Farley Granger, American actor (Strangers on a Train, Rope), died from natural causes he was , 85.

Farley Earle Granger was an American actor died from natural causes he was , 85.. In a career spanning several decades, he was perhaps best known for his two collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock, Rope in 1948 and Strangers on a Train in 1951.

(July 1, 1925 – March 27, 2011)

Early life

Granger was born in San Jose, California, the son of Eva (née Hopkins) and Farley Earle Granger.^[3]
His wealthy father owned a Willys-Overland automobile dealership, and the family frequently spent time at their beach house in Capitola. Following the stock market crash in 1929, the Grangers were forced to sell both their homes and most of their personal belongings and move into an apartment above the family business, where they remained for the next two years. As a result of this financial setback and the loss of their social status, both of Granger's parents began to drink heavily. Eventually the remainder of their possessions were sold at auction to settle their debts, and the elder Granger used the last car on his lot to spirit away the family to Los Angeles in the middle of the night.^[4]
The family settled in a small apartment in a seedy part of Hollywood, and Granger's parents worked at various temporary jobs. Their drinking increased, and the couple frequently fought. Hoping he might become a tap dancer, Granger was enrolled by his mother at Ethel Meglin's, the dance and drama instruction studio where Judy Garland and Shirley Temple had gotten their starts.^[5]
Granger's father found work as a clerk in the North Hollywood branch of the California Department of Unemployment, and his salary allowed him to put a small down payment on a house in Studio City, where their neighbor was actor/dancer Donald O'Connor.^[6] At his office, Granger's father became acquainted with unemployment benefits recipient Harry Langdon, who advised him to take his son to a small local theatre where open auditions for The Wookie, a British play about Londoners struggling to survive during World War II, were being held. Granger's use of a Cockney accent impressed the director, and he was cast in multiple roles. The opening night audience included talent agent Phil Gersh and Samuel Goldwyn casting director Bob McIntyre, and the following morning Gersh contacted Granger's parents and asked them to bring him to his office that afternoon to discuss the role of Damian, a teenaged Russian boy in the film The North Star.^[7]
Granger auditioned for producer Goldwyn, screenwriter Lillian Hellman and director Lewis Milestone. Hellman was trying to convince Montgomery Clift to leave the Broadway play in which he was appearing, and when her efforts proved to be futile, the role was given to Granger, and Goldwyn signed him to a seven-year contract for $100 per week.^[8]

