The Mammoth Book of Hollywood Scandals (34 page)

In the end, they did indeed go with the 1944 will, with everything going to her mother, Clara. As with most things in Hollywood, however, it was not a straightforward affair, with estranged husband Horace Schmidlapp later deciding to reject a former property settlement and thereby locking horns with Clara in a dispute over an equity of $35,000 which he said was owed to him from the sale of Carole’s home on Capri Drive.

Another element that caused controversy was talk of a second suicide note, which was rumoured to have been in the room at the time Carole died. The story around Hollywood was that Rex Harrison had destroyed the letter in order to deter people thinking they were having an affair, and Carole’s friend and former stand-in, Florence Wasson, put her two cents in when she declared that she specifically remembered seeing a letter that asked for someone to take care of her cat.

Since the official note had not mentioned any pets, the word was that another note must surely have been written, though Wasson was quick to point out that if it had disappeared, she had absolutely no idea where it could possibly have gone. “I don’t even remember what the rest of the contents were,” Wasson said, “but it did not relate to motive or anything like that.” This revelation confused things even more – if the second note really had just been about the care of a pet, then why would Harrison have destroyed such a thing? It was quite a mystery.

Denying to the coroner that he knew anything about the second note, the British actor wasted no time in trying to quell rumours of a relationship by announcing once again that his wife Lilli Palmer and Carole were “great friends”, before adding that the tragedy should not be clouded by sensational innuendoes. Humorously, he also said that he wished the scandal to stop as he wanted to clear Carole’s name. The fact that if the rumours did subside, it would take the heat off his name, too, was not missed by the eager columnists and reporters.

If onlookers at the inquest were hoping to hear the nitty-gritty of the actress’s “friendship” with Harrison, they must have been sorely disappointed, but the actor’s testimony did shed some light on Carole’s state of mind at the time of her death. He disclosed that they had not argued in any way on the evening before her death, and while she had been embarrassed by some financial problems, she did not seem too depressed about them.

“Was she worried about her divorce?” the coroner asked.

“I don’t think so,” replied the actor. “I can’t give any explanation for [her death] at all.”

Meanwhile, the other party in the divorce, Horace Schmidlapp, had flown into California and was stopped by reporters at the airport.

“Do you know why Carole might have taken her own life?” they asked.

“No, no,” he answered. “I can’t think of any reason. She was certainly all right financially; her career was in excellent shape . . .”

“Have you seen her recently?”

“I talked to her over the phone last week and she was like she’d always been – gay and happy. The last time I saw her was in January in Europe. She was in good spirits then – and beautiful.”

Reporters then asked if the marriage had still been on the rocks, to which he replied that the divorce action had certainly been continuing at the time of death. He then went on to say that he was sure the suicide was not as a result of finances, since his ex-wife never worried about money at all. “She wasn’t that kind,” he said.

This observation was backed up by lawyer Jerry Giesler who added, “I had just completed a property settlement with Schmidlapp. Miss Landis was very satisfied with it.” He then went on to deny that his client must have been concerned about her finances, stating, “I believe that if Carole had been worried about money, she would have been found dead in bed. When a person worries about finances they lie awake at night and the worry continues to mount until it seems almost insurmountable.”

But there were definitely at least some money issues, as testified by Giesler while talking to the press. In his comments the lawyer stated that Carole had personally written to her creditors to assure them of her intention of paying bills as soon as the house had been sold. But he also added, “With her Eagle-Lion contract for two films and another deal to make pictures in England, she had a bright future ahead of her.”

So it would seem that money was not an issue that could have caused Carole Landis to suddenly commit suicide. With that in mind, could the lawyer shed any light on why the actress would have wanted to take her own life?

“It is difficult to understand,” he told the press. “I knew Carole was a person of impulse. This must have been an impulsive thing. She was fully dressed. Alone in that big house.”

