while watching the scene of Linda Darnell's body being thrown onto the bonfire I remembered that she died tragically in a fire...strange...then there is the case of the star of the movie Laird Cregar who died of a heart attack at the age of 31 this being his final movie....the director John Brahm later directed many eerie episodes of Twilight Zone, Thriller and Alfred hitchcock Presents....stranger than fiction...
shareAlso, George Sanders committed suicide in 1972.
"Baby, I don't care."
Laird cregar was 28 when he died.
It is creepy however, the shape of things to come.
His bio here says that he was born in 1913 which would've made him 31 at the time of his death.
According to the 1920 CENSUS, he was aged 6 when the CENSUS conducted in his neighborhood was performed in January 1920.
"Other than that Mrs.Lincoln how did you like our little play ?"-actress Laura Keene
31 when he died as others noted.
shareMike, who the hell cares?
Enrique Sanchez
Well his grave says he was born 1914 so he would have been 30 when he died.
In the 2007 Fox 3 DVD set "Fox Horror Classics" there are 3 films, The Lodger, Hangover Square, and The Undying Monster (All of which are Brahm films and 2 of which star Cregar). In this set there is a booklet with info on all three films and in the booklet it does say he (Cregar) was 28 at the time of his demise, However in the 20 minute Cregar bio special feature (all 3 discs have great featurettes) that appears on the Hangover Square disc says that he was like 31 when he passed.. So I think the mix up is most likely an issue where actors often used to lie about their ages on contracts, documents etc. Now I am not positive that is what caused the mix up but I would say that either 28,29,30,31 or 32 it was such a TRAGIC ending to a marvelous actor.
Cregar had begun a campaign to lose weight and to have surgery to make his stomach smaller (I am sure in those days those surgeries weren't as common as they are nowadays). During this so called self-improvement campaign he lost 100 lbs in a very short period of time (possibly aided by Benzedrine which today we know as speed, but back then it was commonly used in Hollywood to get more hours out of the day). Because of the rapid weight loss and other stresses in his life at the time, one of which was that he had a falling out with director John Brahm on the set of Hangover Square and then after the argument the whole thing was made public and the entire cast signed a petition stating that they were behind director Brahm. Would you believe then Cregar was called back to do re-takes at the request of studio head Darryl F. Zanuck (which I have a theory that Zanuck knew of Cregar being "difficult" on set and brought Cregar back as a sort of punishment to put him in his so called place..I could be way off base on this but out of all the books I have read on Hollywood of the 1930s,40s and 50s it seems very possible). Shortly after finishing the re-takes on a set full of people he did not want to be around (can you imagine finishing a job and then saying to the press "I sure hated those s.o.b.'s" and then be called back to work with them all again?) and after losing the 100lbs rapidly he checked himself into a hospital apparently to have the stomach shrinking procedures. While he was in the hospital Cregar had 2 heart attacks and shortly after the second attack passed away. It is such a tragic story considering so few of us actually follow through on changing something that we want about ourselves and the fact that Cregar followed through and then it took his life only makes the story that much more tragic. I do wonder with all of the bad stuff that went on in Hollywood in the 30s,40s,50s and with all the cover ups if there may be more information out there that we don't have. Now I don't know enough about Cregar's lifestyle other than him being gay and supposed Benzedrine use to make any assumptions as to what all could have happened or contributed to his heart attacks and death besides the obvious rapid weight loss and use of Benzedrine. I do wonder about possible venereal diseases and or any person or persons that had any animosity towards Cregar, certainly stranger things happened in 30s,40s and 50s Hollywood. If anyone has read any good books on Cregar please let me know as I would like to know more about the man and his life.