Early career

The studio publicity department was concerned audiences would confuse Farley with British actor Stewart Granger, so they suggested he change his name and offered him a list from which to choose. "The names were all interchangeable, like Gordon Gregory and Gregory Gordon. I didn't want to change my name. I liked Farley Granger. It was my father's name, and his grandfather's name. They kept bringing me new combinations, and finally I offered to change it to Kent Clark. I was the only one who thought it was funny," Granger later recalled. Eventually the studio issued a press release announcing Farley Granger, a senior at North Hollywood High School, had been cast in The North Star after he responded to an ad in the local paper. "I thought that was a really dumb story," said Granger. "The truth was much more interesting."^[9]
Making the film proved to be a fortunate start to Granger's career. He enjoyed working with director Milestone and fellow cast members Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, Walter Brennan and Jane Withers, and during filming he met composer Aaron Copland, who remained a friend in later years. When released, the film was ravaged by critics working for newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst, a staunch anti-Communist who felt the movie was Soviet propaganda.^[10]
For Granger's next film, he was loaned out to 20th Century Fox, where Darryl F. Zanuck cast him in The Purple Heart, in which he was directed by Milestone and again co-starred with Dana Andrews. Granger become close friends with supporting cast member Sam Levene, a character actor from New York City who took him under his wing. He also became friends with Roddy McDowall and found himself linked with June Haver in gossip columns and fan magazines.^[11]
Upon completion of The Purple Heart, Granger enlisted in the United States Navy. Following US Navy Recruit Training in Farragut, Idaho, he sailed from Treasure Island in San Francisco to Honolulu. During the 17-day crossing, he suffered from chronic seasickness and lost 23 pounds, and upon arrival in Hawaii he was admitted to the hospital for several days of rehydration. As a result, the remainder of his military career was spent onshore, where he first was assigned to an enlisted men's club situated at the end of Waikiki Beach and then to a unit commanded by classical actor Maurice Evans, where he had the opportunity to meet and mingle with visiting entertainers such as Bob Hope, Betty Grable, Hedy Lamarr and Gertrude Lawrence.^[12]
It was during his naval stint in Honolulu that Granger had his first sexual experiences, one with a hostess at a private club and the other with a handsome Navy officer visiting the same venue, both on the same night.^[13] He was startled to discover he was attracted to both men and women equally, and in his memoir he observed, "I finally came to the conclusion that for me, everything I had done that night was as natural and as good as it felt . . . I never have felt the need to belong to any exclusive, self-defining, or special group . . . I was never ashamed, and I never felt the need to explain or apologise for my relationships to anyone . . . I have loved men. I have loved women."^[14]
Granger returned to civilian life and was pleased to discover his parents had curbed their drinking and were treating each other more civilly. Goldwyn increased his weekly salary to $200 and presented him with a 1940 Ford Coupe. The actor was introduced to Saul Chaplin and his wife Ethyl, who became his lifelong mentor, confidante and best friend.^[15] Through the couple, Granger met Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein and Gene Kelly, who invited him to join his open house gatherings that included Judy Garland, Lena Horne, Frank Sinatra, Betty Garrett, Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen and Stanley Donen. Most influential among his new acquaintaces was director Nicholas Ray, who cast Granger in his film noir Thieves Like Us. The film was nearing completion in October 1947 when Howard Hughes acquired RKO Radio Pictures, and the new studio head shelved it for two years before releasing it under the title They Live by Night in a single theatre in London. Enthusiastic reviews led RKO to finally release the film in the States in late 1949. During the two years it had remained in limbo, it had been screened numerous times in private screening rooms, and one of the people who saw it during this period was Alfred Hitchcock, who was preparing Rope.^[16]
Granger was in New York when he was summoned to return to Hollywood and discuss Rope with Hitchcock. The night before their initial meeting, Granger coincidentally met Arthur Laurents, who had written the film's screenplay, which was based on the play Rope's End, a fictionalised account of the Leopold and Loeb murder case. It wasn't until he began reading the script that he connected its author with the man he had met the previous night. Granger and Laurents met again, and Laurents invited the actor to spend the night. He declined, but when the offer was extended again several days later, he accepted. It proved to be the start of a romantic relationship that lasted about a year and a frequently tempestuous friendship that extended for decades beyond their breakup.^[17]
In Rope, Granger and John Dall portrayed two highly intelligent friends who commit a thrill killing simply to prove they can get away with it. The two characters and their former professor, played by Jimmy Stewart, were supposed to be homosexual, and Granger and Dall discussed the subtext of their scenes, but because The Hays Office was keeping close tabs on the project, the final script was so discreet that Laurents remained uncertain of whether Stewart ever realised that his own character was gay.^[18] Hitchcock shot the film in continuous, uninterrupted ten-minute takes, the amount of time a reel of Technicolor film lasted, and as a result technical problems frequently brought the action to a frustrating halt throughout the twenty-one day shoot. The film ultimately received mixed reviews, although most critics were impressed by Granger, who in later years said he was happy to be part of the experience, but wondered "what the film would have been like had [Hitchcock] shot it normally" and "had he not had to worry about censorship."^[19]
Upon the completion of Rope, Goldwyn cast Granger, Teresa Wright, David Niven and Evelyn Keyes in Enchantment, which was plagued by a weak script and indifferent direction by Irving Reis. It failed at the box office, as did his next project, Roseanna McCoy, during which he and Laurents parted ways.^[20] While filming Side Street on location in Manhattan for Anthony Mann, Granger briefly became involved with Leonard Bernstein, who invited him to join him on his South American tour. By the time Granger completed the film, the composer/conductor had married Chilean pianist and actress Felicia Montealegre. The two men remained friends until Bernstein's death.^[21]

Leading roles

Granger's next two films for Goldwyn, Edge of Doom and Our Very Own, were unpleasant working experiences, and the actor refused to allow the producer to loan him to Universal Pictures for an inferior magic carpet saga. When he was placed on suspension, he decided to accompany Ethyl Chaplin, who had separated from her husband, and her daughter on a trip to Paris. At the last moment they were joined by Arthur Laurents, who remained behind when the group departed for London to see the opening of the New York City Ballet, which had been choreographed by Jerome Robbins. He and Granger engaged in a casual affair until the actor was summoned to return to New York to help publicize Our Very Own and Edge of Doom, both of which received dreadful reviews. Goldwyn cancelled the nationwide openings of the latter, hoping to salvage it by adding wraparound scenes that would change the focus of the film, and Granger refused to promote it any further. Once again placed on suspension, he departed for Europe, where he spent time in Italy, Austria and Germany with Laurents before being contacted about an upcoming film by Alfred Hitchcock.^[22]

