Once-Famous Stars Who Have Come To a Sad end

Cafe Society
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"Stage and screen star Lou Tellegen stabbed himself with a pair of scissors, surrounded by his old scrapbooks. "

Served him right. As a young gigolo he stole a fortune from older actresses, including The Divine Sarah.

Betty Hutton, a star of the 40s and 50s, wound up living in a homeless shelter.

Veronica Lake wound up as a waitress.

Dick York (Darrin I on BEWITCHED) was a wheelchair bound emphysema sufferer living with his mother-in-law in Ohio.

Mabel King- the rotund mother on WHAT’S HAPPENING?- died legless, toothless, skinny and penniless in the Actor’s Home. Her co-star, Shirley Hemphill, while not penniless due to good investments, was dead (of natural causes) for several days before she was discovered, while co-star Fred “Rerun” Berry was recently working as a catering waiter in New York.

Willie Aames is of course now clad in tight purple spandex and quoting scripture as Bible Man.

Sister Ann Sourire, “the Singing Nun” (Dominique), committed suicide along with her girlfriend after being reduced to begging. (Largely her own fault; she signed over her royalties to her convent, THEN left the convent and became a radical folk singer, not realizing she was a one-hit wonder.)

Fred Astaire- while not broke, he was so lonely he often called the police to report non-existent prowlers.

Talulah Bankhead is an odd case. She made the “mistake” of letting it be known that she was desperate for money, so she was offered schlock roles in low budget horror movies and bad plays. When she died, it was discovered she was loaded= she started the rumor herself because, ala Norma Desmond, she was so desperate to be in the spotlight again.

Another oddity: John C. “Bunny” Breckinridge IV , who appeared as the Emperor of the Galaxy in PLAN 9 (and who himself was played with deadpan brilliance by Bill Murray in ED WOOD) could easily have bankrolled all of Wood’s films with pocket change. He was a multimillionaire (inheritance) and his daughter was a French aristocrat.

I recently saw an interview with Bill Daily (Howard from THE BOB NEWHART SHOW and Roger from I DREAM OF JEANNIE). He now lives in Santa Fe and writes a column for a local weekly. He said that when he found himself getting excited about winning one-day walk-on roles on soap operas, he knew it was time to leave the business. Why don’t more of them do that?

Infomercial sitings: Morgan Brittany, Joyce DeWitt, Tom Bosley, Cher (though she’s not quite career dead or broke- it was a favor for a friend), Steve Allen, Davy Jones… oy, who all else?

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Forgot a few silent film stars:

Minta Murfee, a silent film actress and the third Mrs. Fatty Arbuckle, received Rolls-Royces and similar gifts from Fatty even after their divorce and lived in an enormous Tudor mansion. By the 1970s, she was living in a one room apartment in a bad section of town due to lavish spending, the destruction of Fatty’s career by the Rappe scandal (one of the cruellest stories in the history of film), the loss of a fortune in the stock market, and the death of her career. (Fatty made a living touring the country and had just had a comeback of sorts when he died of a heart attack.)

Buster Keaton built an enormous mansion in Hollywood, lost his fortune in the stock market crash as it neared completion, had no career due to talkies and changing tastes, and ended up living in the guesthouse, his sole income derived from renting the mansion. (He made a comeback in later years.)

OTOH, some actors and actresses became richer than god even after their careers evaporated. Mary Wickes, best known perhaps as Jo the Plumber, left $2 million just to her church. Wayne “Trapper John” Rogers of the original MASH cast is one of the richest men in LA due to excellent investments, Sterling Holloway (the voice of Winnie the Pooh) was worth several million just for his art collection. I’ve read that Florence Henderson (of BRADY BUNCH fame) is loaded due to frugal living and smart investing, and Natalie Schafer (Mrs. Howell from GILLIGAN’S ISLAND) left millions of dollars… to her poodle! (No joke.)

I remember seeing Bob Denver from GILLIGAN’S ISLAND & his real life wife Dreama in a particularly cheesy play at a local dinner theater when I was a kid. Even at the time I wondered “didn’t he save anything from the series?”, cause this wasn’t something you do to advance your career.

Contrary to what his appearance on HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS might indicate, however, I don’t think that Backus was that desperate for money- E! recently interviewed his widow at her home, and it’s a beautiful place in Beverly Hills with pool and sculpted lawn. Skipper’s widow seemed to be living quite comfortably as well.

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Last post, I promise: Does anybody remember a few years ago when the headline “KISS STAR NOW A HOMELESS BUM” appeared in STAR (1991, I believe)? Peter Criss had been discovered begging for change in LA, drunk, on drugs, and literally stinking.
His story hit the papers and several people started a fund for him. Celebrities, including Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold, gave thousands to help him, and husband-wife KISS fans even took him into their home.
People were stunned that this could happen. Especially stunned was Peter Criss, who learned he was homeless while sitting in his mansion. The man was a total imposter and Criss decided to let it ride and see how far it would go before anybody did their homework. It was several days after the tabloid came out before anybody discovered that the real Criss was alive and affluent and the other guy was a lying bum.
On a talkshow, Criss (who sued STAR) said his greatest irritation was at the people who gave money to the man. “What if he had been me? He’d made millions and squandered them with nothing to show for it… why does he deserve your charity instead of people who have medical bills or lost their job?” The couple who “adopted” the ersatz Criss meanwhile had a hard time getting him out of their house.

