THOSE WHOM THE GODS LOVE DIE YOUNG.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 299, 2 December 1936, Page 2

THOSE WHOM THE GODS LOVE DIE YOUNG.

HOLLYWOOD’S TRAGIC LIST OF EARLY DEATHS.

Those whom the Hollywood gods love die young! writes Sheilah Grattham.' $ Jrving was only 37 when he died. The acknowledged genius if- among producers, he was respected by a JI who understood his efforts to W raise the level of picture entertain- , ment. He was admired for his cour--W age, love,d for his sympathy, tojerance, and understanding, blessed with ife a wife in Norma Shearer, who adored *.s■ him, and with two children for whom he had great and wondqrful plans. fe But. Death struck at him through 'the ® very - qualities which made hia fame Impossible. Tenacity, enthusiasm, and T 4 a tremendous capacity for work burned up his resistance to illness, -if. so that an ordinary’ cold resulted in S pneumonia and death. The Hollywood death register of fys Fortune’s darlings who departed this world under the age of 40 includes: — John Gilbert, Thelma Todd, Rudolph

Valentino, Dorothy Dell, Lilyan Tashman, Barbara La Marr, Renee Adoree, W June Mathis, Mabel Normand, and Wallace Reid.. • f Gilbert, beloved of Grefa Garbo, was 38 when a heart attack last Jan- ■ uary removed him from the Holly- .; wood scene. He died a bitter man, ' disillusioned with Dame Fortune, £ who had given him so much —and so • little—in his brief span of- life: £?. Money, fame, obscurity, adulation, S. two children, four beautiful wives—a u little-known “extra” girl, Olive Burf rell; Beatrice Joy, whom he married fL in 1923 and from whom he was clivorc- | ed in 1924; stage actress Ina Claire, ...and Virginia Bruce, both of whom f divorced him after brief marital. ep(- •• sodes. ; > ** ” • • : * Thelma Todd preceded Gilbert to the grave by little more than three ; weeks. The blonde comedy actress was 30 when she was discovered asphyxiated at the wheel of her car in ‘-: the garage of ‘ her Santa Monica home. After years of playing smallikfeatured roles, The former Massachusetts school-teacher came into her j£ovn death as an excellent cbmedy fiioil to Palsy Kelly’ in Hal Roach comedies. Now all that remains of Oilier memory is. her name above a restaurant which she owned, fronting *£Santa Monica Beach. -Bl /MB Poor Dell was only ~19 when a motor car of a Pasadepa i Surgeon careened against several turned -over, and killed her in I&une, 1934. After winning the title •Miss Universe, 1930,” and appearing Btn several New- York musicials, she ■‘marked time in Hollywood for a few until Fortune smiled on her jlwork in “Wharf Angel” and “Little *Miss Marker.” Had she lived there little doubt that Miss Dell would •have carved her name in sizable let-t ters on t£e chart of screen fame. .v

Rudolph Valentino, the “perfect screen lover,” often expressed the wish to die young. He was 31 at the height of his screen popularity when he suffered a. relapse from a serious illness due to pleurisy in his left lung. Peritonitis proved fatal. The Italia!n-born “dreami lover’s” first theatrical job in the United States was dancing in a musical comedy at a salary of 75 dollars a week.

June Mathis, first feminine director, who discovered Valentino playing a ‘‘heavy” in a minor picture, and cast him for the part of Julio in “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” died 11 months after the demise of her “discovery,” when she was 33. Miss Mathis blazed a path for women in the production and business side of motion pictures, and was the highest paid woman n her sphere. After her death in the 48th. Street Theatlre, New York, Jshe was placed to rest in the same cemetery 1 as her protege, Valentino. * * ♦

Lilyan Tashman, the screen’s “bestdressed woman,” and wife of Edmund Lowe, was 34 when death removed her from the bright light life she loved. She was buried in her favourite blue gown. *• * • * Thirty-year-old Barbara La Marr, who died as an aftermath of overdieting in January, 1926, was known as the “too beautiful girl.” She rose from working. as an ’’exttra’l at 10 dollars a day to a salary of 2,000 dollars a week in ’the Douglas Fairbanks film. “The Nut.” Before illness cut short her career she was awarded a contract that; gave her 1,000,000 dollars to make four pictures. w • ♦ Renee Adoree was 34 when death ended her Hollywood career in December, 1933. She reached the pinnacle of her success with the late John Gilbert in “The Big Parade." Karl Dane, in the same picture, committed suicide in 1934.

Wallace Reid and Mabel Normand. • were household names to cinemagoers during and after 'ffie World War. They both died before chalking up the life score of 40. Reid was 31 when he died in 1923. Miss Normand was 36 whefl she succumbed in 1930 aifter a thrt|e-year to. regain lost health' Over 40 comparatively’ young when death . interrupted their careers in were Miss Normand’js 47-y ear-old tic tor-doctor husband, Lew Cody; Will Rogers, 56, killed last year in Alaska in a ’plane crash with Wiley Post; Paul Bern, who was 42 when in 1932 he committed suicide, two months after his marriage to Jean Harlow; Loewe Sherman, who died suddenly in 1934 at 49; and Lon Chaney, “'the man of a. thousand faces,” two years younger, ■who departed this life, August, 1930.