard Maltin summed it up best when he wrote, "It was a particularly sad end for someone who, as a child, had shown so much easy charm and talent." Scotty Beckett was not the first child star casualty, and he would not be the last, but his story is certainly one of the saddest.Überdosis Barbiturate, Suizid- Actor
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1950s and 60s second lead actor Keith Andes fits into the tall, handsome, strapping and highly virile mold that encompassed the likes of George Nader, Guy Madison, and Jeffrey Hunter. Although he may not be as well remembered as the aforementioned, he managed to maintain a reliable career on radio (from age 12), stage, TV and films for over three decades.
Born John Charles Andes on July 12, 1920, in Ocean City, New Jersey, Keith found work on radio singing and acting throughout his high school years. While serving with the Air Force during WWII, he performed in the patriotic 1943 Broadway stage show "Winged Victory" and, after being seen by studio mogul Darryl F. Zanuck, was given a minor part in the film version the following year.
Keith returned to Hollywood in the post-war years and won the role of one of Loretta Young's brothers (the others being Lex Barker and James Arness) in the classic film The Farmer's Daughter (1947). His enviable physique and photogenic good looks made the blond looker an obvious choice to continue in both rugged adventures and beefcake drama but his output was fairly minimal. In Clash by Night (1952), one of his best roles, he dallied hot and heavy with a young Marilyn Monroe and, in Blackbeard, the Pirate (1952), he demonstrated some expert swashbuckling skills.
Meanwhile on the musical front, Keith proved he had a resilient baritone. He won a Theatre World Award for "The Chocolate Soldier" in 1947 and, subsequently, starred in "Kiss Me Kate" with Anne Jeffreys of TV's Topper (1953) fame. More notably, he appeared opposite Lucille Ball in her only Broadway musical "Wildcat" in 1960, winding things up playing "Don Quixote" for over 400 performances in "Man of La Mancha" in 1968. Ironically, the movie studios did not take advantage of Keith's musical prowess, appearing in a bland role with Jane Powell and singing one musical number in The Girl Most Likely (1957).
Beside numerous episodic appearances on such popular 60's and 70's shows as "Have Gun, Will Travel," "The Rifleman," "77 Sunset Strip," "Perry Mason," "The Outer Limits," "Daniel Boone," "The Andy Griffith Show," "Star Trek," "I Spy," "Petticoat Junction," "Gunsmoke," "Cannon" and "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century," Keith co-starred in two television series: This Man Dawson (1959) and the sitcom Glynis (1963), the latter starring popular Brit actress Glynis Johns. Both were short-lived. He occasionally found voiceover work.
After a minor part in the film And Justice for All (1979), Keith made his final appearance as Father Adam in the TV movie drama Blinded by the Light (1980) ). He then retired, bought and lived on a boat and ran charters on trips to Catalina and Mexico. Twice married and divorced, Keith had two children (Mark and Matt) by first wife, Jean Alice Cotton. Mark Andes became a rock musician. Keith's second wife was actress/dancer/choreographer Shelah Hackett.
Sadly, his final years were marred by extreme ill health, including bladder cancer, and he committed suicide in his Santa Clarita, California home at age 85.Selbstmord- Actor
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Lindsay Crosby was born on 5 January 1938 in Los Angeles County, California, USA. He was an actor, known for The Mechanic (1972), Bigfoot (1970) and The Glory Stompers (1967). He was married to Suzy Crosby, Janet Sue Schwartze and Barbara Diane Fredrickson. He died on 11 December 1989 in Calabasas, California, USA.erschoss sich selbst- Actor
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American occasional actor, son of Bing Crosby and Dixie Lee. Born into show business as his father was becoming a superstar, Crosby and his three brothers grew up in wealth, but reportedly suffered at best inattention and unkindness, and possibly actual abuse at worst, from their father, at least according to a memoir written by Dennis's brother, Gary Crosby. Drawn reluctantly into performing in a musical act with his brothers, "The Crosby Brothers," Dennis appeared with them in clubs and on television. However, he was never happy performing. He eventually worked on the production staff of his father's company, Bing Crosby Productions. Depression and alcohol problems plagued him, and in 1991, he shot himself to death, less than two years after the suicide of his younger brother Lindsay Crosby. His daughter, Denise Crosby is an actress.erschoss sich selbst- Director
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For the better part of his career, Woodbridge Strong Van Dyke lived up to his sobriquet "One-Take Woody" by steadfastly adhering to his credo of shooting each scene as quickly and efficiently as possible. Over his 25-year career, he economically directed over 90 diverse entertainments, which not only saved the studios vast amounts of money but turned out to be some of the most interesting motion pictures created during this period.
Van Dyke's father, a lawyer, died within days of his birth. By the time he was three Woody and his mother were forced to tread the boards of repertory theatre to make a living. When he hit his teens he had a succession of outdoor jobs, including lumberjack, gold prospector, railroad man and even mercenary. In 1916 he was hired by the legendary D.W. Griffith as one of a group of "assistants" (others included Erich von Stroheim and Tod Browning) to work on the picture Intolerance (1916). After that, his rise was truly meteoric. Within a year Woody was directing his own films, beginning with The Land of Long Shadows (1917). A later western, The Lady of the Dugout (1918), featured a 'genuine' former Wild West outlaw, the self-promoting teller of tall tales, Al J. Jennings. After enlistment in World War I, Woody returned to Hollywood in the 1920s to direct further westerns, beginning with some Gilbert M. 'Broncho Billy' Anderson features at Essanay and later Tim McCoy programmers (once, in 1926, he directed two features simultaneously). Woody was perhaps the first filmmaker to make westerns that strayed from the stereotypical jaundiced pro-white man view in favor of a more sympathetic portrayal of the American Indian on screen.
