Richard Egan was born in 1929 in San Francisco. Among his first film credits was as Joan Crawford’s husband in “The Damned Don’t Cry” in 1950. He starred opposite Elvis Presley in “Love Me Tender” where he won Debra Paget away from Presley. I thought that this was a bit unbelievable when Elvis was such a major star.
Richard Egan played the dad of Sandra Dee, uhappily married to Constance Ford in “A Summer Place” in 1959. The film is remembered now for it’s hit theme tune and for the breakthrough role of Troy Donahue. He was in “Pollyanna” but this was the breakthrough role of Hayley Mills. He appeared in the television series “Empire” which was the breakthrough role for Ryan O’Neal. He died at the age of 63 in 1987.
TCM overview:
Richard Egan (July 29, 1921 – July 20, 1987) was an American actor. In some films he is credited as Richard Eagan. Born in San Francisco, California, Egan served in the United States Army as a judo instructor during World War II. A graduate of the University of San Francisco (B.A.) and Stanford University (M.A.).
In 1956, he starred in Presley’s first film, Love Me Tender, and in 1959 was the male lead opposite Dorothy McGuire in A Summer Place.
In 1960, Egan appeared in such films as Pollyanna, Esther and the King. Other noteworthy films include Undercover Girl, Split Second, A View from Pompey’s Head,”Voice In The Mirror”, about the man who started AA, and The 300 Spartans.
During the decade of the 60s, Richard Egan worked extensively in television, starring in the western drama series, Empire from 1962 to 1964. After his series ended, he made guest appearances on other television shows as well as acting in several motion pictures for the big screen plus in films made specifically for television.
In 1982 he joined the cast for the new daytime television political drama Capitol.
Richard Egan died in Los Angeles, California, on July 20th, 1987, 9 days before his 66th birthday, and was interred in the Holy Cross Cemetery in suburban Culver City, California.
Richard Egan was respected within the acting community for having helped a number of young actors get their first break in the film industry.
To view article on Richard Egan, please click here.
Patricia Medina obituary in “The Guardian” in 2012.
Although the actor Patricia Medina, who has died aged 92, had a cut-glass English accent, her voluptuous Latin looks often prevented her from playing English characters. As her name suggests, she was half-Spanish, born in Liverpool, the daughter of a Spanish father – a lawyer and former opera singer – and an English mother.
Medina, who appeared in more than 50 feature films, many of them costume dramas, was seldom called upon to display much acting ability, though she was an unusually spirited damsel in distress. However, she used the one chance she had to work with a director of magnitude, Orson Welles, in Mr Arkadin (also known as Confidential Report, 1955), to show what she was capable of. As Mily, in this breathless, globetrotting film, she is an earthy nightclub dancer who attempts to seduce the amnesiac billionaire Welles. It was through Welles that Medina met her second husband, Joseph Cotten, to whom she was married for 34 years until his death in 1994.
In her late teens, Medina was tested at Elstree studios. “I was awful,” she recalled. “The fact is I couldn’t act. I can’t believe they liked me. But one producer said it was because I was beautiful.” She made 10 films in Britain from 1937 to 1945, including The First of the Few (1942), They Met in the Dark (1943), with James Mason, and a haunted house comedy, Don’t Take It to Heart (1944), opposite her first husband, Richard Greene. It was around this period that she was given the title “the most beautiful face in the whole of England”.
In 1945 Medina moved to Los Angeles with Greene, who had already made a career there. Her first Hollywood picture was the psychological melodrama The Secret Heart (1946), though she was barely noticed down the cast list headed by Claudette Colbert, Walter Pidgeon and June Allyson. She went on to play sultry loose women in two period pieces: The Foxes of Harrow (1947) and The Fighting O’Flynn (1949), the latter with her husband.Advertisement
After playing stooge to a talking mule in Francis (1950) and to Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion (1950), Medina embarked on her swashbuckler’s lady period, starting with four films co-starring Louis Hayward: Fortunes of Captain Blood (1950), its sequel, Captain Pirate (1952), The Lady and the Bandit (1951) and Lady in the Iron Mask (1952).
There were also the Arabian Nights fantasies such as The Magic Carpet (1951), Aladdin and His Lamp (1952), and Siren of Bagdad (1953), with Medina’s beautiful dark eyes flashing behind veils. She was the feminine interest in Botany Bay (1953), starring Alan Ladd and James Mason, and Sangaree (1953), conveniently dying as Arlene Dahl’s rival for Fernando Lamas, and as the beautiful obsession of Karl Malden’s biologist/misogynist in Phantom of the Rue Morgue (1954). On television, she appeared in episodes of Zorro and in horse operas such as Rawhide and Have Gun Will Travel, usually as a Mexican.