Granger in the trailer for Strangers on a Train

The project was Strangers on a Train, in which Granger was cast as amateur tennis player and aspiring politician Guy Haines. He is introduced to psychopathic Bruno Anthony, portrayed by Robert Walker, who suggests they swap murders, with Bruno killing Guy's wife and Guy disposing of Bruno's father. As with Rope, there was a homosexual subtext to the two men's relationship, although it was toned down from Patricia Highsmith's original novel. Granger and Walker, whose wife Jennifer Jones had recently left him for David O. Selznick, became close friends and confidantes during filming, and Granger was devastated when Walker died from an accidental combination of alcohol and barbiturates [see Robert Walker entry which attributes death to allergic reaction to medication administered by psychiatrist] prior to the film's release. It proved to be a box office hit, the first major success of Granger's career, and his "happiest filmmaking experience."^[23]
On December 31, 1950, Granger picked up close friend Shelley Winters to escort her to Sam Spiegel's traditional New Year's Eve gala. The actress kept him waiting for nearly two hours, and they argued while en route to the party. Once there, they went their separate ways, and Granger met Ava Gardner. The two left to hear Nat King Cole perform at a nearby nightclub and then went to Granger's home, where they began an intense affair that lasted until Gardner began filming Show Boat a month later.^[24]
Having reconciled, Granger and Winters went to New York City, where they audited classes at the Actors' Studio and the Neighborhood Playhouse. Winters subscribed to the concept of method acting, but Granger felt an actor "had to be faithful to the text, not adapt it to some personal sense memory," and their disagreement triggered more arguments.^[25] Their plan to pursue individual training programs was disrupted when both were called back to Hollywood. Goldwyn cast Granger in I Want You, a drama about the effect the Korean War has on an American family still trying to recover from World War II. Granger thought the screenplay by Irwin Shaw was "not only dull, but felt dated," but welcomed the opportunity to work with Dana Andrews and Dorothy McGuire. Goldwyn expected the film to be as successful as The Best Years of Our Lives, but it proved to be as "tepid and old-fashioned" as Granger feared and, opening after cease-fire negotiations with Korea had begun, no longer topical, and it died at the box office.^[26] His subsequent projects – an inconsequential screwball comedy with Winters called Behave Yourself, the Gift of the Magi segment of the anthology film O. Henry's Full House, and the musical film Hans Christian Andersen – were no more successful.^[27]
Anxious to work with Vincente Minnelli, Granger willingly accepted a role opposite Leslie Caron and Ethel Barrymore in Mademoiselle, one of three segments in the 1953 MGM film The Story of Three Loves. The film's producer, Gottfried Reinhardt, also directed the other two segments, and he mercilessly edited Mademoiselle in order to give his stories more screen time.^[28] Unhappy with the direction his career was taking, Granger sought solace with Shelley Winters, who was separated from Vittorio Gassman, and the two friends resumed their love affair, which at one point nearly had culminated in marriage. Their relationship was complicated, but Granger felt "it works for us."^[29]
Granger's next project was Small Town Girl, a musical with Jane Powell, Ann Miller and Bobby Van. Upon its completion, he bought his release from Goldwyn, a costly decision that left him with serious financial difficulties. Granger was determined to move to Manhattan to study acting and perform on stage, but his agent convinced him to accept a role in Senso, directed by Luchino Visconti and co-starring Alida Valli. Filming in Italy lasted nine months, although Granger frequently was idle during this period, allowing him free time to explore Italy and even spend a long weekend in Paris, where he had a brief affair with Jean Marais. During his time in Venice, Granger renewed his friendship with Peggy Guggenheim, whom he had met during his earlier trip to Italy with Arthur Laurents, and he met Mike Todd, who cajoled him into making a cameo appearance as a gondolier in his epic Around the World in 80 Days. He finally returned to Hollywood exhausted but happy about the experience.^[30]
Upon his return to the States, Darryl F. Zanuck offered Granger a two-picture deal, and in quick succession he made The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, in which he portrayed tycoon Harry Kendall Thaw, and The Naked Street, a melodrama the actor thought was "preachy, trite and pedestrian," although he welcomed the opportunity to work with Anthony Quinn and Anne Bancroft.^[31]
In 1955, Granger moved to New York and began studying with Bob Fosse, Gloria Vanderbilt, James Kirkwood and Tom Tryon in a class taught by Sandy Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse. During this period he made his Broadway debut in The Carefree Tree, a play with music based on an old Chinese legend. The cast included Janice Rule as Granger's love interest and Alvin Ailey, Frances Sternhagen, Jerry Stiller and Sada Thompson in supporting roles. The play closed after only 24 performances, but shortly after its demise Rule moved in with Granger, and before long they were making wedding plans. They gradually realized the love their characters had felt on stage actually had not carried over into real life, and the two went their separate ways, although they remained friends until her death in 2003.^[32]
With both his film and theatrical career foundering, Granger turned to television. He starred in Beyond This Place, an adaptation of the A.J. Cronin novel of the same title, with Shelley Winters and Peggy Ann Garner, and joined Julie Harris for a remake of The Heiress. He also was featured in episodes of Climax Mystery Theater, Ford Television Theatre, The 20th Century Fox Hour, Robert Montgomery Presents, Playhouse 90, Wagon Train, Kraft Television Theatre, The United States Steel Hour, and The Bell Telephone Hour, and in later years Get Smart, Run for Your Life, Ironside, The Name of the Game and Hawaii Five-O, among others.
In 1959, Granger returned to Broadway as Fitzwilliam Darcy opposite Polly Bergen as Elizabeth Bennet in First Impressions, a musical adaptation of Pride and Prejudice with a book and direction by Abe Burrows. The tryout in New Haven was a disaster, and reviews were mixed. Things improved slightly during the Philadelphia run, but by the time the production reached New York, Bergen – who was fighting bitterly with co-star Hermione Gingold – was experiencing serious vocal problems, and some of her songs would be cut during each performance, creating confusion for the rest of the cast. Only two of seven critics wrote favorable reviews, Bergen was replaced by understudy Ellen Hanley, and the musical closed in less than three months.^[33] Later that year, he was cast in The Warm Peninsula, a play by Joe Masteroff. Co-starring Julie Harris, June Havoc and Larry Hagman, it received fair reviews and closed after only 86 performances.^[34]