The run-up to Carole’s funeral was a heart-breaking affair, made more so because she had been so young, and her death sudden and tragic. She lay for several days at the Wilshire Funeral Home, where hundreds of mourners, including family, friends and fans, all filed past in order to see her one more time. There were so many flowers that the funeral home had to direct most of them to Forest Lawn; such was the public outcry for a life cut so terribly short.

When it was time for the funeral, Carole’s coffin was carried into the chapel by pall-bearers that included actors Cesar Romero and Willard Parker, as well as Carole’s personal makeup man, Ben Nye. Although the formalities were brief, they still came with a fair share of drama, when the actress’s mother, Clara, collapsed on to the shoulder of her granddaughter, Diane, just as they were making their way to the chapel. Then during the service she collapsed again on the stairs, sobbing loudly at the sight of her daughter’s coffin. The whole thing was extremely dramatic and by the time Rex Harrison arrived with his wife Lilli, the crowds were so frantic that the funeral assistants had to hold them back so that the couple could enter the venue safely.

Once inside, the service consisted of a short prayer and Carole’s favourite song, “In a Garden” before Bishop Fred Pyman addressed the congregation. “Life is a dress rehearsal for the greater play which comes after,” he said. “Actors all believe they will play their roles again . . . and perfectly.”

Carole was buried on a hillside overlooking the city, just as the coroner announced that no further action would be taken in regards to the investigation into her death. In a statement he said that he could find no criminal action in connection with her passing, and was therefore closing the case. Shortly before the announcement, Francis Kearney from the homicide squad told reporters that “If there were any suspicions of foul play, then motive would be important, but since all evidence shows the death without doubt to be suicide, then the search for motive is hardly a police matter.”

Although her family had opted not to confront Rex Harrison about the death of Carole Landis, and had told reporters that they had not heard anything about the existence of a second suicide note, rumours started to circulate that they were not entirely convinced of the story of her final hours, and even suspected that Harrison had something to do with the death and was somehow covering up what he knew. There was even talk of them hiring a private detective to find out exactly what had happened on the fateful evening, but if indeed that story was true, it seems that nothing was found.

The autopsy showed that Carole had five milligrams of barbiturate per 100 grams of liver tissue, and her blood contained a high level of alcohol. This showed that the actress had drunk a great deal prior to her collapse, and with that in mind, it is the belief of many that after Harrison left that evening, she drowned her sorrows before taking her final, fatal overdose. In the end, while some people may have had their doubts, it seems that Carole Landis’s death was very definitely a suicide, though why she did it remains unclear. Public consensus would seem to suggest that it was as a result of Harrison ending their relationship, and Carole’s lawyer, Jerry Giesler, hinted as much when talking to reporters shortly after the death.

“I think Carole suffered a sudden great shock from which she did not recover sufficiently to undress and retire,” he said. “But perhaps she regretted her impulsive action at the last moment, and was going to get help so she could recover.”

As for Harrison himself, while he denied anything other than friendship with the actress, Hedda Hopper shed more light on the situation when she wrote her 9 July 1948 column. In it she said that she had asked him about Carole just four months prior to her death, mentioning the rumours that his marriage was ending because of her.

“That’s just Hollywood gossip – and you know what that is,” Harrison replied. He then added that his wife Lilli had arrived back at the family home and they were “trying to work things out”. With that in mind, he asked Hedda not to print anything about the rumours of his relationship with Carole. She did as he requested and later Harrison sent her a bouquet of flowers, thanking the columnist for “your cooperation. It is very, very much appreciated. Many, many thanks.”

In today’s era of semi-nude pop stars and paparazzi pictures of celebrity wardrobe “malfunctions”, it is strange to think that something as innocent as a picture of a nude woman (with lower parts hidden) would cause anything more than a halfraised eyebrow. However, in the 1950s, when nudity was meant for the bathroom only (if at all), a risqué calendar caused an absolute scandal and almost crushed the career of up-and-coming actress Marilyn Monroe before it had really begun.