A few of my favorite dvds/blurays I own and would highly recommend-
-Citizen Kane - Orson Welles (1941)
-Casablanca - MichaelCurtiz(1943)
-The Third Man - Carol Reed (1949)
-Seven Samurai - Akira Kurosawa(1954)
-Touch of Evil - Orson Welles (1958)
-Rules of The Game - Jean Renoir (1939)
-Singing In The Rain - Stanley Donen (1952)
-Vertigo - Alfred Hitchcock (1958)
-Charade - Stanley Donen (1963)
-Double Indemnity - Billy Wilder (1944)
-Gone With The Wind - Victor Flemming/George Cukor (1939)
-Lawrence of Arabia - David Lean (1962)
-The Godfather - Francis Ford Coppola (1972)
-Wizard of Oz - Victor Flemming (1939)
-400 Blows - Francois Truffaut (1959)
-The Grand Illusion - Jean Renoir (1937)
-8 1/2 - Federico Fellini (1963)
-The Seventh Seal - Ingmar Bergman (1957)
-The Magnificent Ambersons - Orson Welles (1942)
-The Red Shoes - Powell & Pressburger (1948)
-Treasure of the Sierra Madre - John Houston (1948)
-Gaslight - George Cukor (1944)
-The Black Narcissus - Powell & Pressburger (1946)
-The Maltese Falcon - John Houston (1941)
-Now Voyager - Irving Rapper (1942)
-Sunset Blvd. - Billy Wilder (1950)
-The Big Sleep - Howard Hawks (1946)
-All About Eve - Joe Mankiewicz (1950)
-North By Northwest - Alfred Hitchcock (1959)
-The Trial - Orson Welles (1962)
-Laura - Otto Preminger (1944)
-The Lost Weekend - Billy Wilder (1945)
-The Lady Eve - Preston Sturges (1941)
-Night of The Hunter - Charles Laughton (1955)
-The Searchers - John Ford (1956)
-On The Waterfront - Elia Kazan (1954)
-Battleship Potemkin - Sergei Eisenstein (1925)
-The General - Buster Keaton (1927)
-Breathless - Jean-Luc Godard (1959)
-Sweet Smell Of Success - Alexander Mackendrick (1957)
-L'Atalante - Jean Vigo (1934)
-Metropolis - Fritz Lang (1927)
-Out Of The Past - Jacques Tourneur (1947)
-Hangover Square - John Brahm (1945)
-The Lady Vanishes - Alfred Hitchcock (1938)
-Mr. Arkadin - Orson Welles (1955)
-Rear Window - Alfred Hitchcock (1954)
-The Killers - Robert Siodmak (1946)
-The Lady From Shanghai - Orson Welles (1947)
-The Lodger - John Brahm (1944)
-Ace In The Hole - Billy Wilder (1951)
-Cat People - Jacques Tourneur (1942)
***Can't wait for Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes on BluRay, and another great film coming soon is Night Train to Munich directed by Carol Reed who directed The Third Man, Odd Man Out and other great films. Also Psycho has been announced for bluray, although it will have the same features as the recent 2disc release just like Vertgo and Rear Window that all us Hitchcock fans have already purchased, I know I have like 5 versions of Vertigo not counting older formats lol.
TCM said he wanted to play romantic leads and that's why he wanted to lose the weight so fast. Often, losing weight too fast can mean you don't have enough protein and calories so the body takes from the muscles including the heart to make up the deficit. The heart has to accommodate the change in your size which means stress to adjust rate and pressure, including possible irregular rhythm, which can only be made worse if stimulants are used to make the heart beat faster. If he had been heavy all his adult life up until then he might have had heart blockages from high cholesterol. Additionally, it is an especially poor idea to go in for anything but emergency surgery in that fragile condition. Clearly this was a Hollywood quack rather than a responsible doctor. This guy was desperate to be a leading man immediately if not sooner, and he found doctors who fed into his fantasy. I don't understand why this is a big mystery to you although to judge by your favorites list you may not be happy unless you imagine that's what it is.
I had a friend who right after high school went on an over the counter fast weight loss regimen and died from a heart attack that was attributed to it. Happens all the time. Grim but true.
I also love a lot of your favorites but where are the comedies? Don´t you like comedy?
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Like he was going to be cast in romantic roles...He was a psycho killer fgs! I WAKE UP SCREAMING, THE LODGER & HANGOVER SQUARE were all psycho killer parts.
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