Botany Bay, lobbycard, from left, James Mason, Patricia Medina, 1953. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)
Despite continuing to appear in hokum such as Drums of Tahiti (1954), Pirates of Tripoli (1955), Duel on the Mississippi (1955) and The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956), Medina, by now divorced from Greene, was having “one hell of a time”, as she put it.
In 1960 she married Cotten. They were an odd couple – she, a vivacious extrovert; he, a quiet, gentlemanly Virginian. They were inseparable, although they rarely appeared together on screen. But in 1962 Medina made her Broadway debut opposite Cotten in Calculated Risk, a whodunit that ran for six months.
One of her few films over the last decades was Robert Aldrich’s The Killing of Sister George (1968), in which she played a dominatrix.
When Cotten’s health deteriorated, Medina devoted herself to him, working only spasmodically. In 1998 she published her memoirs, Laid Back in Hollywood.
• Patricia Medina, actor, born 19 July 1919; died 28 April 2012
“The Guardian” obituary by Ronald Bergan can be accessed online here.
Carolyn Jones is chiefly known for her role as Mortica in the cult television series “The Adams Family”. However she is much much more than that. She gave several highly effective performances in the 1950’s and 1960’s and it is a pity that Mortica has obscured her other roles. She was born in Amarillo, Taxas in 1930. Jones spent several years in tiny parts in films and on television. In 1957 she was featured in “Batchelor Party” as a beatnik who was lonely and looking for security. She was heartbreaking in the role and was nominated for an Academy Award. Over the next five years she made several good movies, “Hole in the Head”, “King Creole” “Last Train from Gun Hill” and “Ice Palace”. Then came “The Adams Family”. When the series finished, she seemed to concentrate on television At the time of her death in 1983 she was starring in the long-running soap “Capitol”.
In addition to her movie work, Miss Jones appeared in about 30 different television programs, including six episodes in the ”Dragnet” series. She also had roles in ”Playhouse 90” productions and the ”Colgate Comedy Hour.” But it was her performances in the early 1960’s television series, ”The Addams Family,” that brought her greater popularity than any of her movie portrayals.
She is survived by her husband and a sister, Betty, of Massachusetts.
Article on Carolyn Jones on the “Cult Sirens” website here. .
THE TURNING POINT, US poster art, Edmond O’Brien, Alexis Smith, William Holden, Carolyn Jones, 1952.CAREER, US poster art, clockwise from top left: Dean Martin, Anthony Franciosa, Carolyn Jones, Shirley MacLaine; bottom inset: Joan Blackman, 1959
New York Times obituary in 1983:
The movie and television actress Carolyn Jones, who was best known for her role as the ghoulish Morticia in the television series ”The Addams Family,” died of cancer today at her home here. She was 50 years old.
Among the films in which Miss Jones appeared were, ”Marjorie Morningstar,” ”The Road to Bali,” ”Baby Face Nelson” ”The Saracen Blade,” ”The Man Who Knew Too Much,” ”The Seven Year Itch,” ”House of Wax,” ”The Tender Trap,” ”Last Train From Gun Hill” and ”Ice Palace.”
In addition to her movie work, Miss Jones appeared in about 30 different television programs, including six episodes in the ”Dragnet” series. She also had roles in ”Playhouse 90” productions and the ”Colgate Comedy Hour.” But it was her performances in the early 1960’s television series, ”The Addams Family,” that brought her greater popularity than any of her movie portrayals. Early Interest in Acting
Miss Jones was born in Amarillo, Tex., and showed an early interest in acting. When she was 15 years old, she enrolled in classes at the Pasadena Community Playhouse, even though she was three years under the acceptable age.
Her first motion-picture role came as a result of a Playhouse production when she was seen by a talent scout and signed to appear with William Holden in ”The Turning Point” in 1952.
Miss Jones’s first marriage, to the producer Aaron Spelling, ended in 1964. She later married Herbert Green, a conductor-arranger, and lived in semiretirement for two years in Palm Springs – which she called ”God’s waiting room.” After her second marriage ended in divorce, Miss Jones married an actor, Peter Bailey-Britton, in 1981.