Later career

Despite his three unsuccessful Broadway experiences, Granger continued to focus on theater in the early 1960s. He accepted an invitation from Eva Le Gallienne to join her National Repertory Theatre. During their first season, while the company was in Philadelphia, John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The President had attended NRT's opening night and post-performance gala in the nation's capital, so the news hit everyone in the company especially hard. Granger had become close friends with production supervisor Robert Calhoun, and although both had felt a mutual attraction, they never had discussed it. That night they became lovers.^[35]
Granger finally achieved some success on Broadway in The Seagull, The Crucible, The Glass Menagerie, and Deathtrap.^[36] He starred opposite Barbara Cook in a revival of The King and I at the off-Broadway New York City Center,^[37] and in 1979 he was cast in the Roundabout Theatre Company production of A Month in the Country. In 1986 he won the Obie Award for his performance in the Lanford Wilson play Talley & Son.^[38]
In the early 1970s, Granger and Calhoun moved to Rome, where the actor made a series of Italian language films, most notably They Call Me Trinity. He also appeared on several soap operas, including One Life to Live, on which his portrayal of Will Vernon garnered him a nomination for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, The Edge of Night, and As the World Turns, produced by Calhoun. Granger acted alongside Mario Adorf in the Italian slasher film La Polizia chiede aiuto, which was directed by Massimo Dallamano.^[39]
Since the 1990s, Granger has appeared in several documentaries discussing Hollywood in general and Alfred Hitchcock in particular. In 1995 he was interviewed on camera for The Celluloid Closet, discussing the depiction of homosexuality in film and the use of subtext in various films, including his own.
In 2003, Granger made his last film appearance in Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There. In it, he tells the story of leaving Hollywood at the peak of his fame, buying out his contract from Samuel Goldwyn, and moving to Manhattan to work on the Broadway stage.
In 2007, Granger published the memoir Include Me Out, co-written with domestic partner Robert Calhoun. In the book, named after one of Goldwyn's famous malapropisms, he freely discusses his career and personal life. Calhoun died of lung cancer in New York, New York on May 24, 2008, at age 77.^[40]

Death

Granger died of natural causes on March 27, 2011, at age 85.

Legacy

For his contribution to television, Granger has a star located at 1551 Vine Street on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Filmography

• The North Star (1943)
• The Purple Heart (1944)
• Rope (1948)
• Enchantment (1948)
• Roseanna McCoy (1949)
• They Live by Night (1949)
• Side Street (1950)
• Our Very Own (1950)
• Edge of Doom (1950)
• Strangers on a Train (1951)
• Behave Yourself! (1951)
• I Want You (1951)
• Warner Pathe Newsreel: Cancer Fund Film Notables Attend Glittering Benefits (1951) (short)
• Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Awards (1951) (short)
• O. Henry's Full House (1952)
• Hans Christian Andersen (1952)
• The Story of Three Loves (1953)
• Small Town Girl (1953)
• Senso (1954)
• The Naked Street (1955)
• The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955)
• Rogues' Gallery (1968)
• Guerilla Strike Force (1970)
• The Spider Web (1970)
• They Call Me Trinity (1970)
• The Red Headed Corpse (1971)
• Something Is Crawling in the Dark (1971)
• Amuck (1972)
• Penetration (1972)
• Night Flight from Moscow (1973)
• The Man Called Noon (1973)
• Kill Me, My Love! (1973)
• Arnold (1973)
• Venus (1974)
• Savage City (1974)
• What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (1974)
• The Prowler (1981)
• Death Mask (1984)
• Very Close Quarters (1986)
• The Imagemaker (1986)
• The Whoopee Boys (1986)
• The Celluloid Closet (1995) (documentary)
• The Next Big Thing (2001)
• Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There (2003) (documentary)

 

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H. R. F. Keating, British crime fiction writer died he was , 84.

Henry Reymond Fitzwalter "Harry" Keating  was an English crime fiction writer most notable for his series of novels featuring Inspector Ghote of the Bombay CID died he was , 84..

(31 October 1926 — 27 March 2011)

Life

Keating, known as "Harry" to friends and family, was born in St. Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex and typed out his first story at the age of eight. He was educated at Merchant Taylor's School in London and later Trinity College, Dublin.^[2] In 1956 he moved to London to work as a journalist on the Daily Telegraph newspaper. He was the crime books reviewer for The Times newspaper for fifteen years. He was Chairman of the Crime Writers' Association (CWA) (1970–71), Chairman of the Society of Authors (1983–84) and President of the Detection Club (1985–2000). He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
He received the George N. Dove Award in 1995. In 1996 the CWA awarded him the Cartier Diamond Dagger for outstanding services to crime literature. He also wrote screenplays, was a reviewer and wrote a biography of Dame Agatha Christie entitled Agatha Christie: First Lady of Crime. He died on March 27 2011, aged 84.