Woody's "One-Take" nickname came about as a result of filming world heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey in Daredevil Jack (1920). Dempsey invariably flattened his opponents with the first punch, so it became imperative to have the scene "in the can" on the first take. As a result, Woody was much in demand throughout the decade for "quota quickie" westerns and serials. Under contract to MGM in 1928, he accompanied documentary filmmaker Robert J. Flaherty to Polynesia to collaborate on the feature White Shadows in the South Seas (1928), taking over direction entirely when Flaherty fell ill. The success of the picture led to the thematically similar The Pagan (1929), shot in Tahiti with Ramon Novarro. This was in turn followed by the epic Trader Horn (1931), filmed on location in remote parts of Kenya and Tanganyika. Driven to the point of physical exhaustion by the swashbuckling director, the 200-strong crew virtually transformed the wilderness, creating, as it were, a live set, replete with exotic animals and plant life to capture unprecedented footage. In fact, there was so much excess footage after release of "Trader Horn" that much of it was incorporated into Woody's next project, the seminal Tarzan the Ape Man (1932), which set the bar for later entries into the Edgar Rice Burroughs cycle. After another flirt with danger, filming Eskimo (1933) in the remote Bering Strait, Woody settled down to less life-threatening assignments.
During the next few years, Woody Van Dyke showed his remarkable flair and versatility. After being Oscar-nominated for The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933), he directed William Powell and Myrna Loy in their first outing together in Manhattan Melodrama (1934) (most famous as the film seen by infamous bank robber and killer John Dillinger just before he was shot to death by the FBIl). He followed this with the stylish and witty thriller The Thin Man (1934) (filmed in true Woody-style in 16 days) and its three sequels, teaming Powell and Loy in one of Hollywood's most successful partnerships. After these hugely popular movies, Woody proved to be equally adept at musicals, directing yet another dynamic duo, Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, in the operettas Rose-Marie (1936), Sweethearts (1938) and Naughty Marietta (1935). Never turning down an assignment, he also handled family fare (Andy Hardy, Dr.Kildare), social (The Devil Is a Sissy (1936)) and historical dramas (the lavish Marie Antoinette (1938) with Norma Shearer).
Unquestionably, one of the highlights of Van Dyke's career as a director was the first true "disaster movie", San Francisco (1936), for which he elicited rich, natural characterizations from his cast for 97 minutes. He then re-created the 1906 earthquake in the remaining 20-minute finale, achieving a realism that has rarely been matched and never surpassed. He was nominated for Academy Awards for both "The Thin Man" and "San Francisco", but lost out on both occasions.
A colorful, larger-than-life character, his "shoot-from-the-hip" camera style was at times criticized by his peers. Conversely, he was much respected by actors, frequently giving breaks to unemployed performers by using them in his films, and appreciated by the studios by consistently coming in on or under budget. In addition, he was known as a "film doctor", who would be called upon to re-shoot individual scenes with which the studio was dissatisfied (a noted example being for The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)), or, alternatively, to shoot additional scenes that were deemed necessary for continuity.
Like some of his peers, Woody could be an autocrat who rarely brooked arguments and was known to greet the mighty Louis B. Mayer himself with "Hi, kid". He became ill during the filming of Dragon Seed (1944). Diagnosed with heart disease and cancer, he committed suicide in February 1943.Selbstmord- Actress
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Mary Millington had trained to become a veterinary nurse, but a chance meeting with infamous London photographer John Lindsay changed her life. Under Lindsay's influence, Mary started to pose nude in dozens of photo spreads in British glamor magazines. From this she progressed into illegally made hardcore porn films. In 1974 she met up-and-coming publisher and film producer David Sullivan, and very soon she became the most recognizable nude model in the UK. Sullivan relentlessly promoted her through his magazines and starred her in his 1977 movie Come Play with Me (1977). The film ran for 201 weeks at one London cinema and broke box office records throughout the country. Other movies followed, but "Come Play with Me" still stands as the longest-running film in British movie history. Unfortunately, as Mary's fame increased so did her reliance on drugs. Hounded by the police and becoming more and more paranoid about her looks, Mary tragically committed suicide on 19th August 1979.Selbstmord- Director
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British writer/director Donald Cammell, born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1934, came from a wealthy shipbuilding family. He began his career as a painter, and by the mid-1960s was celebrated among the "Swinging London" crowd. He made his foray into the film industry when he wrote the script for The Touchables (1968), a painfully pretentious--and, seen today, very dated--tale of a rock singer kidnapped by four beautiful female fans. He followed that up with Duffy (1968), about an aging hippie who helps two brothers rob their rich father. His directorial debut came with Performance (1970), about a London gangster who hides out in the house of a strange rock star. The now cult-classic film starred Mick Jagger in one of his earliest dramatic performances. Cammell's Demon Seed (1977) was intended to be a comedy, but the studio for some reason decided to turn it into a bizarre sci-fi thriller, which didn't really satisfy anyone, Cammell least of all.
He didn't make a film for ten years after "Demon Seed", when he directed the atmospheric White of the Eye (1987), about a serial killer. His final film as director, Wild Side (1995), was a thriller that was extensively re-edited by the producers. Cammell was so incensed with the result that he had his name taken off the credits, and it was credited to the non-existent "Frank Brauner".
In April 1996 a despondent Cammell committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.schoss sich in den Kopf- Actor
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A tragic end belies a life led with purpose. The son of a successful filmmaker, Juzo Itami made his name acting in television and films before making a late career shift into screenwriting and directing at age 50. Known to choose the subjects of his films through everyday observations, he often followed up significant events in his life with films depicting idiosyncrasies that he felt were unique to the evolving Japanese culture. He was the definition of an iconoclast who took the great Molière's words to heart, "castigat ridendo mores" (criticise customs through humour).
Attributed as a key figure in the re-emergence of the latest wave of Japanese films that marked their presence outside of Japan, Itami proved to be a force of energy and originality that revived the country's stake in international cinema during the 1980s. Critics and audiences alike were simpatico when it came to his clever and keenly entrenched satires of his country's societal misgivings and he quickly became the most famous modern director of his generation. Throughout his directorial oeuvre of 10 films (list at the end), which stretched from 1984 to his final film in 1997, they were popular both domestically and maintained a staunch international following.
