The Mammoth Book of Hollywood Scandals (33 page)

She wrote another note to her secretary, saying goodbye and asking her to take care of her dogs, Chips and Chops. Then she sat down, took a bottle of barbiturates and passed away in her immaculate silk bed – and not, as widely rumoured, with her head in the toilet.

The next morning, secretary Beulah Kinder found her employer lying on the bed, at first imagining she must be sleeping, but sadly she was wrong. The distraught woman felt the actress’s head, saw the notes beside the bed and realized that she was dead. Rushing to the phone she called the police and it was not long before Lupe’s North Rodeo Drive home was surrounded by a mixture of officers, reporters, fans and the curious.

Someone took it upon themselves to tell Lupe’s ex-boyfriend, and from his own home at 8324 Fountain Avenue, Ramond released a statement: “I am so confused. I never expected this to happen. The last time I talked to Lupe I told her I was going to marry her any way she wanted. She said then she wasn’t going to have a baby, so we parted.” Once he had calmed down slightly, he then personally met with reporters and gave his version of events. According to Ramond he had been informed by Lupe’s doctor that she was expecting his baby. He said that for a time he had not known what to do about the unexpected news, but then, “I called her up and asked her to marry me.”

He then went on to tell reporters that after the news of the baby had sunk in, everything had been great between Lupe and himself, and she had even given him her finger size for an engagement ring. However, shortly afterwards, according to Ramond, the actress suddenly decided to call the whole thing off just a few days before her death. “I loved her very much and wanted to marry her. We just couldn’t agree on the date,” he said.

Everyone was confused. Why would Lupe decide to call off the wedding and then kill herself when things had seemingly been going so well? It just did not make sense. Lupe’s manager waded in and shed light on the entire episode by arguing that Harald Ramond had not proposed to the actress out of any sense of romance or loyalty. Instead, he had apparently asked that they conduct a mock ceremony, in order to fool everyone that they had actually tied the knot and that their baby could be born in wedlock. “He wanted the marriage annulled after the child was legitimized,” the manager told reporters.

“No!” exclaimed Ramond in shocked response. According to him, he had merely said that they should announce that the wedding had already taken place so they could make it look as though their child was conceived legitimately within the confines of marriage. “It was not wise to use the word fake,” he cried to reporters. “She apparently did not understand my full explanation – that we would go ahead with a fully legal ceremony, at a later date.”

Whatever the truth of the situation, Lupe Vélez was dead, and the world mourned the loss of a bright, fiery star. Thousands passed by her coffin at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, just days before Christmas, and then she was taken back home to Mexico. There, thousands more paid their respects to “Whoopee Lupe”, who despite her reputation of being wild and not caring about what anyone thought, had become heartbroken because she believed she was unloved and about to bring shame upon herself. It was a tragic contradiction, and one which ultimately cost Lupe Vélez her life.

When a person dies in Hollywood, it automatically makes headline news, with stories, rumours and facts quickly filling the pages. However, for poor Carole Landis, the newspapers not only ran stories about her demise, but also printed a photograph of the dead woman, curled on her bathroom floor, for all to see. Her life was unhappy; her death a tragedy; and the reporting sad to say the least.

Born Frances Lillian Mary Ridste in Wisconsin on 1 January 1919, the child’s early life was one of misery and utter turmoil. Although she was given the name of her mother’s first husband, he had left the family by the time Frances was born and she was raised instead by her mother’s boyfriend (whom some say may have been her natural father, though this cannot be proved). Added to the mystery of not knowing who was her father, Frances also suffered heartbreak when two of her brothers tragically passed away.

Her life was grim, and in order to escape from the world around her Frances threw herself into the theatre, and she took part in a variety of talent shows and beauty contests. By the time she was fifteen, Frances had fallen in love with her next-door neighbour, Irving Wheeler, and the two secretly tied the knot, though the marriage was quickly annulled after her furious mother discovered what they had done. Six months, later, however, the couple wed again, though it did not turn out to be a success; they separated for a second and final time after just three weeks.