Last years

On his 80th birthday in 2006, members of the Detection Club honored him with an anthology, Verdict of Us All. He lived in London with his wife, the actress Sheila Mitchell until his death in 2011, aged 84.

Works

Early novels

Keating's first four novels were published by Gollancz. With his fifth novel, Death of a Fat God (1963), he moved to Collins Crime Club, with whom he stayed for the next twenty years.

Inspector Ghote

Inspector Ganesh Ghote is an inspector in the Mumbai Police who appeared in twenty-four novels. The first was The Perfect Murder (1964), which won a Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award and was nominated for an Edgar Award. It was later made into a film by Merchant Ivory. Keating intended Ghote's final appearance to be in the novel Breaking and Entering (2000), but brought the character back in Inspector Ghote's First Case (2008).
Keating did not visit India until ten years after he started writing about it.^[3]

Evelyn Hervey

In the mid-eighties Keating published three novels with Weidenfeld under the pseudonym Evelyn Hervey.

DCI Harriet Martens

Harriet Martens is a Detective Chief Inspector who earns the nickname "The Hard Detective" because of the tough image that she adopts to survive in the masculine world of UK policing. This toughness inspired her to start a "Stop the Rot" campaign that successfully reduced local crime but angered some violent criminals to the extent that they start murdering her officers. In the second book she falls in love with a fellow officer while investigating the murder of the UK's top tennis player. With her job under threat she fights to prove her worth in the third book.

 Other novels

In 1978 Keating published A Long Walk to Wimbledon, a science-fiction novel about a man trekking across a ruined London to save his estranged wife.
In the 1990s Keating wrote several novels about UK police detectives whose human weaknesses adversely affect their work. The first of these was The Rich Detective (1993) in which Detective Inspector Bill Sylvester of South Mercia Police investigates an anonymous allegation that a local antiques dealer is murdering old ladies after persuading them to change their wills in his favour.
In A Bad Detective (1996) Detective Sergeant Jack Stallworthy is a corrupt police officer who is planning his retirement to Devon when a businessman offers him an entire tropical island in return for stealing an incriminating file from the Fraud Investigations Office at police headquarters.
In September 1999 Flambard Press published his verse novel Jack, the Lady Killer.

 Non-fiction

His guide to Writing Crime Fiction (1986) was based on his analysis of the development of the genre from the 1920s to the 1990s. It includes guidance on fictional structure, the plot and its characters, and on submitting a script to publishers.

Bibliography

Partial bibliography

Inspector Ghote

• The Perfect Murder (1964)
• Inspector Ghote's Good Crusade (1966)
• Inspector Ghote Caught in Meshes (1967)
• Inspector Ghote Hunts the Peacock (1968)
• Inspector Ghote Plays a Joker (1969)
• Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg (1970)
• Inspector Ghote Goes by Train (1971)
• Inspector Ghote Trusts the Heart (1972)
• Bats Fly Up for Inspector Ghote (1974)
• Filmi, Filmi, Inspector Ghote (1976)
• Inspector Ghote Draws a Line (1979)
• The Murder of the Maharajah (1980)
• Go West Inspector Ghote (1981)
• The Sheriff of Bombay (1984)
• Under a Monsoon Cloud (1986)
• The Body in the Billiard Room (1987)
• Dead on Time (1988)
• The Iciest Sin (1990)
• Inspector Ghote, His Life and Crimes (1989); short story collection
• Cheating Death (1992)
• Doing Wrong (1993)
• Asking Questions (1996)
• Bribery, Corruption Also (1999)
• Breaking and Entering (2000)
• Inspector Ghote's First Case (2008)
• A Small Case for Inspector Ghote? (2009)

 Harriet Martens

• The Hard Detective (2000)
• A Detective in Love (2001)
• A Detective Under Fire (2002)
• The Dreaming Detective (2003)
• A Detective at Death's Door (2004)
• One Man and His Bomb (2006)
• Rules, Regs and Rotten Eggs (2007)

 Other novels

• Death and the Visiting Firemen (1959)
• Zen There Was Murder (1960)
• A Rush On the Ultimate (1961)
• The Dog It Was That Died (1962)
• Death of a Fat God (1963)
• Is Skin-Deep, Is Fatal (1965)
• The Strong Man (1971)
• The Underside (1974)
• A Remarkable Case of Burglary (1975)
• Murder by Death (1976); novelization of Murder by Death (screenplay by Neil Simon)
• A Long Walk to Wimbledon (1978); science-fiction novel
• The Governess (1983); writing as Evelyn Hervey
• Mrs. Craggs: Crimes Cleaned Up (1985); short story collection
• The Man of Gold (1985); writing as Evelyn Hervey
• Into the Valley of Death (1986); writing as Evelyn Hervey
• The Rich Detective (1993)
• The Good Detective (1995)
• The Soft Detective (1997)
• In Kensington Gardens Once... (1997); short story collection
• The Bad Detective (1999)
• Jack the Lady Killer (1999); novel in verse

Non-fiction books

• Murder Must Appetize (1975)
• Sherlock Holmes, the Man and His World (1979)
• Great Crimes (1982)
• Writing Crime Fiction (1986; 2nd ed. 1994)
• Crime and Mystery: the 100 Best Books (1987)
• The Bedside Companion to Crime (1989)

 

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Ellen McCormack, American pro-life activist and politician, two-time Presidential candidate (1976, 1980) died she was , 84.