She is survived by her husband and a sister, Betty, of Massachusetts
Movita Wolf Call, US lobbycard, Movita, (third left), John Carroll, (right), 1939. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)
Movita obituary in “The Telegraph” in 2017.
Movita who has died in Los Angeles aged 98, was briefly the second wife of Marlon Brando, although his paramour for much longer; she also herself had a minor career in Hollywood, most notably featuring in the 1935 version of Mutiny on the Bounty, which Brando remade nearly three decades later.
The details of her relationship with Brando were complex and shrouded in mystery. Much of this was deliberate on his part. Not only did he dislike press intrusion into his personal life, he also enjoyed the licence that his status gave him to conduct it with little regard for others .
He and Movita Castaneda, who was of Mexican descent, first met in about 1951 while sharing a taxi when he was researching the life of the revolutionary Emiliano Zapata. Castaneda was then in her mid-thirties, eight years older than Brando, and divorced from Jack Doyle, the former boxer.
Brando, the rising star, found her amusing and sympathetic. He had a penchant for fiery Latin women, and made use of Castaneda in part to lend an authentic inflection to his screen portrayal of Zapata in 1952. They also became lovers, albeit from the start she knew that she was merely one of an exhaustive – indeed, exhausting – rota of lovers of both sexes; among them was Marilyn Monroe.
Movita Castaneda had already enjoyed tempestuous affairs with Clark Gable and Errol Flynn, but with Brando she was content to remain in the shadows. This suited Brando, who kept her quartered nearby as he made Julius Caesar (1953) and On the Waterfront (1954). At times he introduced her as his girlfriend, but there were several break-ups even before he married the British actress Anna Kashfi in 1957.
Brando and Anna Kashfi divorced within two years, and began a long and bitter dispute for custody of their son, Christian. In court, it then emerged that Brando had secretly married Movita Castaneda in Mexico in 1960, perhaps because she was then pregnant . Their son, christened Sergio but always known as Miko, later became one of Michael Jackson’s principal confidants.
Despite being legally her husband, Brando still declined to live with Castaneda, and in the early Sixties publicly continued with a bachelor existence. Much of that time he spent in Tahiti, shooting Mutiny on the Bounty (1962). Soon after its release, he announced that he was to marry his 19-year-old co-star, Tarita Teri’ipaia.
Tired of his philandering, Movita Castaneda decamped to Mexico. In 1966 she would give birth to their daughter, Rebecca, even though their marriage had by then been dissolved. (Brando is thought to have sired at least 15 children, not all of them acknowledged; one theory has it that he may be the grandfather of the singer Courtney Love).
Although sources give several dates of birth for her, Movita Castaneda was born (according to her family) on April 12 1916, on a moving train which had just crossed the border from Mexico into Arizona. She was christened Maria Luisa and was one of 10 children; her sister Petra is still alive aged 102.
She was educated at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles, and her ability to play guitar led to her being spotted by film scouts. She made her screen debut in 1933, singing the Oscar-nominated Carioca in Flying Down to Rio. The tune was noteworthy for providing the music for the first time that Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were seen dancing together on screen.
Movita’s looks led to her being cast in exotic roles in several other films of the period, including Mutiny on the Bounty, in which she played Franchot Tone’s island love interest – although it was his co-star Gable who caught her eye. For publicity purposes, MGM executives renamed her “Movita”, which she thereafter retained.
Her other films in this period include Captain Calamity (1936), with George Houston and Marian Nixon; El Capitan Tormenta (1936), with Lupita Tovar; Paradise Isle (1937), which had the tag-line “His strong arms drew this red-lipped-beauty to him!”; and The Hurricane (1937), directed by John Ford.
In 1939 she married Jack Doyle . The 6ft 5in Irishman, known as “The Gorgeous Gael”, was noted for his fondness for women and drink. In 1933 he lost the fight for the British heavyweight title after being disqualified for punching low, allegedly while hung-over and suffering from venereal disease. He had more success against Clark Gable, whom he is said to have knocked out following a row over Carole Lombard.
Doyle had by then made a second career as a singer, but his eye for the ladies had led the Dodge automobile family to send a gunman after him when he proposed to marry its heiress, Delphine. His first wife, the actress Judith Allen, had previously got shot of him by sending him a telegram marked merely “Finished”.
After their wedding in Dublin, he and Movita Castaneda became a well-known attraction in British music halls. They recorded a hit song, South of the Border, and opened a nightclub in London, the Swizzle Stick. Movita Castaneda saw out the Blitz there, and in 1941 appeared in the British thriller Tower of Terror.
