THE WEIRD (ER) SIDE OF HOLLYWOOD

My post on The Weird (er) Side of Rock And Roll was so much fun to write, and, apparently so welcome and informative (at least to one reader) that I've spent the one free hour I managed to wrest out of this sweltering Tuesday in writing another one. Except, this time, the setting for weirdness is Hollywood. You know...that place in California with the big sign, even bigger egos, and (more often than not) small brains. But despite all its faults, I find Hollywood and its denizens infinitely fascinating...and so incredibly weird. Just take a look see.

PEG ENTWHISTLE: AN ACTRESS WHO FOUND FAME THE HARD WAY

Peg Entwhisle was born Millicent Lilian Entwhistle in Port Talbot, Wales on February 5, 1908. Twenty-four years later, on the morning of September 18, 1932, her lifeless body was found lying in a ravine 100 feet below the famous Hollywood sign (which, at that time, actually said "Hollywoodland"). How'd it happen? Well, it seems that, at some point before 1913, Peg and her father immigrated to the United States, where Peg embarked on an acting career, securing roles in several Broadway productions before making the move to Hollywood in 1932, where she was cast in a small, supporting roles in several forgotten films before finally scoring a small, supporting role in a high-budget thriller called Thirteen Women, which starred Myrna Loy and Irene Dunne. It was the Welsh actress's first credited screen role. However, a month before the movie opened in theaters, Peg apparently climbed to the top of the Hollywood (land) sign and leapt to her death. Her body was found by an anonoymous hiker who called the police and informed them of the discovery and told them that she had left the dead woman's coat, shoes, and purse on the front steps of the police station. Officers dispatched to the scene found Peg's body, although it was several days before she was identified by her uncle, who had last seen Peg when she told him that she was going for a walk and would be back soon. The coroner's report stated that she had died of multiple fractures of the pelvis. Police surmised that she had used a workman's ladder to climb to the top of the "H" on the sign and then had jumped. Why? All we have is the note she left in her purse, which was published in newspapers the next day. It said: "I am afraid, I am a coward. Sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain." A granite marker engraved with Peg Entwhistle's name was installed near the sign on September 16, 2010.

LUPE VELEZ: "THE MEXICAN SPITFIRE" WHOSE CAREER WENT DOWN THE TOILET

Lupe Velez, known as "The Mexican Spitfire" to her fans, starred in some 50 movies during a career that spanned the years between 1927 and 1944. She was once married to Johnny Weissmuller (star of the original Tarzan movies) and had a high-profile affair with Gary Cooper. But in 1944, at the age of 36, Lupe's charmed run came to an end when she became pregnant by an unknown lover who, apparently, turned heel and walked away when she broke the news. Despondent, Lupe decided to end it all, took a huge dose of Seconal, wrote a suicide note (in which she mentioned that she had taken a huge dose of Seconal) and lay down on her bed to await death. But, instead of killing her, the pills she had ingested made her nauseous, and she jumped out of bed and made a mad dash for the bathroom. Unfortuntaely, in her rush to reach the toilet, she slipped on a bathroom tile and fell headfirst into the toilet bowl where, presumably unconscious, she drowned. The maid found her there the next day, still with her head in the toilet, dead, as she had desired, but not quite in the way that she had intended.

MARIE PROVOST: A CAREER THAT WENT TO THE DOGS....HERS.

Marie Provost, born Mary Bickford Dunn on November 8, 1998, in Sarnia, Ontario, got her start in silent films as one of Mack Sennett's bathing beauties in a string of silent comedies before making the shift into more dramatic roles in movies like The Beautiful And Damned and The Marriage Circle. Her work as a silent film actress brought her a measure of fame and generally good reviews, but when "talkies" replaced silent films, things took a downward turn for Marie. Although born in Canada, she had been raised in New York, and her thick Bronx accent relegated her to a string of minor roles in which she usually played a wise-cracking secretary or a tough broad who was the best friend of the featured ingenue. Depressed over her floundering career, as well as her dwindling fortune (she had to sell her home in Malibu and move into a seedy apartment in town) she made a pact with Jack Gilbert, another silent film star who had come on hard times since the advent of the "talkies." The pact? A drink to the death contest. Gilbert won, dying of alcoholism in 1936. But Gilbert's death didn't stop Marie from drinking, and she died of the same cause a year later. Unfortunately, one of the things that Marie had managed to hold onto during her downward spiral were her beloved dauchsunds. When her body was discovered inside her apartment, it was in a state that police described as "half-eaten"...by the hungry dogs.