Ellen Cullen McCormackwas a candidate for the Democratic Party's Presidential nomination in 1976. McCormack was one of the first female candidates for President, alongside women like Shirley Chisholm died she was , 84..

(September 15, 1926 – March 27, 2011)


McCormack, generally identified during her 1976 campaign as a "housewife",^[1][3] appeared on the ballot in 18 states, more than any female candidate to that point (Republican or Democrat).^{[citation needed]} She was also the first woman to raise enough money to qualify for Federal matching funds^[4][5] and Secret Service protection.
She ran on an exclusively pro-life platform and won no primaries, but had her name placed into nomination and received 22 votes from delegates at the Democratic National Convention, and engaged in a debate that also included future President Jimmy Carter.
In 1980 she ran again, this time as a third-party pro-life candidate for President in 1980; her running mate was Carroll Driscoll. They received 32,327 votes.
She had been a chairwoman of the New York Right to Life Party, and was their candidate for Lieutenant Governor of New York in 1978.

 Death

McCormack died on March 27, 2011, aged 84, after having suffered for a long period with a heart ailment which originated during one of her pregnancies.^[2] She passed away with her family at a Long Island hospital.

 

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DJ Megatron, American disc jockey, was shot he was , 32

Corey McGriff , better known as DJ Megatron, was a DJ, record producer, rapper, radio and television personality.

(August 11, 1978 – March 27, 2011)

Career

McGriff broadcast hip hop, R&B and urban music through various radio stations in a number of cities in the United States including initially as an intern at New York's WRKS-FM (also known as Kiss FM) as an on-air sidekick of popular personality Fatman Scoop,^[1] then for two years at Boston's WBOT-FM (Hot 97.7) and for two-and-one-half years at Philadelphia's WPHI-FM (The Beat).
He was also part of the Black Entertainment Television (BET) television station's "106 & Park" countdown show with his popular segment entitled "What's Good".^[2] He was also the host of BET's "On Blast" Internet show.
McGriff was a promoter of local artists from Staten Island. He also appeared in a number of films, including most notably, State Property 2, Blood of a Champion and Killa Season.

Personal life

McGriff was engaged to Rashidat O. and was a father of three.

Death

McGriff was murdered near his home in Staten Island, New York, and his body was found with a gunshot wound to his chest. Two New York City men, William Williams, 21, and Richard Cromwell, 20, were arrested on April 6, 2011 on charges of murder, robbery and criminal weapon possession.^[3][4]

 

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Dorothea Puente, American serial killer, died from natural causes he was , 82

Dorothea Helen Puente was a convicted American serial killer  died from natural causes he was , 82. In the 1980s, Puente ran a boarding house in Sacramento, California, and cashed the Social Security checks of her elderly and mentally disabled boarders. Those who complained were killed and buried in her yard.

(January 9, 1929 – March 27, 2011)

Background

Puente was born as Dorothea Helen Gray in San Bernardino County, California. Her parents – Trudy Mae Yates and Jesse James Gray – both worked as cotton pickers.^[1] Her father died of tuberculosis when she was eight years old, and her mother died in a motorcycle accident a year later. She was sent to an orphanage until relatives from Fresno, California, took her in. In later life, she lied about her childhood, saying that she was one of three children who all were born and raised in Mexico.
In 1945, she was married for the first time at the age of 16 to a soldier named Fred McFaul, who had just returned from the Pacific. Dorothea had two daughters between 1946 and 1948, but she sent one to relatives in Sacramento, and gave the other up for adoption. Dorothea became pregnant again in 1948, but suffered a miscarriage. In late 1948, McFaul became fed up and left her. Humiliated at being abandoned, Dorothea would lie about this marriage and claim that her husband died of a heart attack within days of their union. She tried to forge checks, but she was eventually caught and sentenced to a year in jail; she was paroled after six months. Soon after her release, she was impregnated by a man she barely knew and gave birth to a daughter, whom she gave up for adoption. In 1952, she married a Swede named Axel Johanson, and had a turbulent 14-year marriage.
In 1960, she was arrested for owning and managing a brothel and was sentenced to 90 days in the Sacramento County Jail. After her release, she was arrested again, this time for vagrancy, and sentenced to another 90 days in jail. Following that, she began a criminal career that over time became more serious. She found work as a nurse's aide, caring for disabled and elderly people in private homes. In a short time, she started to manage boarding houses.
She divorced Johansen in 1966 and married Roberto Puente, a man 19 years her junior, in Mexico City. The marriage only lasted two years. Shortly after it ended, Dorothea Puente took over a three-story, 16-bedroom care home at 2100 F Street in Sacramento, California. Puente got married for the fourth time in 1976 to Pedro Montalvo, who was a violent alcoholic. The marriage only lasted a few months, and Puente started to spend time in local bars looking for older men who were receiving benefits. She forged their signatures to steal their money, but she eventually was caught and charged with 34 counts of treasury fraud. While on probation, she continued to commit the same fraud. According to California Court of Appeal records, in 1981 Puente began renting an upstairs apartment at 1426 F Street in downtown Sacramento. The nine murders with which she was charged in 1988 (she was convicted in 1993 of three) were associated with this upstairs apartment and not her previous 16-room boarding house.