Every so often, Itami was compared to his then recently deceased French counterpart, Jacques Tati, who utilised similar styles of critiquing their society's cultural transition while crafting films with trenchant distinctions in humour and sadness. They also had almost similar, brief numbers of films that they directed and wrote before their death and they also used similar elements in the majority of their films. Itami cast his wife, Nobuko Miyamoto in every one of his 10 films. She was synonymous with Itami's fans across the world. Her versatility with melodrama and her impeccable comic timing proved invaluable to her husband's unique blend of the two genres as she portrayed characters that have been labeled as an "Everywoman" role. These roles laid the groundwork for a much more diverse representation of genders in Japan's films as Itami's women were usually strong, smart and gifted with moral fortitude when faces with tremendous adversity.
A common misconception outside of Japan would be that Tampopo (1985) was Itami's career-making debut. And although Tampopo (1985) is his most successful and critically acclaimed to date, his first feature was actually a humourous look at the Japanese attitudes towards death in The Funeral (1984), which touched on the generational gap opposing the stringently revered traditional values of the elders and the often-callous modernism of their children. Tampopo (1985) followed it to immense and unexpected success outside of its native land. The gastronomic "noodle western" as Itami himself had coined it, was an episodic venture (which formed the structure of his other films) of a restaurateur determined to create the best possible noodle for the best possible noodle eatery. Consumed with quirky characters and their own respective obsessions, it was a surreal fusion of wink-wink ribald imagery that was obstinately Japanese and a cheeky lampoon on the Leone "spaghetti westerns" that showed early signs of his development to an auteur. The public was now aware of Itami's established comedic style and free-wielding use of the narrative and they wanted more.
After a string of successful hits such as A Taxing Woman (1987) (A Taxing Woman) and its sequel came one of Itami's most intriguing films to date in Minbo also commonly held as Minbo (1992) (The Anti-Extortion Woman). It was scathing attack on the pride of the Japanese Yakuza through the film's story of a spirited female protagonist skewering and training feeble men to fight back against the criminal elements through courage and determination instead of resorting to violence. The film's realistic content apparently hit a sore spot with real gang members who waited outside of Itami's home and slashed him across his face that left him in the hospital. During his recuperation at the hospital, he found material for his next feature in The Last Dance (1993) about a dying film director accepting with his illness amidst an uncaringly cold healthcare system with an ironic look at infidelity and suicide that was a precursor to the rest of Itami's life. Still haunted and suitably outraged by the attack following Minbo, Itami's final film in 1997 was the black comedy Woman in Witness Protection (1997). It was his ode to freedom of expression that revolved around an actress witnessing a cult murder and becomes a target, both in the media and for hired guns.
On December 20, 1997, the 64-year-old Itami was found seriously injured on the street below his office and later died in the hospital. A suicide note was left behind by Itami that expressed innocence to a tabloid's accusation of his infidelity with a younger woman. Itami's energy and aversion to jadedness in his long career in films would have no doubt been still at use to this day if he was alive.Selbstmord- Actor
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The tragically brief life of fresh-faced, boyishly handsome Ross Alexander, who seemed to have everything going for him, plays these days like a bad Hollywood movie. Alexander was a charming, highly engaging young actor whose pleasant voice and breezy personality aided greatly in his transition from Broadway teen player to young adult Warner Bros. film actor. His peers would include such Warner stalwarts as Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell and Errol Flynn. Off-camera, however, Ross, a closeted homosexual, became an acutely self-destructive young man whose career instability and domestic tragedy would take its toll. The tormented Ross ended his own life at age 29.
Ross Alexander was born Alexander Ross Smith in Brooklyn, New York, to Maud Adelle (Cohen) and Alexander Ross Smith, a leather merchant. Raised in Rochester, New York, he pursued both drama and athletics in high school (soccer, swimming) and sidelined in little theater productions in town. In between he took his first Broadway bow as a young teen in Blanche Yurka's long-running comedy success "Enter Madame." He eventually moved back to New York City following schooling and began to build up his stage resume in stock companies. On Broadway he showed a modicum of promise in such plays as "The Ladder" (1926) and "Let Us Be Gay" (1929). The latter play introduced Ross to producer John Golden and marked an immoderate two-year association which would include the plays "After Tomorrow" (1930) and "That's Gratitude" (1930). Paramount apparently saw Ross' potential and started him off in pictures with The Wiser Sex (1932), but nothing happened. Continuing on Broadway with "The Stork Is Dead" (1932), "Honeymoon" (1932), "The Party's Over" (1933) and "No Questions Asked" (1934), he was re-noticed for films, this time by Warner Bros.
Warners signed him to appear in its popular backstage Depression-era musicals and collegiate capers. Alexander's fresh look and carefree, slightly cynical demeanor made him an instant favorite and he soon began humming with popular second leads in such musicals as Flirtation Walk (1934). On the dramatic side he was chosen to play Demetrius in the all-star A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), and in Errol Flynn's Captain Blood (1935) he played Jeremy Pitt, Blood's friend and navigator. Trouble started brewing, however, behind the scenes. Ross was being perceived by Warners as a second-ranked Dick Powell. As the studio began featuring him in Powell's castoffs and other uninspiring B-grade movies, they decided it was too taxing to both groom him for matinée idol status and conceal his homosexuality at the same time.
A probable marriage of convenience to budding starlet Aleta Friele, who appeared on Broadway using the name Aleta Freel, ended disastrously with the 28-year-old actress taking her own life with a rifle in their Hollywood Hills home. The actor was deeply shaken by this tragic event. He tried to cover his tracks yet again, however, by marrying beautiful actress Anne Nagel, whom he met while on the set of Hot Money, (1936),China Clipper (1936) and Here Comes Carter (1936). It didn't help quash his spiraling depression.
