Front Row Dress Circle

This year a new biography of the late British actor, Rex Harrison, will be published to celebrate what would have been his 100th birthday this year.  You will notice the title – Sexy Rexy – which came to be the actor’s nickname due to the many affairs he enjoyed throughout his life; and also his seemingly fatal effect on the women he loved and then left.

His wife Kay Kendall - supposedly the love of his life – died from cancer during their marriage; the doctors withheld her cancer diagnosis from her informing only Rex about her prognosis. He nursed her until she died. Another wife – Rachel Roberts - committed suicide after the breakup of their marriage.

But it was not just his wives who were fatally cursed by loving him; Harrison had a year long relationship with Hollywood actress of the early 40′s – Carole Landis – after a year of the relationship going nowhere, and unable to persuade Rex to marry her, Landis took an overdose of sleeping pills.  She was reportedly still alive, barely, when Rex called to see her but wasted valuable time looking casually through her address book for her private doctor’s name, rather than call an ambulance. By the time he did call the paramedics Carole Landis was dead. Photographs were published of the dead actress curled up on the floor of her bedroom.

Rex Harrison, while greatly admired as an actor, was not widely liked by his peers who found him rude, offhand and lofty in his attitude to those around him. One time whilst appearing on stage in My Fair Lady he was leaving the theatre post-performance in the company of fellow actor Stanley Holloway. An elderly lady was waiting at the stagedoor in pouring rain to ask for Harrison to sign her programme. He refused telling her to ‘sod off’; the lady rolled up her programme and whacked him with it prompting Holloway to remark that it was the first time ‘the fan has hit the shit’.

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I read just recently that Gary Coleman (Diff’rent Strokes) has become a married man…well done Gary and all happiness to you and your new bride! if ever someone needed some happiness in their private life it is Gary. But his story reads like so many people who started life in celebrity-ville as a young child. Gary was a wondefully talented child and is now a wonderfully talented man. Some, like Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) are fortunate and make the transition from child-star to adult-star smoothly.  But just as Hollywood can be a yellow brick road for some child stars it has also proven to be a road full of obstacles and bumps eventually leading to heartbreak, ruin and even death for many others. Here are some who went the bumpy way, often tragically…

* Bobby Driscoll (above) was a cute and very talented child actor back in the late 40′s and early 50′s. He appeared in Song of the South (1945), as Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island (1950) and voiced Peter Pan in the Disney film of the same name in 1953.  He grew from a cute kid into a rather gangly and awkward teen and along the way found less work as studio bosses did not know what to do with him.  In the late 1950′s he developed a drug problem and quickly became addicted to heroin. His story had a very sad ending. He was found dead from an overdose in a dirty tenement in East Village New York by two young boys in 1968 at the age of 31.  His physical deterioration had become so bad that police could not identify him. As a result his family were not informed and his body remained in the city morgue for nearly a whole year until he was finally buried in a paupers grave on Hart Island. He was finally identified, 18 months later, after his mother requested assistance from Disney studios – a fingerprint taken from him years earlier was matched with police records taken after his death. He remains in the same grave today. Perhaps one of the saddest cases of all, poor Bobby

* Jackie Coogan was the very first real child star appearing with Charlie Chaplin in The Kid  (1921 )among other films. He never reproduced his fame as an adult and spent his adult years almost penniless as his parents had spent all his earnings before he turned eighteen. As a result of this a law called the Coogan Law was introduced to protect the earnings of child stars from their greedy parents and agents – it is still in force today though more stringently applied now than it was then. Jackie Coogan went on to become Betty Grable’s husband and, more famously, as Uncle Fester on The Addams Family tv show. He also appeared in a guest role on the Brady Bunch as the man who backed into Carol’s car in a carpark.

* The kids from the old Our Gang series of short films had a tough trot in later life with most of the group dying tragically or even violently. Alfalfa was shot to death in 1959 at the age of 31 in a gangland dispute over a debt.  Brisbane committed suicide in 1981 depressed about his forgotten fame. Chubby grew into a very obese teen due to a glandular problem and died at the young age of 18.  The original Pete the Pup (there were a series of them) was poisoned by an unknown person. Waldo grew up to become a Minister and was killed walking on a pavement by a car. Wheezer was killed in a miliatry plane accident at the age of 19 in 1945.

There are many more…but we will leave those for another time.

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It was so sad when Heath Ledger died, many of his fans are still getting over the shock of how suddenly he left this earth and it seemed his family were just beginning to start the healing process. But what about his little girl Matilda and the latest news?

It seems that Heath left a Will that was drawn up three years ago before she was even a twinkle in his eye. The first stages of Probate are in progress and apparently Matilda has been left nothing. But of course the reasons for this are obvious.

Heath simply never got around to amending his Will after Matilda was born and this is something that a lot of people do – he obviously never expected to die so soon and so young, who gives it a thought?

One side of his family has come out and told the papers that Heath’s fortune will go to his parents and sisters with Matilda’s mother, Michelle Williams, probably needing to contest. But now his parents have also spoken out and claimed it is all nonsence and that Matilda will be looked after in every way possible as regards to the Will.

I am sure they will do this after all she is his sole heir. I hope that this does not descend into any nastiness/unpleasantness as can so easily happen with these situations. I think the Ledger family know what is the right, and moral thing to do – and they will do it. For Heath if not for anyone.

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