Murders

Puente's reputation in the boarding house was mixed. Some tenants resented her stinginess and complained that she refused to give them their mail or money; others praised her for small acts of kindness or for her generous home-made meals. Puente's motives for killing tenants were financial, with police estimates of her ill-gotten income totaling more than $5,000 per month. The murders appear to have begun shortly after Puente began renting out space in the home at 1426 F Street. In April 1982, 61-year-old friend and business partner Ruth Monroe began living with Puente in her upstairs apartment, but soon died from an overdose of codeine and Tylenol. Puente told police that the woman was very depressed because her husband was terminally ill. They believed her and judged the incident a suicide.
A few weeks later, the police were back after a 74-year-old pensioner named Malcolm McKenzie (one of four elderly people Puente was accused of drugging) accused Puente of drugging and stealing from him.^{[citation needed]} She was convicted of three charges of theft on August 18, 1982, and sentenced to five years in jail, where she began corresponding with a 77-year-old retiree living in Oregon, named Everson Gillmouth. A pen-pal friendship developed, and when Puente was released in 1985 after serving just three years of her sentence, he was waiting for her in a red 1980 Ford pickup. Their relationship developed quickly, and the couple was soon making wedding plans. They opened a joint bank account and paid $600-a-month rent for the upstairs apartment at 1426 F Street in Sacramento.
In November 1985, Puente hired handyman Ismael Florez to install some wood paneling in her apartment. For his labor and an additional $800, Puente gave him a red 1980 Ford pickup in good condition, which she stated belonged to her boyfriend in Los Angeles who no longer needed it. She asked Florez to build a box 6 feet by 3 feet by 2 feet to store "books and other items". She then asked Florez to transport the filled and nailed-shut box to a storage depot. Florez agreed, and Puente joined him. On the way, however, she told him to stop while they were on Garden Highway in Sutter County and dump the box on the river bank in an unofficial household dumping site. Puente told him that the contents of the box were just junk. On January 1, 1986, a fisherman spotted the box sitting about three feet from the bank of the river and informed police. Investigators found a badly decomposed and unidentifiable body of an elderly man inside. Puente continued to collect Everson Gillmouth's pension and wrote letters to his family, explaining that the reason he had not contacted them was because he was ill. She maintained a "room and board" business, taking in 40 new tenants. Gillmouth's body remained unidentified for three years.
Puente continued to accept elderly tenants, and was popular with local social workers because she accepted "tough cases", including drug addicts and abusive tenants. She collected tenants' monthly mail before they saw it and paid them stipends, pocketing the rest for "expenses." During this period, parole agents went and visited Puente, who had been ordered to stay away from the elderly and refrain from handling government checks, a minimum of fifteen times at the residence. No violations were ever noted.
Suspicion was first aroused when neighbors noticed the odd activities of a homeless alcoholic known only as "Chief", whom Puente stated she had "adopted" and made her personal handyman. Puente had Chief dig in the basement and cart soil and rubbish away in a wheelbarrow. At the time, the basement floor was covered with a concrete slab. Chief later took down a garage in the backyard and installed a fresh concrete slab there as well. Soon afterward, Chief disappeared.