Finally Warners lost all patience and interest after having to cover up a potentially career-threatening gay-sex scandal, and Ross' promising career went down the tubes. To add insult to injury, he incurred major debt. On January 2, 1937, less than five months after his marriage to Nagel and shortly after the first anniversary of his first wife's death, Aleta Friele who also committed suicide, Alexander shot himself with a pistol in a barn behind his Encino ranch home. His last movie, the moderately received Ready, Willing and Able (1937) with Ruby Keeler, was released posthumously. Despite the fact he was the co-lead in the film, he was billed fifth, thus emphasizing the point that he had already lost most of his clout.schoss sich in den Kopf- Bella Darvi became a 50s symbol for one of the many movie "Cinderellas" whose bright and beautiful Hollywood fairy tale would come crashing down, ending in bitterness and tragedy. A self-destructive brunette beauty, her life was full of misfortune. Of Polish/French descent, she miraculously survived the tortures of a WWII concentration camp as a youth, only to get caught up in the phony glitter and high-living style of Monaco's casinos as a young adult in Europe. An inveterate gambler and drinker, she was, by chance, "discovered" by movie mogul Darryl F. Zanuck and his wife, Virginia Fox, who thought she had a foreign cinematic allure à la Ingrid Bergman. Despite her lack of acting experience, the Zanucks paid off her gambling debts and whisked her away to Hollywood to be groomed for stardom. Her marquee name "Darvi" was derived from the combined first names of her mentors. It should have been a dream-come-true opportunity. Fate, however, would not be so kind. After three high profile roles in The Egyptian (1954), Hell and High Water (1954) and The Racers (1955) opposite three top male films stars (Victor Mature, Richard Widmark and Kirk Douglas, respectively), Darvi's limited abilities were painfully transparent. Not only was she hampered by an ever-so-slight crossed-eyed appearance, she had a trace of a lisp which, combined with a foreign accent, made her speech appear slurred and difficult to understand. It didn't take long for the actress to go off the deep end. Within a short time, a major sex scandal involving Mr. Zanuck had wife Virginia packing Darvi's bags and any "career" she once had here in America was over. She retreated back to Europe, made a few inconsequential films, and quickly returned to her adverse habits -- liquor and the gambling tables. But this time there was no one to save her. Mounting debts and despair eventually turned her thoughts to suicide. After several attempts, Darvi finally succeeded in 1971 by turning on the gas stove in her apartment. She was only 42.Selbstmord, Gashahn
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An American character actor of prodigious output who also directed and wrote silent films, Paul Hurst spent much of his early work in low-budget westerns. A native of Traver, California (in the San Joaquin Valley), Hurst had first-hand knowledge of western lore, growing up surrounded by the multimillion-acre Lux & Miller ranches that ran cattle throughout the state. Visiting San Francisco as a young man, he became involved in amateur theatricals and thereafter traveled to Los Angeles to join the emerging film industry there. He began appearing in films as early as 1912, most of them westerns. By 1916 Hurst was directing them as well (some sources report that he served in World War I as a member of the French Foreign Legion, but the dates of his film projects make this story highly suspect).
In the early 1920s Hurst wrote several scenarios for films he directed and in which he appeared. He proved adept at working as a director for some of the cheapest producers along Gower Gulch, where movies were normally shot on location in a week or less and where stuntmen were often the highest-paid folks on the set. Within a few years he focused all of his energies into acting, however, notably becoming one of the few successes to emerge from "Poverty Row".
Hurst quickly became one of the more prolific and familiar characters in American movies. With his stocky build and squinty demeanor, and with a raspy voice that enhanced his memorability once sound pictures came in, Hurst played villains, cops and comedy sidekicks in more than 250 films. His most famous role was that of the deserter shot dead on the stairway of Tara by Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind (1939). Hurst was the sidekick to Monte Hale in a number of B westerns. Former Gower Gulch veteran John Wayne hired Hurst for Big Jim McLain (1952) knowing that Hurst was ill with terminal cancer. In 1953, at age 64, owing to his health problems, Paul Hurst committed suicide.Selbstmord- Actress
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Pretty, soulful-eyed Austrian actress Rose Stradner was a rising 30s ingénue on the Viennese stage and in a few German film romances and musicals when MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer, who was in Europe searching for exotic talent, discovered her. Along with Greer Garson, Ilona Massey and Hedy Lamarr, she was brought to Hollywood and groomed as a foreign import. Unfortunately, her personal life became a shambles and eventually overwhelmed her ability to perform.
She was born Rosa Luise Maria Stradner in Vienna in 1913 and educated at a convent. Her desire to become an actress came young. At 16 she studied at the Academy for Music and Art in Zurich, Switzerland, and at the age of 19, she auditioned for Max Reinhardt and handed a contract. She appeared for Austrian producer Max Reinhardt at the Volkstheater and Theater in der Josefstadt, often in the classics (Shakespeare, Ibsen, Moliere) but also handled modern plays (Dreiser, O'Neill). In Europe she also appeared in some German language films between 1933 and 1936.
Rose, her then-husband Karl Heinz Martin, a stage director, and her mother arrived in the United States in 1936. She and her Martin divorced soon after however. Making her U.S. debut as Edward G. Robinson's put-upon wife in The Last Gangster (1937), she showed promise and was signed by MGM. Her second film Blind Alley (1939), which was more Freudian in nature, starred Chester Morris as a psychologically-disturbed mobster who abducts psychiatrist Ralph Bellamy. Rose had less to do in this picture.
The budding star met well-known writer/producer/director Joseph L. Mankiewicz at around this time and she placed her career on hold. The couple married in 1939 had two sons, Chris, born 1940, and Tom. Christopher Mankiewicz, born 1942, who went on to a successful career of his own as a screenwriter. Although Rose returned for a small but key role as a Mother Superior in her husband's film The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), her career was officially over after only three more films. In 1948 she was cast in the Edna Ferber play "Bravo!" but she had to be replaced during tryouts, which caused her severe mental strain.