Her real fear, however, was reserved for Doyle when he was in drink. They divorced in 1944 after he had beaten her up, causing her to miscarry, when she caught him dallying with a woman in a taxi outside their home. (Doyle died penniless in 1978).
After returning to Hollywood, she began to rebuild her career with bit parts in films, such as playing Henry Fonda’s cook in Fort Apache (1948).
She and Brando remained on amicable terms until his death in 2004, although he kept her short of money, forcing her to work for a time as a delivery driver for a garage. Later she had a small role for some years in the Dallas spin-off, Knots Landing.
Moyna MacGill was born in Belfast in 1995. She was the daughter of a solicitor. She acted on the London stage and in British films. In 1940 she was a widow and to protect her children from the London bombings she moved with them to New York. She then went to Hollywood where she worked as a sterling character actress in such films as “Green Dolphin Street”, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” and on many television programmes. She died in 1975. Moyna MacGill was the mother of Angela Lansbury. Blog on Moyna McGill can be accessed here.
“Wikipedia” entry:
Born in Belfast, she was the daughter of a wealthy solicitor who was also a director of the Grand Opera House in Belfast, a position that sparked her interest in theatrics. She was still a teen when she was noticed riding the London Underground by director George Pearson, who cast her in several of his films. In 1918, she made her stage debut in the play Love in a Cottage at the West End‘s Globe Theatre.
Encouraged by Gerald du Maurier to change her name to Moyna Macgill (which invariably was misspelled as “MacGill” or “McGill”, and on at least one occasion, the film Texas, Brooklyn and Heaven, as “Magill”), she became a leading actress of the day, appearing in light comedies, melodramas, and classics opposite Herbert Marshall, John Gielgud, and Basil Rathbone, among others.
Twenty-six-year-old Macgill was married with a three-year-old daughter, Isolde (who later married Sir Peter Ustinov), when she became involved romantically with Edgar Lansbury, a socialist politician, who was a son of the Labour MP and Leader of the Opposition George Lansbury. Her husband, actor Reginald Denham, named Lansbury as co-respondent when he filed for divorce. A year after it was finalized, Macgill and Lansbury married and with Isolde settled into a garden flat in London‘s Regent’s Park.
Macgill temporarily set aside her career following the birth of daughter Angela and twin sons Edgar, Jr., and Bruce (both went on to becomeBroadway producers, but Bruce is better known for his work on television, such as the series The Wild Wild West, Mission: Impossible, and his sister’s Murder, She Wrote), although music and dance were prevalent in their upbringing. When they moved into a larger house in suburban Mill Hill, she turned their home into a salon for actors, writers, directors, musicians, and artists, all of whom left an impression on young Angela and were instrumental in directing her interests towards acting.
The above “Wikipedia” entry can also be accessed online here.
Brian Keith obituary in “The Independent” in 1997.
Brian Keith was a burly veteran of over 100 films, in which he appeared with such stars as Doris Day, Burt Lancaster, Charlton Heston, Roger Moore, Elizabeth Taylor and Gene Tierney.
Keith’s parents were both actors. His father, Robert Keith, starred in such films as The Wild One (1953), Young at Heart (1954), Love Me or Leave Me (1955) and Guys and Dolls (1955), but Brian, despite having appeared in a silent film at the age of three, initially had no acting ambitions.
During the Second World War he served with the US Marine Corps as a machine gunner. After his release from the service, he finally succumbed to family tradition; his first adult screen role was with Charlton Heston in Arrowhead (1953). For the rest of the 1950s he darted from studio to studio, appearing in such action films as Alaska Seas (1954), The Violent Men (1955), Run of the Arrow (1957) and Fort Dobbs (1958).
In the television series The Westerner (1960) Keith played Dave Blassingame, a stony-faced adventurer roaming the Mexican border accompanied by a mongrel called Brown. That same dog had played the title role in the Disney film Old Yeller three years earlier.
Coincidentally, the Disney organisation offered Keith his next film; in The Parent Trap (1961), he and Maureen O’Hara were the divorced parents of twins, both played by Hayley Mills. The plot concerned the siblings’ efforts (successful, of course) to reunite their parents. After The Parent Trap Keith suddenly found himself playing more sympathetic roles; in Disney’s Those Calloways (1965) he played a likeable eccentric who, with the help of his adoring family, battles to save a lake on which he intends to make a bird sanctuary.
