HOLLYWOOD LEGEND SEAN CONNERY DIES AGED 90

Sean Connery, the actor who will forever be remembered in cinema history as the first James Bond, has died in his sleep at his home in the Bahamas after a long illness. He was 90 years old.

Connery starred in seven Bond films, and made many other hit films, including Marnie (1964), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), A Bridge Too Far (1977), Highlander (1986), and The Hunt for Red October (1990).

Connery is survived by his wife Micheline and son Jason.

Lana Turner and Sean Connery in Another Time, Another Place (1958)

RHONDA FLEMING, TECHNICOLOR STAR, DIES AGED 97

Rhonda Fleming, Technicolor star of the 1940s and 50s, has died aged 97. Her assistant announced her death, saying that she had been hospitalised with pneumonia about a week. She starred in about 40 movies during Hollywood's golden age, and was one of the last living actors from classic Hollywood. 

Fleming spent her final years working for charity, raising funds for cancer centres and homeless shelters. 

DAME OLIVIA DE HAVILLAND DIES AGED 104

Olivia de Havilland, arguably the last remaining star of the golden age of cinema, has died aged 104. She died over the weekend at her home in Paris of natural causes, her publicist said. She lived a long productive life, winning two Oscars (To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949)); along with Bette Davis she was instrumental in bringing down the old studio system, where studios had their stars on 7-year contracts and could put them into any role they saw fit. The De Havilland Law was established when she successfully sued Warner Brothers to be released from her contract in order to get better roles as a freelancer.









Her best remembered role was a supporting one, as Melanie Wilkes in Gone with the Wind (1939). Jack Warner did not want to lend de Havilland, then one his greatest female stars, to Selznick to make the film, as he thought the role second rate. de Havilland connived the best way she knew how to get the role: by taking Mrs Warner out to lunch and appealing to her directly! She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress but lost to Hattie McDaniel.

The 1940s and 50s had her starring in a slew of hit movies. Her output slowed from the 1960s onward, but she remained active almost to the end of her life. On her 103rd birthday in 2019, she released a wonderful photo tearing down the Paris streets on a bicycle (!):



Olivia de Havilland was a true star, and her passing really is the end of Hollywood's golden age. But she leaves a rich legacy of work. Watch one of her movies as a tribute to her tonight, you will not regret it!

HONOR BLACKMAN, JAMES BOND'S PUSSY GALORE, DIES AT 94

Honor Blackman, the husky-voiced British actress best known for playing "Pussy Galore" opposite Sean Connery in Goldfinger (1964), has died at her home in Lewes, Sussex, aged 94. Her family said her death was unrelated to coronavirus.

Blackman had an 8-decade long career which began on the West End, before she moved into films, including a brief stint in Hollywood starring opposite Elizabeth Taylor and Robert Taylor in Conspirator (1949). One of her many roles during the 1950s was in one of the first (and best) films on the Titanic disaster A Night to Remember (1958). During the 1960s she starred on television in The Avengers, before her star-making turn in Goldfinger (1964).




In A Night to Remember (1958)


With Sean Connery in Goldfinger (1964)


Cast of The Cat and the Canary (1978): Olivia Hussey, Edward Fox, Wendy Hiller, Daniel Massey, Carol Lynley, Beatrix Lehmann, Michael Callan, Honor Blackman

"I never considered myself a sex symbol," she said in a 2015 interview. "I hate watching myself. I've only seen Goldfinger twice, once at the premiere and once at the 50th anniversary. I've turned down parts in the past because they required a sexy woman and I didn't think that was me. I've always wanted to play the secretary."

The resurgence of her popularity at age 40 after Goldfinger should have led to better roles, but it did not. She mostly made routine melodramas and adventure stories. However she did earn great reviews on the stage, in such productions as "Mr and Mrs", "The Sound of Music", "Move Over Mrs Markham" and "Nunsense".

Blackman was married twice, both ending in divorce: to Bill Sankey from 1948-1956 and to British actor Maurice Kaufmann. The Kaufmanns adopted two children, Lottie and Barnaby, in the late 1960s. After their divorce, she did not remarry and preferred to remain single. She had a summer house in Maine, Iowa, but spent the majority of her time in Lewes, Sussex.

