Thoughts & Things

Sensational Deaths in The World of Early Cinema: Part One

Today when we look at the world of celebrity gossip and the sensationalised news of our favourite movie stars, we see a world that we believe is unique to today. We see old world Hollywood and early cinema as having a certain innocence that is simply not present in the current world of cinema. This is a relatively naive belief. It isn't horribly uncommon, and it can be applied to just about anything in history. Think things like "I miss the good old days" or "I was born in the wrong generation" or "Things just aren't like they used to be."

Ever since film became a very public and popular pastime, celebrities have been scandalising us as the media has regaled us with tales of how they lived, and even more notably, how they died. We all love a good death story, whether we like to admit it or not. The world of cinema has provided us with many of those death stories on screen. When a beloved actor dies tragically young in real life, the media gives us all the details we can handle.

I am here today to share with you some of the most notable deaths in early cinema, with a more specific focus on deaths in Hollywood. Every death on this list occurred in the 1920s or 1930s. This will be the first part of two (for now), covering the deaths of cinema's earliest celebrities.

The Death of Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino was one of the biggest stars of his day. Acting in a wide variety of silent films, he was most noted for starring in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921), The Sheik (1921) and its sequel The Son of The Sheik (1926), Blood and Sand (1922), and The Eagle (1925). He was one of the early sex symbols of Hollywood, known as the "Latin Lover." In 1926, Valentino presented with ulcers and appendicitis that required surgery. The perforated ulcers were mimicking appendicitis, a condition now known as Valentino's Syndrome. Doctors initially had high hopes for his recovery, but he took a turn for the worse, developing peritonitis and pleuritis. Doctors never told him that he would not make it, and it was reported that he chatted with them about his future only hours before his untimely death. On August 23 of 1926, at the age of 31, Valentino passed away in the hospital. While the death itself doesn't seem particularly sensational, it was the who that brought the world to its knees. The media reported that 100,000 people lined the streets of New York at his funeral, hysterical fans were said to have committed suicide, and riots broke out in the streets. Police were deployed to maintain order during the mass hysteria. His remains were taken to California by train, where a second funeral was held.

The Death of Ruan Lingyu
Ruan Lingyu is the only star on this list who was not a Hollywood star. She was one of the biggest stars of 1930s Chinese silent film. She was renowned for her exceptional acting ability, and her starring roles in gritty, realistic films. One of her most well known films is The Goddess (1934), in which she plays a prostitute attempting to pay her young son's way through school. Her personal life was plagued by bad relationships. She became involved with Zhang Damin when she was only sixteen, and she supported him financially, including the costs of his gambling habit. The gambling was what caused their relationship to come to an end when she was twenty-three. Zhang later demanded she provide him with reparations. She began a new relationship with Tang Jishan, a tea tycoon that she began living with. New Women (1934), one of her final films, was about the life of another actress Ai Xia, who had committed suicide earlier that year. Because of its negative depiction of the tabloids in Shanghai, the tabloids began to attack Ruan on a regular basis, latching on to her relationships with Zhang Damin and Tang Jishan as ammunition. At the age of twenty-four, in the year 1935, Ruan Lingyu took her own life by overdosing on barbiturates. It is said that Tang Jishan may have contributed to her suicide, and may have physically abused her the night of her death. Her suicide note, reading "Gossip is a fearful thing" is suspected to have been forged by Tang. As with Valentino before her, Ruan Lingyu has a rather incredible funeral. It is said the procession was three miles long, three women committed suicide during it, and The New York Times called it "The most spectacular funeral of the century."

The Death of Virginia Rappe
Virginia Rappe's career is not a particularly notable one. She did some modeling work, and appeared in bit roles in silent film of the early 1920s. Many of her roles were uncredited, with one of her feature roles being in a film now considered to be lost (Paradise Garden (1917)). She also appeared in An Adventuress (1920) with Rudolph Valentino, who was also an unknown at the time. Rappe's death is where her fame lies, and it became one of Hollywood's earliest major scandals. In 1921, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, a major comedy star of the time, hosted a party at a hotel in San Francisco. It was unclear both then and now what happened to Rappe at the party, but she was taken to the hospital, and died days later of a ruptured bladder and secondary peritonitis. Rumours swirled through the media in the time following Rappe's death, many of them smearing her name. They claimed she had had a child out of wedlock in the years prior, and that she had suffered venereal disease that contributed to her death. Autopsy ruled out these speculations. It was also speculated that a combination of her previously diagnosed cystitis had been aggravated by alcohol, and led to Rappe's death. Arbuckle was ultimately accused of raping Rappe, causing her injuries that led to her death. It was not only Rappe who is raked through the mud by the media, but Arbuckle as well. Three manslaughter trials acquitted him, but he lost all work in Hollywood following the scandal. To this day, Rappe's death remains a mystery, with no real cause for her ruptured bladder at Arbuckle's party having been determined.

The Death of William Desmond Taylor
In the 1910s and early 1920s, William Desmond Taylor was a popular director and actor in Hollywood. He acted in 27 silent films, and directed 59 silent films. Along with the death of Virginia Rappe, Taylor's death was one of the more sensationalised events in early Hollywood news media. Taylor's body was found in 1922 inside his home in an affluent neighbourhood. Crowds gathered around the body, and a doctor on the scene proclaimed that Taylor had died of a stomach hemorrhage. This doctor has never been identified, and many suspect he stayed hidden due to embarrassment; after all, Taylor's body was rolled over by investigators, and a gunshot wound to the back was identified. Taylor's body was found with cash and jewellery still in place, so robbery was not suspected, although they later found out that a large some of cash he had shown to his accountant only a day before was missing, and never found. Over a dozen people were named as suspects. Anyone from costars to friends to valets was questioned in Taylor's murder, but very few solid leads were found. Between poor crime scene management, corruption, and the passing of time, no one ever solved William Desmond Taylor's murder. Despite many speculations and investigations over the decades, to this day, his death remains a cold case.


(I have committed to blogging daily with Give It 100. This is Day Seven.)