Frances had bigger things on her mind than getting divorced, so while very definitely separated, she decided to stay legally married to Irving while carving out a career first as a hula dancer and then a singer in a band. Hollywood soon beckoned and after moving there in September 1936 to begin her modelling and film career, she decided to change her name to Carole Landis, in tribute to her idol, Carole Lombard. The young woman was determined to make it as a star, though her career did not take off in the way she hoped and she very quickly found herself in nothing but uncredited bit parts, playing the likes of “The girl in the beret” or “The blonde at the airport”. Still, Carole had been through much in her life so a little thing like bad parts was not going to stop her fulfilling her dream. Instead of giving up she carried on fighting for parts throughout the late 1930s, always hoping and dreaming that her big break was just around the corner.

By May 1938, Carole was a busy but still relatively unknown actress, though she was becoming very well known as a model and cover girl. It was at this time that she experienced her first sniff of scandal when she became involved briefly with dance director Busby Berkeley. Her estranged husband, Irving Wheeler, got wind of this and decided to construct a story which said that his wife had been persuaded to leave the family home after being seduced by Berkeley. It made no difference to him that he had actually split with the actress some years before, and decided to take the strange decision to sue the dance director for $250,000. Because Berkeley was well known, the story was splashed all over the papers and Carole found her photograph printed for all the wrong reasons. Irving lost the case, of course, but the scandal prompted Landis to end the marriage once and for all, the divorce becoming final in 1939.

But as they say, no publicity is bad publicity, and the Berkeley scandal had at least got Carole noticed; in 1940 she was cast in the movie
One Million BC
, which succeeded in propelling her into nationwide stardom. Nicknamed “The Ping Girl”, Carole hated the tag so much that she even took out adverts in newspapers to request that people not call her that. Still, apart from that minor detail, she was very happy with the way her career was going, and after marrying and divorcing a yacht salesman by the name of Willis Hunt, she began a relationship with the head of Twentieth Century Fox, Darryl F. Zanuck.

Suddenly Carole began appearing in a string of successful films and acted opposite Betty Grable in
Moon over Miami
and
I Wake Up Screaming
. Some sceptics may say that her relationship with Zanuck ensured that she was offered such good roles, and sadly it would seem they were correct, as unfortunately for Carole, when she ended her relationship with Zanuck her career started to suffer. Once again she found herself in a variety of B-movies amid whispers that if she had not parted with the studio head, she would still have been on her way to the very top.

Carole was famous enough to have her presence requested to entertain the troops during World War II, though she suffered a great deal of illness while touring, almost dying as a result of amoebic dysentery and malaria. She also married once again, this time pilot Tommy Wallace, though as with all her previous relationships, the pairing was not a happy one. In May 1944 – a matter of months before the break-up of this marriage – the actress became so despondent that she was hospitalized after a suicide attempt. A broken engagement to producer Gene Markey followed the breakdown of her marriage to Wallace, and she began another unhappy, short marriage to producer W. Horace Schmidlapp in 1945. Another suicide attempt came in 1946 when she finally lost her contract with Twentieth Century Fox.

The threat of losing her career, coupled with the fact that she was unable to have children, had been too much for the young actress to bear. She was saved on this particular suicide attempt, though her private life remained complicated when she began an affair with married actor Rex Harrison. She fell hard for the British actor and began divorce proceedings against Schmidlapp in March 1948 so she could be with him permanently, but unfortunately Harrison was not so obliging. He refused point blank to abandon his wife for the actress, and left Carole heartbroken.

Several days before her death, all seemed relatively fine in Carole’s world, and the actress recorded a two-minute tape for Hollywood Star Records which described her life and career as very satisfying. However, it was all an illusion. Carole was desperately unhappy with most aspects of her life; her love for Harrison was on the rocks; her marriage was broken; and added to that, she had almost never been satisfied with her career. Yes, there had been a time when she was given many good roles, but in the last few years she had been cast in nothing but B-movies and her confidence had taken a very definite blow.