Television producers too saw him in a different light, and he was starred in the sitcom Family Affair (1966-71), in which he played a carefree, wealthy bachelor whose life is suddenly complicated when three lovable young orphans are thrust upon him. His next sitcom, The Little People (later The Brian Keith Show), was filmed in Hawaii. The story of a father and daughter team of paediatricians running a clinic on a tropical island, it ran from 1972 until 1974. Thereafter, Keith regarded Hawaii as his adopted state and visited there as often as possible.
He made a personal success as President Teddy Roosevelt in the film The Wind and the Lion (1975) and appeared with Roger Moore in the James Bond film Moonraker (1979). He acted with Burt Reynolds in Hooper (1978), directed by Hal Needham. In 1981 he appeared in Sharkey’s Machine, directed by Reynolds himself. Keith played an army officer, involved in an adulterous affair with Elizabeth Taylor, in John Huston’s disastrous film Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967). Two years later, Keith appeared in another cinematic flop, Krakatoa, East of Java; the quality of which can best be summed up by the fact that Krakatoa is actually west of Java.
After the failure of the Peter Ustinov comedy Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen (1981), Keith joked, “I only did the picture because it had a long title, and I seem to specialise in those” (he had previously appeared in The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming, 1966, With Six You Get Egg Roll, 1968, and Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came, 1970).
Brian Keith’s most recent film appearances were in Young Guns (1988) and Welcome Home (1989).
Robert Brian Keith, actor: born Bayonne, New Jersey 14 November 1921; married first Frances Helm, second Judith London, third Victoria Young; died Los Angeles, California 24 June 1997.
Brian Keith was a burly veteran of over 100 films, in which he appeared with such stars as Doris Day, Burt Lancaster, Charlton Heston, Roger Moore, Elizabeth Taylor and Gene Tierney.
Keith’s parents were both actors. His father, Robert Keith, starred in such films as The Wild One (1953), Young at Heart (1954), Love Me or Leave Me (1955) and Guys and Dolls (1955), but Brian, despite having appeared in a silent film at the age of three, initially had no acting ambitions.
During the Second World War he served with the US Marine Corps as a machine gunner. After his release from the service, he finally succumbed to family tradition; his first adult screen role was with Charlton Heston in Arrowhead (1953). For the rest of the 1950s he darted from studio to studio, appearing in such action films as Alaska Seas (1954), The Violent Men (1955), Run of the Arrow (1957) and Fort Dobbs (1958).
In the television series The Westerner (1960) Keith played Dave Blassingame, a stony-faced adventurer roaming the Mexican border accompanied by a mongrel called Brown. That same dog had played the title role in the Disney film Old Yeller three years earlier.
Coincidentally, the Disney organisation offered Keith his next film; in The Parent Trap (1961), he and Maureen O’Hara were the divorced parents of twins, both played by Hayley Mills. The plot concerned the siblings’ efforts (successful, of course) to reunite their parents. After The Parent Trap Keith suddenly found himself playing more sympathetic roles; in Disney’s Those Calloways (1965) he played a likeable eccentric who, with the help of his adoring family, battles to save a lake on which he intends to make a bird sanctuary.
Television producers too saw him in a different light, and he was starred in the sitcom Family Affair (1966-71), in which he played a carefree, wealthy bachelor whose life is suddenly complicated when three lovable young orphans are thrust upon him. His next sitcom, The Little People (later The Brian Keith Show), was filmed in Hawaii. The story of a father and daughter team of paediatricians running a clinic on a tropical island, it ran from 1972 until 1974. Thereafter, Keith regarded Hawaii as his adopted state and visited there as often as possible.
He made a personal success as President Teddy Roosevelt in the film The Wind and the Lion (1975) and appeared with Roger Moore in the James Bond film Moonraker (1979). He acted with Burt Reynolds in Hooper (1978), directed by Hal Needham. In 1981 he appeared in Sharkey’s Machine, directed by Reynolds himself. Keith played an army officer, involved in an adulterous affair with Elizabeth Taylor, in John Huston’s disastrous film Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967). Two years later, Keith appeared in another cinematic flop, Krakatoa, East of Java; the quality of which can best be summed up by the fact that Krakatoa is actually west of Java.
After the failure of the Peter Ustinov comedy Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen (1981), Keith joked, “I only did the picture because it had a long title, and I seem to specialise in those” (he had previously appeared in The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming, 1966, With Six You Get Egg Roll, 1968, and Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came, 1970).