On a positive note, her fluency in several languages helped her husband's screenplays but the marriage was rocky almost from the start. In addition to Mankiewcz' infamous affairs with such stars as Judy Garland and Linda Darnell, Rose did not take easily to being a "hausfrau," and turned to alcohol to deaden her unhappiness. She would be known for going into emotional tirades and was eventually admitted to sanitariums to treat her violent rates. Constantly threatening suicide, a lethal mix of bitterness and depression set in and on September 27, 1958 ended her pain with an overdose of sleeping pills in the Mt. Kisco, New York, home she shared with her husband. She was only 45.Überdosis Schlaftabletten- Florence Lawrence was the first film player whose name was used to promote her films and the studio (Independent Moving Pictures Company [IMP]) for which she worked. Before her, actors and actresses worked anonymously, partly out of fear that stage managers would refuse to hire them if they were found to be working in films and partly because movie executives didn't want to put much money into the production of these short, practically disposable films, and didn't want their players to become well known and start demanding higher salaries. Lawrence was on the stage from age three, appearing in musicals and plays, whistling and playing the violin. At 20 she was cast in the Edison production of Daniel Boone (1907), and that led to work at Vitagraph Studios. From there she was hired by Biograph, where she refined and perfected her craft under the direction of D.W. Griffith. In 1909 she left Biograph to seek more recognizable employment at another film company. As a result she was blacklisted by the Motion Picture Trust, headed by Thomas A. Edison, to which most motion-picture producers belonged and which held the patents on most film production equipment and would not allow any companies that did not belong to the Trust to use them. Carl Laemmle started IMP in late 1909, and refused to join the Motion Picture Trust. The Trust took action--both legal and otherwise--to discourage Laemmle from producing films on his own. Lawrence and her husband, director Harry Solter, signed on as IMP's first featured players. In 1910 Laemmle, partly out of anger over the Trust's actions--such as hiring thugs to attack his film crews and wreck his equipment--decided to advertise the fact that he had Miss Lawrence. She made the first personal appearance of a film star in St. Louis, MO, that March, and the resulting publicity made her famous (and also increased the grosses on her--and Laemmle's--films). Other film companies soon followed suit, and the names of film actors and actresses began to appear in all segments of the media. Lawrence worked for IMP for a year, then spent another year at Lubin before she began her own production company, Victor, where she worked on and off until 1914. After a stage accident in which she injured her back, she retired from films, only to be lured back in 1916 for her first feature, Elusive Isabel (1916). It was unsuccessful. She tried a comeback again in 1921; that, too, was unsuccessful. She settled into bit parts and character roles through the 1920s and 1930s. She committed suicide in 1938 after years of unhappiness and illness. She was found in her apartment on Dec. 27, 1938 and died soon afterward in hospital.Selbstmord
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He was a Spanish actor; his father was from Puerto Rico and his mother from Catalonia. His debut in theater was in 1943 and in cinema in 1944. At the end of the fifties he lived in South America. He committed suicide with a gunshot while living in Mexico City, Mexico.erschoss sich selbst- Joan Dowling had a passion for acting and as an aspiring young actress she would take roles in plays, pantomimes and other works simply to be on the stage. Her first recognised role was at the tender age of 14 and she signed her first film contract at 17. She had natural talent and did not have any coaching, voice or other lessons before being 'discovered'. She was well known for her roles in Ealing Studios productions and met her husband, Harry Fowler, on the set of the 1947 Ealing comedy Hue and Cry (1947). Sadly, Joan's life did not have a happy ending and she committed suicide in 1954 - a mere 26 years old.Selbstmord
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The enigmatic actress remains one of the most interesting figures in German film. Although she achieved stardom early in her career, the tragic Sybille Schmitz could never fit in with her surroundings. Too "alien looking" for Hollywood, Schmitz never migrated to America like her more glamorous peers and began losing roles in her native Germany as well due to her vaguely Semitic appearance and ties to the Jewish community. After the war, like many former UFA stars, Sybille was seen as a painful reminder of the Third Reich and she was once more displaced by the optimistic "new look" actresses. With acting being her sole reason to thrive, Sybille Schmitz began to drink heavily and rely on drugs as her career sank lower and lower. She finally committed suicide under mysterious circumstances on April 13, 1955, while being "cared for" by a corrupt lesbian doctor she was living with at the time of her death.Überdosis Barbiturate, Suizid- Actress
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Born in Shanghai, China, as Chen Baolian, Pauline Chan emigrated to Hong Kong at age 12 with her mother when her parents divorced. A beautiful young girl, it didn't take long for photographers and agents to notice her and she began modeling at 15. In 1990 she entered the Miss Asia beauty pageant. She didn't win, but her striking looks, lithe body and classy bearing attracted the attention of several producers in Hong Kong's adult film industry. At age 18 she made her adult-film debut and her enthusiastic performances shot her to the top of the Chinese porn field. In 1997 she hooked up with a much older man, a Taiwanese millionaire, and they had a short (two-year) but stormy relationship. After their break-up in 1999, Chan's personal and professional lives began to unravel. She had had a drug problem for several years and it got worse--during one television interview in which she was apparently high on drugs she actually tried to commit suicide. A series of brushes with the law ensued, resulting in her being deported from several countries, and she was briefly sent to prison in the UK for assault. These and other incidents pretty much pulled the plug on her film career.