She is survived by her two children, and four grandchildren.


In 2015

SILENT SCREEN CHILD STAR BABY PEGGY DIES AT 101

Diana Serra Cary, better known during the silent era as Baby Peggy, has died aged 101. The emotive child star was at one point earning a million dollars a year, before her career came to an end at the ripe old age of 6. Most of her films have been lost to time, but included Little Red Riding Hood (1922), Hansel and Gretel (1924), and Captain January (1924). (In 2016 - a print of her 1924 short Our Pet was found in Japan.)

She was worth $4 million by the age of ten, but her parents hadn't saved any of her income. "They had a house in Beverly Hills before I was 3. Then we had a house in Laurel Canyon. The we had a Dusenberg car that was $30,000. But they thought Hollywood was forever."

As a toddler, she worked eight hours a day, six days a week. She was required to perform her own stunts, which included being held underwater until she fainted, and riding underneath a train car.

Her father, a cowboy who brought his family to Hollywood from San Diego when he heard the film industry needed horse-riding stuntmen, had a ferocious temper. His temper tantrums with the studio heads became so bad that his daughter was eventually blackballed from the industry. She made a living in vaudeville from 1925-29. Then a relative who managed her career stole the remainder of their money, leaving the family destitute. She attempted to return to Hollywood once the talkies had come in, but only managed to get a job as an extra in her final film, aged 19, in the Ginger Rogers film Having Wonderful Time (1938).

She later married, divorced, and became a book buyer for the University of California. In her later years she embraced her past stardom, wrote an autobiography in 1996, and was the subject of a documentary Baby Peggy, the Elephant in the Room in 2012. In 2017, at the age of 99, she self-published her first novel Drowning of the Moon. Her husband of 48 years, artist Robert Cary, died in 2003. She is survived by their son, Mark.

KIRK DOUGLAS DIES AGED 103

Kirk Douglas, one of the last living legends of Hollywood's golden era, has died aged 103.

His son Michael Douglas made the announcement through People magazine. "It is with tremendous sadness that my brothers and I announce that Kirk Douglas left us today at the age of 103. To the world, he was a legend, an actor from the golden age of movies who lived well into his golden years, a humanitarian whose commitment to justice and the causes he believed in set a standard for all of us to aspire to."

Douglas was nominated three times for the best actor Oscar - for Champion (1949), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and Lust for Life (1956). He was finally awarded an Honorary Oscar in 1996. After making more than 80 films, he retired in 2004.

On his 99th birthday, Douglas and his wife doanted $15 million toward a new $35 million care home at the Motion Picture Television Fund Home in Woodland Hills. His wife Anne is now 100, and survives him. His first wife, actress Diana Dill, died in 2015, aged 92.

Douglas with Barbara Stanwyck in his first film, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)

With first wife Diana Dill and son Michael

With second wife Anne

With Lana Turner in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)

With Olivia de Havilland, who turns 104 in July

With Carol Lynley, Dorothy Malone and Rock Hudson in The Last Sunset (1961)

With wife Anne in 2019

CAROL LYNLEY DIES AT 77

Very sad news today, Carol Lynley, best known for her role in the 1972 film The Poseidon Adventure, died at her Pacific Palisades home Tuesday after suffering a heart attack. She was 77.

Though she is remembered most today for Poseidon, she was a bona fide movie star of the late 1950s and 60s, her career beginning at the very end of the old Hollywood studio system. She made her debut aged 16 in Disney's A Light in the Forest (1958). Other 1960s films include Return to Peyton Place (1961), The Cardinal (1963), Bunny Lake is Missing (1965; her favourite role, opposite Laurence Olivier), The Shuttered Room (1967) and Once You Kiss a Stranger (1969, a bizarre remake of Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train, in which she shone as a glamorous psychopath). She went on to have a long career during the 70s and 80s guesting in popular television shows and TV movies.

Though her career wound down in recent years, she was still making public appearances until recently, and her death comes as quite a shock. 

*A personal note: Carol is probably my favourite Hollywood star. My interest in her career spawned my love of old film, and for that I thank her. I'm very sad today.