Brian Keith’s most recent film appearances were in Young Guns (1988) and Welcome Home (1989).
Robert Brian Keith, actor: born Bayonne, New Jersey 14 November 1921; married first Frances Helm, second Judith London, third Victoria Young; died Los Angeles, California 24 June 1997.
Christopher Jones obituary in “The Daily Telegraph” in 2014.
Christopher Jones was born in Jackson, Tennessee in 1941. He was very similar in looks to the late James Dean and was promoted as such on film and television. In 1965 he starred in “The Legend of Jesse James” on television. He starred in the cult classic “Wild in the Streets” in 1968. In Europe he made “The Looking Glass War”. In 1969 he came to the West of Ireland to make David Lean’s “Ryan’s Daughter” with Sarah Miles and Robert Mitchum. For whatever reason, this proved to be his last fim for years. He disappeared from public view. Quentin Tarentino tried to persuade him to return to film acting by offering him a role in “Pulp Fiction”. However he refused the offer. He did though make a comeback in 1996 in “Mad Dog Time”. This film seems to be his last film. He died in January 2014. His obituary in “The LA Times” can be accessed here.
“Telegraph” obituary:
Christopher Jones, the actor, who has died aged 72, was tipped in the late 1960s to be James Dean’s successor as the idol of the Odeons. However, on the cusp of international fame, and with a life riven by tragedy, he turned his back on Hollywood shortly after completing his most famous role, the romantic lead in David Lean’s Ryan’s Daughter.
Original Cinema Quad Poster – Movie Film PostersOriginal Cinema Quad Poster – Movie Film Posters
He faced two major traumas. First, he struggled to cope with his mother’s mental breakdown and early death in a Tennessee asylum. Then, as big roles finally materialised and the industry lay at his feet, he was irrevocably disturbed by the murder of Sharon Tate (Roman Polanski’s wife) with whom he was having an affair. Shaken by the events and his mauling by the critics on the release of Lean’s epic, he retired from acting in 1970.
Billy Frank Jones (known professionally as Christopher) was born on August 18 1941 in Jackson, Tennessee, into straitened circumstances. His family lived above the grocery store where his father was a clerk. When Jones was four, his mother was confined to a psychiatric hospital, where she remained until her death in 1960. “I can remember her picking me up once,” recalled Jones, “but I can’t remember what she looked like.” He was passed between relatives and a boys’ home and frequently separated from his brother. In his early twenties he joined the Army but went Awol two days after signing up (for which he was briefly jailed).
His acting trajectory was a blueprint for 1960s matinee stars. He lit up Broadway in The Night of the Iguana (1961) and auditioned at the celebrated Actors Studio in New York – he even married Susan Strasberg, the daughter of its director, Lee Strasberg. Television roles included the cult classic Wild in the Streets (1968) and the titular outlaw in The Legend of Jesse James (1965-66). Hollywood beckoned. He took on swinging farce in Three in the Attic (1968), and The Looking Glass War (1969) saw him in a John le Carré thriller.
This rise led to his role in Ryan’s Daughter. Jones played Major Randolph Doryan, the English commander of an Army base on Ireland’s Dingle Peninsula, who has an affair with Rosy (Sarah Miles), the wife of a local schoolmaster. The casting was unlikely. The shoot dragged on for a year and relations between Lean and Jones became strained. A lack of chemistry between Jones and Miles provoked the crew to drug him in order to “help matters” in the love scenes. The lack of authenticity didn’t end there – Jones’s dialogue was dubbed in post-production.
Celebrity, however, brought with it the attentions of some of the world’s most beautiful actresses, including Pia Degermark and Olivia Hussey. “My manhood is my soul,” he once claimed. Bette Davis disagreed. “I tried to jiggle her,” admitted Jones, “but I wasn’t sophisticated enough.” One of his lovers was the English starlet Susan George who, he recalled “came up to my apartment when I was staying in London and the next day moved her toothbrush in, so I had to say: ‘No way’”.
However, it was his short-lived affair with Sharon Tate that was to affect him most deeply. The pair’s dalliance took place in 1969 in Rome, where Jones was filming and Sharon Tate was visiting. She was pregnant with Polanski’s baby at the time and Jones was involved with Pia Degermark.