She moved back to her hometown of Shanghai and in July of 2002 gave birth to a baby boy. Motherhood didn't solve her problems, however, and on July 31, 2002, she leaped out of the window of her 24th-floor apartment and plunged to her death.Selbstmord, Sprung aus dem Fenster- Lilian Hall Davis was born June 23, 1898, in Mile End, London, England, the daughter of a London cab driver. For publicity purposes, she changed the spelling of her name to to the tonier Lillian Hall-Davis and reported her birthplace as the more fashionable Hampstead, London. She began acting in films in 1917 and by the early 1920s, Hall-Davis was one of the leading actresses of British silent film. She was Alfred Hitchcock's favorite actress during the early days of his career. He directed her in The Ring (1927) and The Farmer's Wife (1928) Hall-Davis was married to Walter Pemberton, a British stage actor. Her last film was a supporting role in Her Reputation (1931). By 1933, her film career was over, she was being treated for neurasthenia and was suffering a nervous breakdown. On October 25, 1933, she locked herself in the kitchen of her home in Golders Green, turned on the gas, stuck her head in the oven, and cut her throat with her brother's straight razor. Her 14-year-old son Grovsvenor, came home from school, found her suicide note in the hall and summoned the neighbors for help. They were too late. Hall-Davis was dead at the age of 34.Selbstmord
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Eager young James (aka Jimmy) Cardwell had an auspicious beginning and showed great promise in 1940s films. Dark-haired and thick-browed with an earnest, boyish look and set-jawed handsomeness that could remind someone of a John Garfield type, he couldn't have started off much better than by playing a young, heroic war casualty as one of The Fighting Sullivans (1944) (aka "The Fighting Sullivans"). By the end of the decade, however, James' film career did not advance and he ended things negligibly on TV. Despondency overwhelmed him and on January 31, 1954, he became another tragic Hollywood statistic, The victim of suicide at age 32, he has become completely forgotten save for film trivia enthusiasts.
The son of Raymond and Bessie (McCarroll) Cardwell, he was christened Albert Paine Cardwell after his grandfather, a Philadelphia publishing editor. Born in Camden, New Jersey, on November 21, 1921 (several sources give 1920) and raised there, young Cardwell attended Alfred Cramer Junior High School before transferring to Woodrow Wilson High School. While there he found himself drawn to acting and, after appearing in a sophomore play, served as president of the school's drama club. He also showed athletic prowess on the football field, as well as in track and field.
Following his graduation in 1940, he toiled about in a few odd jobs (clerk, laborer, etc.) but continued to prod his interest in acting by joining the Camden Drama Guild. Committed by this time, he later joined the Hedgerow Theater Group in Pennsylvania. While there he may ends meet by working in the shipping department for RCA Victor, meeting and marrying Esther Borton in June of 1942.
In the summer of 1943, while in New York looking for representation/work, James was seen by agents scouting out fresh faces for an upcoming WWII picture about five patriotic soldier-brothers. He won one of the brothers' roles. His wife, however, had no shared interest in his fledgling career or move to Los Angeles, and the marriage quickly ended. Signed up for seven years with Twentieth Century-Fox, he was renamed James Cardwell for the movies and the young hopeful made a heart-tugging debut in the war drama The Fighting Sullivans (1944), a somewhat fictionalized and sentimental, but nevertheless inspiring true-life story of five brothers from Iowa (Cardwell played George Sullivan) who served together (by request) and died on the same torpedoed ship during WWII.
After this film, James appeared in second leads as various reporters, rookies and private eye types in Charlie Chan mysteries and other various "B" level dramas, working throughout the post-war era of the 1940s. Despite his capabilities, he did not move to the top lead status and many of the films he did appear in were dismissed by the critics. For every engaging appearance in a strong quality film such as A Walk in the Sun (1945) or He Walked by Night (1948), one could count twice as many forgettable ones in lesser pictures (The Devil on Wheels (1947), Robin Hood of Texas (1947), King of the Gamblers (1948), Down Dakota Way (1949)). His single male lead in a movie may have dimmed any chances of further growth after co-starring with Lois Hall in the absurd Monogram adventure Daughter of the Jungle (1949), a distaff Tarzan movie complete with swinging vine scenes and female animal calls.
Unable to grasp the necessary momentum to advance, he fell further down the credits list while working on primarily "Poverty Row" studio movie projects. In the light comedy And Baby Makes Three (1949) and the Bogart war drama Tokyo Joe (1949), James received no billing at all, and he was completely overlooked in his last billed film appearance, a supporting role in the assembly-line Rex Allen western, The Arizona Cowboy (1950). Forced to look at TV as a possible medium, few opportunities came his way with the exception of a couple of guest parts on a Rod Cameron crime series. An uncredited role in the horror film Them! (1954) occurred shortly before his death.
In anticipation of his fading career, James started attending UCLA at night and taking up pre-med courses. At one point he toured Australia with Joe E. Brown in the top comedian's vaudeville act and joined a circus comedy acrobatic act called the Coleano Troupe that toured throughout the U.S. and Europe. Returning to the States in 1953, depression set in when he couldn't find TV work. On January 31, 1954, at age 32, with no prospects in sight and debts mounting, James shot himself in the head in an automobile he borrowed from a friend in a parking lot near his two-room West Los Angeles bungalow. He was survived by his parents and buried in his native Camden.schoss sich in den Kopf- Actor
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Richard Rosson, the movie actor and director, was born on April 4, 1893, in New York, New York. His siblings would excel in the new movie industry: his older brother was director Arthur Rosson, his younger sister Helene Rosson became a movie actress, and his younger brother Harold Rosson became a noted director of photography who won the first Academy Award for color cinematography.
Richard Rosson began acting in motion pictures in 1911, using the name Dick Rosson for his debut in the John Bunny comedy Selecting His Heiress (1911) Rosson was an actor until 1922, though he did make his directorial debut in 1917, co-helming Her Father's Keeper (1917) with his brother Arthur. Arthur directed Richard, the actor, in five films, Cassidy (1917), A Case at Law (1917), Polly of the Storm Country (1920) (on which brother Harold also was a collaborator as the director of photography), For Those We Love (1921), and Always the Woman (1922).
