Somber subject: Star suicides.

[Graybeard]

In a recent Classic Films Group thread, CBHagman replied that he had forgotten that Brian Keith had taken his own life. Just a few weeks before I had the same happen to me in reading about Charles Boyer.

But Hollywood suicides are a long list. The names here are just those that i recognized from this Classic Films forum and not at all complete.

ACTORS - Keith Andes,Pedro Armendariz,Scotty Beckett,Charles Boyer,Richard Farnsworth,Ed Flanders,Jonathan Hale,Jon Hall,Rusty Hamer,Paul Hurst,Rick Jason,Brian Keith,Chester Morris,Freddie Prinz,
George Reeves,Charles Rocket,Will Rogers, Jr.,George Sanders,Albert Salmi,Philip Van Zandt,Herve Villechaize,Doodles Weaver,Grant Withers,
Gig Young

ACTRESSES - Diana Barrymore,Barbara Bates,Capucine,Bella Darvi,Elizabeth Hartman,Joyce Jameson,Carole Landis,Marie McDonald,Maggie McNamara,
Mayo Methot,Marilyn Monroe,Ona Munson,Rachel Roberts,Inger Stevens,
Lupe Velez

RIP to all of these troubled souls.
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[Manifestor_of_Light]

1. I don't think Marilyn Monroe was a suicide.

Recently there was a Daily Mail article by a guy who said he bugged Monroe's house for the FBI. He said "Bobby held a pillow over her face to keep her quiet" and that he "listened to her die."

The implication was that Robert Kennedy smothered her. Apparently she was going to have a press conference and reveal her affairs with John and Robert Kennedy, so she had to be eliminated.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

3. Private Eye Fred Otash - Daily Mail article

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2338425/Marilyn-Monroe-death-Confession-inside-diary-Hollywoods-famous-private-detective-Fred-Otash.html

[longship]

4. Pedro Armendariz was dying of cancer.

He was suffering while filming From Russia With Love. Some of the scenes were filmed with a stand-in because Pedro could not make the day's shoot.

That is my all time favorite Bond flick, and Armendariz is part of what makes it great cinema. That he was playing a Turk attests to the inspired casting. He certainly chews up the scenery quite thoroughly, always good within the genre.

He took his life to avoid a painful and inevitable death.

[Graybeard]

5. Was he a victim of The Conqueror?

Last edited Sat Sep 7, 2013, 10:24 AM - Edit history (5)

The 1956 film The Conqueror was filmed near the Yucca Flat, Nev. nuclear testing grounds. It's been rumored that radiation at the site caused the cancer of the director Dick Powell and cast members John Wayne, Susan Hayward and Pedro Armendariz.
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[theHandpuppet]

7. I do believe that radiation at the film site killed them.

Supposedly Hayward was convinced of it.

[theHandpuppet]

6. Boyer and his wife, Pat Paterson...

... had lost their only child when the despondent young man, just having been dumped by his girlfriend, shot himself. Paterson, his beloved wife of some 44 years, died in his arms of cancer. Despondent, a few days after her death he committed suicide himself by overdose. Boyer was supposed to have been a lovely man and it's really sad that his life ended so tragically.