HOLLYWOOD ICON DORIS DAY DEAD AT 97

Doris Day, multi-talented film star and singer, died early Monday of pneumonia at the home in Carmel Valley, California. She was 97.

Day was best known for a string of musicals, including Calamity Jane (1953) and Love Me or Leave Me (1954) and comedies such as Pillow Talk (1959) and The Thrill of It All (1963). She gave up her career at its zenith to create the Doris Day Animal Foundation.

She was married and divorced four times but had only one son, music producer Terry Melcher, who died in 2004.

Her foundation said that Day died surrounded by close friends and "had been in excellent physical health for her age, until recently contracting a serious case of pneumonia."

1930s FILM STAR MARY CARLISLE DIES AT 104

Mary Carlisle, one of the last living film stars of the 1930s, died early Wednesday morning at the Motion Picture Television Fund retirement home in Woodland Hills, a spokeswoman for the home told The Hollywood Reporter.

Carlisle appeared opposite Bing Crosby in three musicals - College Humor (1933), Double or Nothing (1937) and Doctor Rhythm (1938), as well as 50 other films during the 1930s, starring opposite such greats as Greta Garbo (Grand Hotel), Jack Benny (It's In the Air), John Barrymore (Should Ladies Behave), and Will Rogers (Handy Andy). She was the last surviving WAMPAS Baby Star, good friends with Jean Harlow and Marion Davies and socially popular with the movie in-crowd.

She married actor James Blakeley in 1942. They had a son and Mary retired from film work, for many years managing an Elizabeth Arden beauty salon in Beverly Hills. Blakeley later became head of postproduction at 20th Century Fox. The couple were married until 2007 when he died aged 96. 

She was alert and cheerful to the end, and I'm told on good authority that she was aware of this blog and had enjoyed seeing many of her old photographs here. May she rest in peace <3 

Mary Carlisle at an event in the 1930s with fellow stars Dick Powell, Jean Harlow and William

Powell

With Glenda Farrell and Jean Harlow

With husband James Blakeley

With Bing Crosby in Double or Nothing (1937)

With Clive Brook in Love in Exile (1936)

ELSA MARTINELLI, STAR OF HATARI, DEAD AT 82

Italian film star Elsa Martinelli has died in Rome aged 82. Discovered by Kirk Douglas, Martinelli appeared opposite him in The Indian Fighter (1955). She went on to star in many other films including Hatari (1962) with John Wayne and The VIPS (1963). From the late 1960s she worked mainly in foreign language features. Her last film appearance was in 2006. She is survived by a daughter, Cristiana Mancinelli, who is also an actress.





Elsa at the Venice Film Festival in 2008

DINA MERRILL - DEAD AT 93

Glamorous Dina Merrill, whose aristocratic poise and glamorous looks earned her parts in many classic films and TV series has died aged 93. She had suffered from dementia for many years. 

Born to an impeccably upper-class background, Merrill was the daughter of broker Edward F. Hutton and breakfast foods heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post. Barbara Hutton was a cousin. 

In Hollywood, Merrill appeared in such films as Desk Set (1957) with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, Operation Petticoat (1959) with Cary Grant and Butterfield 8 (1960), among many others. She was a constant presence on the small screen, appearing as herself on TV panel shows What's My Line and To Tell the Truth. A later generation knew her as Maxfield Sheffield's snooty mother on The Nanny. She remained a steadfast presence on the New York social scene and spent decades as a philanthropist and fundraiser for charities.

She is survived by her husband (since 1989) Ted Hartley and two of her four children.

DEBBIE REYNOLDS - DEAD AT 84

Debbie Reynolds has died at age 84, just a day after the death of her daughter Carrie Fisher. Debbie suffered a stroke at the home of her son Todd Fisher earlier today, reportedly while planning Carrie's funeral. She was rushed to hospital but could not be saved. Hours after she was admitted, Todd told TMZ: "She's with Carrie."

Bless. 

Singin' in the Rain (1952)

With Bette Davis in The Catered Affair (1956)


With Leslie Nielsen in Tammy and the Bachelor (1957)


With Harve Presnell in The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964)