He began his directing career proper helming the Gloria Swanson picture Fine Manners (1926) at Famous Players-Lasky (Paramount). He made five movies in 1927, and three in 1928, until his directorial carer took a hiatus after The Very Idea (1929), his first sound picture. Apparently, Rosson was one of the silent directors displaced by the advent of sound. In 1928-29, the major Hollywood studios brought in Broadway directors and sound technicians and briefly tried to give them authority over the old hands who had established themselves as directors in the now-obsolete medium of silent film. As Rosson was a relative novice at directing, he likely was vulnerable.
Rosson began his long association with Howard Hawks by helping direct Scarface (1932). Rosson was used by Hawks as a second-unit director on four of his films, and Rosson was the co-director with Hawks on another film, Today We Live (1933). Rosson also directed the logging sequences in Hawks' _Come and Get It (1936)_ (producer Samuel Goldwyn fired Hawks and replaced him with William Wyler to complete the picture). The association with Hawks lasted until the end of his career, with Hawks producing Rosson's final film, Corvette K-225 (1943). Altogether, Rosson and Hawks were jointly involved in the production of eight pictures.
In addition to Polly of the Storm Country (1920) (which starred Charles Chaplin's ex-wife, billed as Mildred Harris Chaplin by producer Louis B. Mayer after Chaplin objected to Mayer's plans on billing her as Mrs. Charlie Chaplin), he worked with his brother Hal on Panthea (1917), Too Hot to Handle (1938), and Flight Command (1940).
Richard Rosson committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning on May 31, 1953, in Pacific Palisades, California, at the age of 60. He was buried at Hollywood Forever Cemetary.Selbstmord- Actor
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Beefy, roughhewn actor Robert Pastorelli was a former boxer and an admitted drug addict before he cleaned up his act and pursued theater work in New York in such 1970s productions as "Rebel Without a Cause," "The Rainmaker," and "Death of a Salesman," he headed west and turned to film and TV in 1982, soon finding a fairly comfortable niche playing ballsy, streetwise characters often with a Runyonesque feel and truck driver mentality. Supporting Bette Midler and Shelley Long in Outrageous Fortune (1987) and Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), his first meaty film role came with Kevin Costner's Dances with Wolves (1990). But it was TV that would be his claim to fame as Candice Bergen's gruff but mushy-hearted house painter in Murphy Brown (1988), staying with the show for seven seasons. With that came more visible roles in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993), Michael (1996), and Modern Vampires (1998). He played the role of salty Luther Billis in the mini-movie remake of South Pacific (2001) with Glenn Close, then appeared as Mitch with Ms. Close on stage in "A Streetcar Named Desire" a year later. Sadly, drugs once again took hold of Pastorelli in full force in later years. In 2004, the 49-year-old died of a heroin overdose and was found at home with a syringe in his arm in the bathroom by his assistant.Überdosis Heroin, kein Suizid- Born in Plano, Texas, Christopher Pettiet began career as a child actor making appearances in television series, made-for-television movies and films. He starred in two hit flicks, Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead (1991) and Point Break (1991), and then joined the cast of the Western TV series The Young Riders (1989) as a young Jesse James. After the cancellation of The Young Riders, his acting career began to wane. According to his manager, Bob Villard, Chris was just about "impoverished", living on "small residual check(s)". He went to a couple of AA meetings and never admitted to a drug problem. Sadly, he died of an accidental drug overdose, just two months after his 24th birthday.Überdosis Drogen
- Franca Kastein was born in 1969. She was an actress, known for The Legend of Rita (2000), Tatort (1970) and Lost Killers (2000). She died on 13 August 2000 in Berlin, Germany.Selbstmord, Sprung aus dem Fenster
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Bridgette Andersen was born on July 11, 1975 to Frank Glass and Teresa Andersen in Inglewood, California and grew up in Malibu. She always considered it good luck to have her birthday read as 7-11 rather than as July 11th. She would always kiss the first two fingers on her right hand and then touch any digital clock that read 7:11. As a child star, she played in many films, most notably Savannah Smiles (1982). As a teenager, she became involved with drugs, and, tragically, died in May 1997, aged 21, after overdosing on alcohol and heroin.Überdosis Heroin und Alkohol, wohl kein Suizid- Actor
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Son of character actor Robert Keith and stage actress Helena Shipman. He grew up on the road with his parents while they toured in plays. First appeared at age 3 in film Pied Piper Malone (1924) with his father. Began acting in radio programs and on stage before World War II. Joined the Marines and served as a machine gunner. Returned to Broadway stage after the war and branched out into television and film. Worked as an extra in several films before achieving speaking roles and subsequent stardom.erschoss sich selbst- Actress
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Born in Portland, Oregon, she grew up in on a farm in Ketchum, Idaho. But dad was Jack Hemingway, son of the Nobel prize-winning author Ernest Hemingway and, with that heritage, fame was almost foreordained. By the time she was 21, after the lead in the rape melodrama Lipstick (1976), she had a budding movie career, a $1 million promotional contract with Faberge perfume, and her face on magazine covers around the world. But, within the decade, it was all lost. Her sister Mariel Hemingway, whose role in Lipstick (1976) had been suggested by Margaux, was a much greater success. Margaux had started drinking heavily; two marriages had failed. In 1988, she checked herself into the Betty Ford Center for rehabilitation. Attempts to parley her recovery from alcohol into a revived career failed and, by the time she was 41, almost nothing was left. She lived alone in a studio apartment, no children, no lover, few friends. Neighbors informed police that she had not been seen for days and, on July 1, they entered through a 2nd-floor window. Dental records had to be used to confirm her identity.Selbstmord- Todd Armstrong was born on 25 July 1937 in St Louis, Missouri, USA. He was an actor, known for Jason and the Argonauts (1963), Icebound in the Antarctic (1983) and Iron Horse (1966). He died on 17 November 1992 in Butte, California, USA.erschoss sich selbst
- James Hayden was born on 25 November 1953 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Once Upon a Time in America (1984), The Nesting (1981) and The First Deadly Sin (1980). He was married to Barbara Daniels. He died on 8 November 1983 in New York City, New York, USA.Überdosis Heroin, kein Suizid
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Above all, Rainer Werner Fassbinder was a rebel whose life and art was marked by gross contradiction. Openly homosexual, he married twice; one of his wives acted in his films and the other served as his editor. Accused variously by detractors of being anticommunist, male chauvinist, antiSemitic and even antigay, he completed 44 projects between 1966 and 1982, the majority of which can be characterized as highly intelligent social melodramas. His prodigious output was matched by a wild, self-destructive libertinage that earned him a reputation as the enfant terrible of the New German Cinema (as well as its central figure.) Known for his trademark leather jacket and grungy appearance, Fassbinder cruised the bar scene by night, looking for sex and drugs, yet he maintained a flawless work ethic by day. Actors and actresses recount disturbing stories of his brutality toward them, yet his pictures demonstrate his deep sensitivity to social misfits and his hatred of institutionalized violence. Some find his cinema needlessly controversial and avant-garde; others accuse him of surrendering to the Hollywood ethos. It is best said that he drew forth strong emotional reactions from all he encountered, both in his personal and professional lives, and this provocative nature can be experienced posthumously through reviewing his artistic legacy.