Hard falls: Redd Foxx. (Aunt Esther recently died also; I hope she was loaded, because few actresses have ever made me laugh as much- ditto Grady.)

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I hear Monty got a raw deal.

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How about Lauren Bacall doing voice overs for a cat food commercial. Not a homeless shelter, but with her attitude it seems low. Maybe the money is just too good to pass up.

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I don’t think any actor doing voiceovers should be considered down and out. They are getting well paid for that work and it’s quite easy.

And I doubt that Lauren Bacall has to work much.

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And IIRC, Terry-Thomas died penniless… a definite sad end to a most excellent comedian.

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Well, according to Russell “The Professor” Johnson’s memoirs, Backus wanted to be there. (And FTR, the young Howell was their son, not nephew.) With the exception of Tina Louise, whatever her problem was, the Gilligan cast was very congenial, during and after the series.

From “Here On Gilligan’s Isle”, by Johnson and Steve Cox (ghostwriter):

"Jim wasn’t scheduled to be in the film, but his wife, Henny, called Sherwood (Schwartz) and said she thought he might be able to do something brief. ‘It might be just the thing he needs to lift his spirits,’ she said. In one day, Sherwood rewrote the final scene to accomodate Thurston Howell III. And it was just like old times.

“When his scene was completed, Henny led Jim arm in arm to the soundstage doors. They walked very slowly. The whole crew and all of us in the cast applauded Jim because we knew this might be the last time this trouper would be joining us. I looked over at Natalie (Schaefer). She had just given Jim a big kiss and a hug, and tears welled in her eyes as she waved goodbye to her Thurston. Jim turned and blew us a kiss.”

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Are you serious? Oh man.

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[a slight hijack/oddity]:

Benny Hill, who was an institution on British television for decades before his show was cancelled in the late eighties, passed away in the early nineties with millions in the bank – yet he was still living in a rented apartment (sorry, flat – hey, I’m a Yank), with virtually no furniture to speak of. On the occasions that he entertained at home, he would rent furniture – and then send it all back after the party was over. He was supposedly lavish in taking out huge groups of people out to lunch (especially for birthdays) but not for dinner – because evenings were always spent at home, watching television.

[/slight hijack/oddity]

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Damn you–I was going to say that! :sad:

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Sampiro:

Thanks for some terrific tidbits. I’m a little distressed to hear about Veronica Lake - IIRC, she was quite the babe.

Well, maybe not “the babe”, but busty: http://silverscreensirens.com/galleries/lake36.htm

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I don’t think a lot of the actors from sitcoms in the 50’s and 60’s made all that much money. Dawn Wells says they only made $1000-$2000 per week - certainly a fine salary for the 1960’s, but that was only for a few years - certainly not enough money to retire on. Then they were all typecast and none of them got decent work in Hollywood again.

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Growing up in L.A., I’d see a lot of former “big stars” doing ads for local businesses. Sometimes, I didn’t know who these people were until my parents told me—“Oh yeah, that’s so-and-so, they were really big way back when.” Often my first exposure to these stars of yesteryear was their cheezy local L.A. TV ads.

Sad. But then again, it paid the bills.

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A look at Buster Keaton’s filmography shows that he worked in talkies through the 1930s, in both shorts and features.

Jo the Plumber was Jane Withers, still alive.

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Robert Vaughn got $500 each time the certain ads ran. No points on the Gross.

Redd Foxx signed over his residuals from Sanford and Son to pay for a divorce.

I saw him on a talk show. He passed his hat around for donations.

Sad.

I’m suprised no one has mentioned Morton Downey Jr.

(And can Robert Downey Jr be that far behind?)

Personally, I don’t begrudge a star from appearing in something less than Schindler’s list after their carreer and life is almost over. Truly, there is no bad work out there, it’s what you make of it.

Consider WKRP in Cincinatti (The original)

Only one of the stars has really gone on to a significant amount of other work, other than Tim Reid…

Herb’s wife.

The CLueless matron type she always plays. She never gets a starring role, but she’s ALWAYS around! Like a Bad penny! She’s PERFECT for those roles, and gets tons of work.

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he’s a preacher with a show on TBN

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I just saw a recent photograph of Michael Jackson.

HOLY MOTHERFUCKING LORD OF SHIT, what the fuck happened to his FACE?!

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Actually (and maybe Eve can back me up on this), what really hurt Keaton’s career was not so much the shift to talkies and changing public tastes but rather his alcoholism. His drinking became so much of a problem that MGM let him go in the 1930’s.

Another reason for Keaton’s decline is that when he signed that aforementioned contract with MGM in the late 1920’s, he stopped directing his own movies and turned over creative control to the studio.

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NDP pretty much has it . . . There were a number of reasons for Buster’s decline. I love his silents, but can barely watch his talkies.

Same with Veronica Lake, Louise Brooks and a few others—they were just as much to blame for their own professional decline as the studios and changing times were.