GWILLI ANDRE: SHE FOUND A WHOLE NEW USE FOR NEWSPAPERS

Danish actress Gwilli Andre, who was known for her elegant blonde looks when she first sauntered into Hollywood in the early 1930s, had all the makings of a major film star. Not only was she beautiful, she was talented, and critics loved her. But her films failed to win the hearts of audiences, and by the 1940s, she found herself playing minor roles in minor films, the last one of which was The Falcon's Brother in 1942. Never heard of it? Neither has anyone else. Her increasing anonymity was a source of great pain for the would-be Scandinavian star, and so, like countless other has-beens before her, she sought solace in alcohol. On February 5, 1959, firefighters responded to the report of a fire at her house in Venice, California. They found Andre sprawled on the floor of her bedroom, surrounded by the burnt remnants of old publicity clippings which she had used as the impromptu funeral pyre which had been responsible for the fire.

ALBERT DEKKER: CLASSIC FILM STAR WHO MET A NOT-SO-CLASSY END

Albert Dekker was one of those classic film stars who seemed born to play roles in movies like Gentleman's Agreement and Beau Geste. Tall, dapper, blessed with a golden voice, as well as reams of talent, he was usually cast as "the heavy", a role that he claimed to enjoy playing much more than that of "the good guy." "Who wants to be America's sweetheart?" he once asked during an interview. However, in his private life, he was, by all accounts, a very good guy, who had a wife and a family, and spent considerable time in support of a variety of liberal causes. In fact, Dekker, a graduate of Bowdoin College, was so liberal that when Sen. Joe McCarthy began his witchhunt for communists in Hollywood, Dekker spoke out vehemently against McCarthy and his self-righteous campaign, calling the senator "insane". While his passionate stand against McCarthyism won him admiration from those who had been targeted by the senator, it shot a silver bullet into his career. Dekker found himself blacklisted and did not work as an actor again for the next 19 years. By the late 1960s, things had begun to get better for the 63-year-old former film star. He had just completed a role in The Wild Bunch and had been offered a role in Fiddler On The Roof. On an upward trajectory at last, Dekker and his fiancee (he and his first wife were divorced in the 50s) were in the process of purchasing a new house in Encino.

No doubt it came as quite a shock to his fans when, on the evening of Saturday, May 4, 1968, Dekker's nude body was found kneeling in a bathtub, a noose around his neck, hypodermic needles sticking out of each arm, and a rubber ball in his mouth which was fastened behind his head with chains. Several leather thongs were also wrapped around his body, the end of one clutched in his hand, and a scarf tied around his eyes. His wrists were handcuffed. On his buttocks, above two hypodermic needle punctures was written, in red lipstick, the word "whip" beside the drawing of a sun. But it didn't stop there. Sun rays had been drawn in lipstick around each of his nipples, the words "slave" and "cocksucker" written on his chest, and his thorax bore the pithy phrase "make me suck". On his lower abdomen was a crude drawing of a vagina. The coroner estimated that Dekker had probably been dead since Friday. Police said that they found no signs of forced entry into the apartment (which Dekker had been renting temporarily from a friend), although some expensive recording equipement was missing, as well as a substantial sum of money that his fiancee claimed had been on the premises. Police theorized that Dekker was a "closet homosexual" who had gotten mixed up with the wrong person, but further investigation failed to turn up any evidence of a secret life, nor did any of Dekker's friends consider him a man with "kinky" inclinations. With nothing else to go on, authorities closed the investigation, ruling Albert Dekker's death an "accidental suicide."

That's it for now...from beyond the pale.