Fassbinder was born into a bourgeois Bavarian family in 1945. His father was a doctor and his mother a translator. In order to have time for her work, his mother frequently sent him the movies, a practice that gave birth to his obsession with the medium. Later in life, he would claim that he saw a film nearly every day and sometimes as many as three or four. At the age of 15, Fassbinder defiantly declared his homosexuality, soon after which he left school and took a job. He studied theater in the mid-sixties at the Fridl-Leonhard Studio in Munich and joined the Action Theater (aka, Anti-Theater) in 1967. Unlike the other major auteurs of the New German Cinema (e.g., Schlöndorff, Herzog and Wenders) who started out making movies, Fassbinder acquired an extensive stage background that is evident throughout his work. Additionally, he learned how to handle all phases of production, from writing and acting to direction and theater management. This versatility later surfaced in his films where, in addition to some of the aforementioned responsibilities, Fassbinder served as composer, production designer, cinematographer, producer and editor. [So boundless was his energy, in fact, that he appeared in 30 projects of other directors.] In his theater years, he also developed a repertory company that included his mother, two of his wives and various male and female lovers. Coupled with his ability to serve in nearly any crew capacity, this gave him the ability to produce his films quickly and on extremely low budgets.
Success was not immediate for Fassbinder. His first feature length film, a gangster movie called Love Is Colder Than Death (1969) was greeted by catcalls at the Berlin Film Festival. His next piece, Katzelmacher (1969), was a minor critical success, garnering five prizes after its debut at Mannheim. It featured Jorgos, an emigrant from Greece, who encounters violent xenophobic slackers in moving into an all-German neighborhood. This kind of social criticism, featuring alienated characters unable to escape the forces of oppression, is a constant throughout Fassbinder's diverse oeuvre. In subsequent years, he made such controversial films about human savagery such as Pioneers in Ingolstadt (1971) and Whity (1971) before scoring his first domestic commercial success with The Merchant of Four Seasons (1972). This moving portrait of a street vendor crushed by the betrayal and his own futility is considered a masterpiece, as is his first international success Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) (Fear Eats the Soul). With a wider audience for his efforts, however, some critics contend that Fassbinder began to sell out with big budget projects such as Despair (1978), Lili Marleen (1981) and Lola (1981). In retrospect, however, it seems that the added fame simply enabled Fassbinder to explore various kinds of filmmaking, including such "private" works as In a Year with 13 Moons (1978) and The Third Generation (1979), two films about individual experience and feelings. His greatest success came with The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) (The Marriage of Maria Braun), chronicling the rise and fall of a German woman in the wake of World War II. Other notable movies include The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972), Fox and His Friends (1975), Satan's Brew (1976) and Querelle (1982), all focused on gay and lesbian themes and frequently with a strongly pornographic edge.
His death is a perfect picture of the man and his legend. On the night of June 10, 1982, Fassbinder took an overdose of cocaine and sleeping pills. When he was found, the unfinished script for a version of Rosa Luxemburg was lying next to him. So boundless was his drive and creativity that, throughout his downward spiral and even in the moment of his death, Fassbinder never ceased to be productive.eine Mischung aus Alkohol, Schlaftabletten und Kokain, kein Suizid- Actor
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Harry Meyen was born on 31 August 1924 in Hamburg, Germany. He was an actor and director, known for Endspurt (1970), Bunbury (1964) and Die Galerie der großen Detektive (1954). He was married to Romy Schneider and Anneliese Römer. He died on 15 April 1979 in Hamburg, West Germany.Selbstmord durch Erhängen- Actress
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Jean Dorothy Seberg was born in Marshalltown, Iowa, to substitute teacher Dorothy Arline (Benson) and pharmacist Edward Waldemar Seberg. Her father was of Swedish descent and her mother was of English and German ancestry.
One month before her 18th birthday, Jean landed the title role in Otto Preminger's Saint Joan (1957) after a much-publicized contest involving some 18,000 hopefuls. The failure of that film and the only moderate success of her next, Bonjour Tristesse (1958), combined to stall Seberg's career, until her role in Jean-Luc Godard's landmark feature, Breathless (1960), brought her renewed international attention. Seberg gave a memorable performance as a schizophrenic in the title role of Robert Rossen's Lilith (1964) opposite Warren Beatty and went on to appear in over 30 films in Hollywood and Europe.
In the late 1960s, Seberg became involved in anti-war politics and was the target of an undercover campaign by the FBI to discredit her because of her association with several members of the Black Panther party. She was found dead under mysterious circumstances in Paris in 1979.Überdosis Tabletten, Suizid