# Actors' spouses' deaths from influenza? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** actor-characters\ **Created:** [December 8, 2025, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-spouses-deaths-from-influenza/1025511 "2025-12-08T02:37:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2025, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-spouses-deaths-from-influenza/1025511/1 "2025-12-08T02:37:54Z")
We watch a lot of movies on TCM. Watching _Shall We Dance_ (1937), I looked up Eric Blore. He married his first wife in 1917, and she died in 1919. _Christmas In Connecticut_ (1945) is on now. S.Z. Sakall married his first wife in 1916, and she died in 1918. What is the likelihood that both spouses died from the Great Influenza Epidemic of 1918-1920? Are there documented cases of actors’ spouses dying of the so-called ‘Spanish flu’? ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2025, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-spouses-deaths-from-influenza/1025511/2 "2025-12-08T03:46:00Z")
I’m not an expert, but I imagine if they said you had flu in that time period I’m sure it was considered the Spanish flu. All flu would’ve been treated the same. I think. So many people died of it, at the time. Did they, in fact, run the tests to say definitely whether it was Spanish flu or another variety that killed each person? I don’t think there’s anyway to know now. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2025, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-spouses-deaths-from-influenza/1025511/3 "2025-12-08T03:47:18Z")
I don’t even know if influenza was the cause of the actors’ spouses deaths. But they would have been young, and the timeframe fits. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2025, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-spouses-deaths-from-influenza/1025511/4 "2025-12-08T04:02:27Z")
Insufficient data. Might have been a car accident, might have been a miscarriage that led to hemorrhage, might have been some tainted Prohibition alcohol. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2025, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-spouses-deaths-from-influenza/1025511/5 "2025-12-08T04:22:17Z")
Probably not due to Prohibition, as both these chaps were still residing across the Atlantic at the time of their spouses’ deaths. I couldn’t find any obvious actor references to spouses having died of the 1918 Flu, and about the most notable person I could find succumbing to the Flu was Irma Garlow, aka Buffalo Bill Cody’s daughter and only child. They died days apart. Trivia note: One of my great-great-grandfathers died of the 1918 Flu. From his two wives he sired a total of 14 children over a period of 38 years. The span was so great that one of my uncles had a \*great-aunt who was only four months his senior! \*OK, technically, she was a ‘half great-aunt’ if you’re keeping score. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2025, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-spouses-deaths-from-influenza/1025511/6 "2025-12-08T04:32:45Z")
“Flu” coulda been anything. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2025, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-spouses-deaths-from-influenza/1025511/7 "2025-12-08T04:35:38Z")
> [@Kent\_Clark](#): > > might have been some tainted Prohibition alcohol Not likely to have caused deaths in 1918 or 1919 (which is what the OP is asking about); Prohibition didn’t take effect in the U.S. until January 17th, 1920. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2025, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-spouses-deaths-from-influenza/1025511/8 "2025-12-08T04:40:54Z")
I think someone famous, an actor or politician, had press people and could type anything on a press release. Heck, we had a disabled president ( FDR ) that the press didn’t report on correctly all the time. Press reports can say anything. If the truth was they did have Spanish flu, I don’t know how you could find out the facts confidently. Without an autopsy report, that us. (Didn’t Teddy Roosevelts wife and Mother reportedly die of the flu?) ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2025, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-spouses-deaths-from-influenza/1025511/9 "2025-12-08T05:44:54Z")
[List of famous victims of the pandemic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Spanish_flu_cases) Trump’s grandfather dropped dead hours after stricken, leaving Trump’s father burdened with maintaining his business while only a teen. Perhaps creating a legacy of hard-headed posturing we suffer today.