Arrest and imprisonment

On November 11, 1988, police inquired after the disappearance of tenant Alvaro Montoya, a developmentally disabled schizophrenic whose social worker had reported him missing. After noticing disturbed soil on the property, they uncovered the body of tenant Leona Carpenter, 78. Seven bodies were eventually found, and Puente was charged with a total of nine murders, convicted of three and sentenced to two life sentences.
During the initial investigation, Puente was not immediately suspect, and was allowed to leave the property, ostensibly to buy a cup of coffee at a nearby hotel. Instead, she fled to Los Angeles, where she immediately befriended an elderly pensioner, who recognized her from police reports and called the authorities.
Her trial was moved to Monterey County, California, on a change of venue motion filed by her attorneys, Kevin Clymo and Peter Vlautin, III. The trial began in October 1992 and ended a year later. The prosecutor, John O'Mara, was the homicide supervisor in the Sacramento County District Attorney's office.
O'Mara called over 130 witnesses. He argued to the jury she had used sleeping pills to put her tenants to sleep, then suffocated them, and hired convicts to dig the holes in her yard. Clymo concluded his closing argument by showing a picture commonly used in psychology that can be viewed in different ways and saying "Keep in mind things are not always as they seem." The jury deliberated over a month and found Puente guilty of three murders. They could not agree on the others. The penalty phase of the prosecution was highlighted by her prior convictions introduced by O'Mara.
The defense called several witnesses that showed Puente had a generous and caring side to her and several other witnesses including her long-lost daughter.They testified how Puente had helped them in their youth and guided them to successful careers. Mental health experts testified of Puente's abusive upbringing and how it motivated her to help the less fortunate. At the same time, they agreed she had an evil side brought on by the stress of caring for her down-and-out tenants.^{[citation needed]}
O'Mara's closing argument focused on Puente's acts of murder. "Does anyone become responsible for their conduct in this world? ...These people were human beings, they had a right to live-they did not have a lot of possessions-no houses-no cars-only their social security checks and their lives. She took it all... Death is the only appropriate penalty".^{[citation needed]}
Kevin Clymo responded by evoking Dorothea the child and caregiver. Peter Vlautin addressed the jurors in confidential tones, contrasting with O'Mara's shouting:
"We are here today to determine one thing: What is the value of Dorothea Puente's life? That is the question. Does she have to be killed?" Vlautin spoke gently about Puente's childhood touching on the traumatic aspects that shaped her life and urged the jurors to see the world through her eyes. "You have heard of the despair which was the foundation of her life, the anger and resentment...If anyone in the jury room tells you it was not that bad, ask them would you want that to happen to yourself? Would you want that to happen to your children? ... I am led to believe if there is any reason for us to be living here on this earth, it is to somehow enhance one another's humanity, to love, to touch each other with kindness, to know that you have made just one person breathe easier because you have lived. I submit to you ladies and gentlemen that is why these people came to testify for Dorothea Puente ... "I think you can only truly understand why so many people testifed and asked you to spare Dorthea's life only if you have ever fallen down and stumbled on the road of life and had someone pick you up, give you comfort, give you love, show you the way. Then you will understand why these people believe Dorothea's life is worth saving. That is mitigating. That is a human quality that deserves to be preserved. It is a flame of humanity that has burned inside Dorthea since she was young ... That is reason to give Dorthea Puente life without the possibility of parole."^{[citation needed]}

Conviction

After several days of deliberations, the jury was deadlocked 7–5 for life. The judge, Michael J. Virga, declared a mistrial when the jury said further deliberations would not change their minds. Under the law, Puente received life without the possibility of parole. She was incarcerated at Central California Women's Facility (CCWF) in Chowchilla, Madera County, California. For the rest of her life she maintained her innocence and insisted all her tenants had died of "natural causes".

Death

On March 27, 2011, Dorothea Puente died in prison at the age of 82 from natural causes.^[2]

In media and popular culture

Dorothea Puente appeared in the criminal documentary Crime Stories on Discovery Channel, Biography Channel and History Television.
In 1998, she began corresponding with Shane Bugbee, who conducted an extensive interview with her over the course of several years. She began sending him various recipes, and, in 2004, Cooking with a Serial Killer was released. It included a lengthy interview, almost 50 recipes, and various pieces of prison art sent to Bugbee by the convicted murderess.^[3]

 

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George Tooker, American painter, died from kidney failure he was , 90.

George Clair Tooker, Jr.  was a figurative painter whose works are associated with the Magic realism and Social realism movements. He was one of nine recipients of the National Medal of Arts in 2007.^[1]

(August 5, 1920  – March 27, 2011)

Life

Tooker was raised by his Anglo/French-American father George Clair Tooker and English/Spanish-Cuban mother Angela Montejo Roura in Brooklyn Heights and Bellport, New York along with his sister Mary Fancher Tooker. Tooker wanted to attend art school rather than college, but ultimately abided by his parents' wishes and majored in English Literature at Harvard University, while still devoting much of his time to painting. During 1942, he graduated from college and then entered the Marine Corps but was discharged due to ill-health.^[2]
Although he was raised in a religious Episcopalian family he later converted to Catholicism.^[2]
Tooker died on March 27, 2011 due to kidney failure.^[3]

Work

In 1943 Tooker began attending at the Art Students League of New York, where he studied with Reginald Marsh and Kenneth Hayes Miller. Early in his career Tooker's work was often compared with other painters such as Andrew Wyeth, Edward Hopper, and his close friends Jared French and Paul Cadmus.^[1]
Working with the then-revitalized tradition of egg tempera, Tooker addressed issues of modern-day alienation with subtly eerie and often visually literal depictions of social withdrawal and isolation. Subway (1950; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City) and Government Bureau (1956; Metropolitan Museum of Art) are two of his best-known paintings.^[1]
He was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1968 and was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2007, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. Tooker lived for many years in Hartland, Vermont.^[1]

Bibliography

George Tooker: Thomas Garver 1985 Imago: Creative Director Arnold Skolnick

 

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