Born in Los Angeles in 1926, Norma Jeane Baker was the daughter of Gladys Baker, an unwed mother who was volatile and suffered huge emotional problems. At just a few weeks old Norma Jeane was sent to live with a foster family, before an unsuccessful attempt at living with her mother ended with Gladys being taken to a mental hospital. Norma Jeane was then raised in a series of foster homes and an orphanage.

In an attempt to escape the foster system, Norma Jeane chose to wed a young man called James Dougherty when she was just sixteen, though she found marriage stifling and took solace in a new-found modelling career at the age of nineteen. Norma Jeane’s husband was away at war during this time and he insisted that, although he would tolerate her career while away, the moment the war was over he expected her to give everything up and become a full-time wife and raise a houseful of children.

Norma Jeane rejected this idea immediately. She had by this point become a successful model and enjoyed seeing her face on many magazine covers. Film studios were also knocking on her door and in 1946, after sending her husband a “Dear John” letter, she travelled to Nevada in order to obtain a divorce. Free at last, she then signed with Twentieth Century Fox, changed her name to Marilyn Monroe and launched full-steam into an acting and modelling career. Her photos ranged from the girl-next-door to classic glamour or “cheesecake” shots, and while her acting career was full of bit parts and walk-ons, her star quality nevertheless began to increase.

However, organizing her finances was never a strong point for Marilyn, and by early 1949 she had fallen behind not only with her rent, but also with the payments on the car she relied on to get to and from auditions. Threatened with repossession of the vehicle, Marilyn picked up the telephone and called Tom Kelley, a photographer who had asked her to pose nude for him several months before.

She had declined to take her clothes off at that time, but now, worried that she was about to lose her possessions, she changed her mind and arrived at his studio on 27 May 1949 in order to pose. There, in the company of Kelley’s partner Natalie Grasko, Marilyn removed her clothes, reclined on a red velvet blanket, and was paid $50 for her efforts. When asked years later what it felt like, Marilyn replied, “Very simple . . . And drafty!”

Initially Marilyn had felt okay about posing nude, since she did certainly need the money and was somewhat (naively) convinced that no one would actually see the photos. If they did, she told herself, they would not know it was her anyway, since she had signed her name as “Mona Monroe” on the release form. However, as time wore on and her acting career started to gain more attention, she became increasingly concerned that the photos would somehow emerge and destroy all that she had worked so hard to achieve.

Rumours started to circulate that Kelley was in the midst of selling the photos to a calendar company, and Marilyn finally broke down and admitted what she had done to her good friend, Bill Pursel, who shared his story with me for the book,
Marilyn Monroe: Private and Undisclosed:

She told me she had done something she was ashamed of, and she wanted to tell me about it before I found out elsewhere. She said she wanted to apologize and started to cry, before finally telling me she had posed nude and had done it because her rent was way past due. She then asked if I would look at the pictures and when I said yes she produced them. My first reaction was that these photos were not pornographic at all and they were actually very good. She said the photographer had promised not to sell them but I told her that he probably would, since selling photographs was what he did for a living. I told her that I thought the pictures were in good taste and she asked if I was ashamed of her, to which I said no, but that neither she nor I could undo something that was already done and I was in no position to object to them anyway.

Several years passed and, to the relief of Marilyn, the photos were nowhere to be seen. She continued her career and enjoyed a small but important part in the Marx Brothers film,
Love Happy
, which took her on a major tour around the United States. Fans clamoured to see her and fan letters began to clog up the mailroom at Twentieth Century Fox. Unfortunately, this national attention guaranteed that the nude photographs would be in great demand, and sure enough, in 1952 they showed up on calendars entitled “Golden Dreams” and “A New Wrinkle”.

Still, nobody at the studio seemed to notice the existence of the calendars, and life continued as normal for Marilyn, until one day in 1952 when she was approached on the street by a man clutching one of the calendars. “This ought to be worth quite a bit of money to you. Suppose I showed it around town?” asked the stranger. Marilyn refused to be blackmailed and replied: “Mister, I’d just adore for you to show it around Hollywood – would you like me to also autograph it for you?”