On the evening of August 9 1969, while Jones was filming in Ireland, members of Charles Manson’s cult broke into Sharon Tate’s home in Los Angeles and stabbed her to death. “I loved Sharon and she loved me,” stated Jones (who only talked of the events in 2007 “partly because I want to see if God strikes me dead”). When the news reached him at his hotel in Ireland he experienced a breakdown and, as Sarah Miles described in her memoir, his behaviour became increasing erratic.
After Ryan’s Daughter he gave up acting – “I realised I hated it” – and lived off the proceeds of his film career, taking up painting and sculpture. “He was big, and with the right person directing, he could still be as big as anybody,” noted Quentin Tarantino in the 1990s. However, in 1994 Jones turned down the director’s offer to play the part of Zed the “Gimp” in Pulp Fiction (1994). His then girlfriend called the role “disgusting”. A late return to acting in the 1996 crime caper Trigger Happy failed to fan the embers of a once blazing career.
Jones’s marriage was dissolved. He is survived by his partner, Paula McKenna, and seven children.
The above “Telegraph” ob ituary can also be accessed online here.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
Christopher Jones was a brief cult star of the late 60s counterculture era and a would-be successor to James Dean had he wanted it. Born Billy Frank Jones amid rather impoverished surroundings to a grocery clerk in Jackson, Tennessee in 1941, his artist mother had to be institutionalized when Chris was 4. She died in a mental facility in 1960 and this was always to haunt him. Shifted back and forth between homes and orphanages and placed in Boys Town at one point to straighten out his life, Chris joined the service as a young adult but went AWOL two days later. After serving out his time on Governor’s Island for this infraction, he moved to New York and studied painting, meeting a motley crew of actors and artists. Friends were startled by his uncanny resemblance to James Dean – his brooding good looks and troubled nature were absolutely eerie. Encouraged to try out for the Actor’s Studio, he was accepted and eventually won a role on Broadway in “The Night of the Iguana” in 1961. He ended up marrying acting coach Lee Strasberg’s daughter, Susan, in 1965 but his erratic behavior sent her packing within three years. Chris’ undeniable charisma led him to Hollywood for a role in Chubasco (1967) with wife Susan, and then brief cult stardom in Wild in the Streets (1968) as a rock star who becomes president. This popular satire, in turn, led to international projects such as The Looking Glass War (1969) and Ryan’s Daughter (1970). But the trappings of success got to him. Numerous entanglements with the Hollywood “in crowd” took its toll, including those with Pamela Courson (Jim Morrison’s girlfriend at the time), the ill-fated Sharon Tate, one-time co-star Pia Degermark and Olivia Hussey (who rushed into a marriage with Dean Paul Martin shortly after Chris turned his back on marriage). The work load left him emotionally spent and Tate’s brutal murder left him devastated. He split the scene but ended up a victim of Sunset Strip drug culture. Little was heard of Chris until decades later when Quentin Tarantino offered him a part in Pulp Fiction (1994). The now reclusive and eccentric Jones refused the role, but this was not the case with a lower profile role in Mad Dog Time (1996) a couple of years later. This proved to be only a minor comeback or not has yet to be determined.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
Christopher Knight was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He had the lead role in the movie of James Farrell’s “Studs Lonigan” in 1960 in which Jack Nicholson had a supporting part. Christopher Knight then in 1962 supported Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin in “If a Man Answers”. There are no other credits available for Christopher Knight. Christopher Knight died in 2006.
Tab Hunter was born in New York in 1931 of German parents. His first film in 1952 was “Island of Desire” opposite Linda Darnell. By the mid-50’s he was a teenage favourite in the U.S. He won acclaim for his performance as a marine in “Battle Cry”. He starred in the musical “Damn Yankees”. He had a world wide No 1 Hit Selling Song in 1957 with “Young Love”. From the mid-60’s onwards he also acted on stage and on television. He published his autobiography in 2005 entitled “Tab Hunter Confidential”.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
Dreamy Tab Hunter goes down in the film annals as one of the hottest teen film idols of the 50s era. With blond, tanned, surfer-boy good looks, he was artificially groomed and nicknamed “The Sigh Guy” by the Hollywood studio system, yet managed to continue his career long after his “golden boy” prime. He was born Arthur Kelm in New York City on July 11, 1931, the younger of two sons of Charles Kelm and Gertrude Gelien. His childhood was marred by an abusive father and, following his parents’ divorce, his mother moved the children to California, changing their last names to her maiden name of Gelien. Leaving school and joining the Coast Guard at age 15 (he lied about his age), he was eventually discharged when the age deception was revealed. Returning home, his life-long passion for horseback riding led to a job with a riding academy. His fetching handsomeness and trim, athletic physique eventually steered the Californian toward the idea of acting.