Landis spent most of the 4 July 1948 celebrations at her home on Capri Drive, which she had recently sold because she felt it was far too big for just one person. She also attended a Fourth of July celebration and was seen playing in the pool and in good spirits, before later dining with old flame Rex Harrison at her home. He later claimed that during the course of the evening they had been discussing a possible project in England, but rumour has it that the actor actually gave her the news that he was breaking off their relationship once and for all, as he wished to renew his affection for his wife. This left Carole in absolute turmoil, and while she was painfully aware that her love life had always been difficult, this particular news was just too much to bear. After he left the house shortly after 9 p.m., Carole was in such a state that she decided to write a note to her mother.

“Dearest Mommie,” it said. “I’m sorry, really sorry to put you through this but there is no way to avoid it.” The actress then went on to say how much she loved her, and that she had been the most wonderful mother ever before adding, “that applies to all our family. Everything goes to you. Goodbye my angel, pray for me, Your Baby.”

The distraught actress then placed the note on top of her dressing-room table; took an overdose of sleeping pills; staggered to her bathroom; and collapsed some time on 5 July. Fully clothed, in a frilly shirt and checked skirt, the actress expired with her head resting on a jewel box and her hand holding a satin ribbon with the words of the Lord’s Prayer in gold letters. The position of her body looked as though she were trying to pick herself back up from the floor. There was an empty bottle nearby, with a variety of pills found around the bathroom and dressing areas.

The next day her housekeeper, Fannie Bolden, knocked on the actress’s bedroom door but received no response. Rex Harrison phoned to see how she was and was told that she was still sleeping. He went about his business, but when he called again at 3 p.m. and was given the same answer, he became concerned enough to rush over to the home immediately. Unknown to the maid, Harrison went straight to the actress’s bedroom to see what was wrong, and on opening Carole’s door, he was sick to discover that she was collapsed on the bathroom floor. Sprinting over, he tried to wake her up: “I felt her pulse,” he later told the coroner. “It must have been purely my imagination but I thought there was a little beat.”

It was indeed his imagination because Carole was dead and had been that way for quite some time. Harrison then went to find Mrs Bolden to tell her the news.

“Have you been into Miss Landis’s bedroom?” he asked.

“No,” she answered.

The actor then broke the news to the shocked woman and took her into the bedroom to see for herself. It was at that point, Bolden said, that the suicide note was found and Harrison, on reading it, exclaimed, “Oh darling, why did you do it, why did you do it?”

The actor was in such a state that it was later said that he waited at least a couple of hours before calling the police, and did not think to ring the woman’s mother, Clara, who found out about her daughter’s death on the radio. “Why didn’t somebody call me?” the mourning woman demanded to know, but nobody seemed to have an answer. Carole’s estranged husband Horace Schmidlapp was just as shocked, crying, “Oh My God!!” when told of her death by reporters.

The police began asking Rex Harrison questions, with the first being, what had happened during Carole Landis’s last evening? He told officers that they had been dining together but he had left some time around 9 p.m., as Carole was feeling ill after a recurrence of the amoebic infection she had suffered from before. Otherwise, he said, she was in good spirits. He declined to tell them that the two had been lovers and no doubt hoped that neither the press nor the police would probe any further.

He was – of course – sorely mistaken if he believed the entire episode would just fade away, and reporters wasted no time in asking about the exact nature of their relationship. “She was a very close friend of my wife’s and mine,” he told them. “While my wife was in New York I saw Carole quite frequently. We were planning a picture we were to make together in Europe. Immediately after her death, however, I called Lilli in New York and she flew home.”

Several days later, more controversy came when newspapers reported that the actress’s last will and testament were being sought, and though a number of would-be documents were brought forward, no one could confirm at that point whether Landis had a more up-to-date will than the one she had written four years earlier. This was further complicated when her lawyer, entertainment heavyweight Jerry Giesler, told the press, “Miss Landis was a person who was most meticulous about her business matters and the keeping of her records”, and the police disclosed that she had made reference to the will in her suicide note. It was in a file, she had said, though at that point, neither the file nor the will could be found.