An introduction to famed agent Henry Willson had Tab signing on the dotted line and what emerged, along with a major career, was the stage moniker of “Tab Hunter.” Willson was also responsible with pointing hopeful Roy Fitzgerald towards stardom under the pseudonym Rock Hudson. With no previous experience Tab made his first, albeit minor, film debut in the racially trenchant drama The Lawless (1950) starring Gail Russelland Macdonald Carey. His only line in the movie was eventually cut upon release. It didn’t seem to make a difference for he co-starred in his very next film, the British-madeIsland of Desire (1952) co-starring a somewhat older (by ten years) Linda Darnell, which was set during WWII on a deserted, tropical South Seas isle. His shirt remained off for a good portion of the film, which certainly did not go unnoticed by his ever-growing legion of female (and male) fans. Signed by Warner Bros., stardom was clinched a few years later with another WWII epic Battle Cry (1955), based on the Leon Uris novel, in which he again played a boyish soldier sharing torrid scenes with an older woman (this timeDorothy Malone, playing a love-starved Navy wife). Thoroughly primed as one of Hollywood’s top beefcake commodities, the tabloid magazines had a field day initiating an aggressive campaign to “out” Hunter as gay, which would have ruined him. To combat the destructive tactics, Tab was seen escorting a number of Hollywood’s lovelies at premieres and parties. In the meantime he was seldom out of his military fatigues on film, keeping his fans satisfied in such popular dramas as The Sea Chase (1955), The Burning Hills (1956) and The Girl He Left Behind (1956)–the last two opposite the equally popular Natalie Wood.
At around this time Hunter managed to parlay his boy-next-door film celebrity into a singing career. He topped the charts for over a month with the single “Young Love” in 1957 and produced other “top 40” singles as well. Like other fortunate celebrity-based singers such as Shelley Fabares and Paul Petersen, his musical reign was brief. Out of it, however, came the most notable success of his film career top-billing as baseball fan Joe Hardy in the classic Faustian musical Damn Yankees! (1958) opposite Gwen Verdon andRay Walston, who recreated their devil-making Broadway roles. Musically Tab may have been overshadowed but he brought with him major star power and the film became a crowd pleaser. He continued on with the William A. Wellman-directed Lafayette Escadrille(1958) as, yet again, a wholesome soldier, this time in World War I. More spicy love scenes came with That Kind of Woman (1959), an adult comedy-drama which focused on soldier Hunter and va-va-voom mistress Sophia Loren demonstrating some sexual chemistry on a train.
Seldom a favorite with the film critics, the 1960s brought about a career change for Tab. He begged out of his restrictive contract with Warners and ultimately paid the price. With no studio to protect him, he was at the mercy of several trumped-up lawsuits. Worse yet, handsome Troy Donahue had replaced him as the new beefcake on the block. With no film offers coming his way, he starred in his own series The Tab Hunter Show (1960), a rather featherweight sitcom that centered around his swinging bachelor pad. The series last only one season. On the positive side he clocked in with over 200 TV programs over the long stretch and was nominated for an Emmy award for his outstanding performance opposite Geraldine Page in a Playhouse 90 episode. Following the sparkling film comedyThe Pleasure of His Company (1961) opposite Debbie Reynolds, the quality of his films fell off drastically as he found himself top-lining such innocuous fare as Operation Bikini(1963), Ride the Wild Surf (1964) (1965), City in the Sea (1965) [aka War-Gods of the Deep], and Birds Do It (1966) both here and overseas. As for stage, a brief chance to star on Broadway happened in 1964 alongside the highly volatile Tallulah Bankhead inTennessee Williams‘s “The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore.” It lasted five performances. He then started to travel the dinner theater circuit.
Tab Hunter
Enduring a severe lull, Tab bounced back in the 1980s and 1990s — more mature, less wholesome, but ever the looker. He gamely spoofed his old clean-cut image by appearing in delightfully tasteless John Waters‘ films as a romantic dangling carrot to heavyset transvestite “actress” Divine. Polyester (1981) was the first mainstream hit for Waters and Tab went on to team up with Allan Glaser to co-produce and co-star a Waters-like western spoof Lust in the Dust (1985). He is still working as a film producer at age 70+ in Southern California. Tab also “came out” with a tell-all memoir on his Hollywood years in October of 2005.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
