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.

"THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SUICIDE": SAD DEATH BEYOND THE PALE

EVELYN MCHALE: "THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SUICIDE", PHOTOGRAPHED BY ROBERT WILES, AS IT APPEARED IN LOOK MAGAZINE

On May 1, 1947, 23-year-old Evelyn McHale bought a ticket to the observation deck atop the Empire State Building, made the long trek upstairs, took off her coat, and leapt 86 stories through the morning mist to her death. In her determination to clear the building's setbacks, McHale landed on the roof of a United Nations limousine parked at the curb, crushing it, and causing an explosive crash that drew the attention of a young photography student called Robert Wiles who was walking across the street. As a crowd converged around the scene, Wiles posed his camera and took a photograph of McHale, who, despite the damage the impact of her falling body had done to the roof of the limousine, looked incongrously peaceful as she lay amid the rubble. The photograph, which came to be known as "The Most Beautiful Suicide", was subsequently featured in the May 12th issue of Look magazine and, decades later, was revamped by Andy Warhol for a print he called "Suicide (Fallen Body)" which he included with other prints that comprised his Death And Disaster series.

SUICIDE (FALLEN BODY) PRINT BY ANDY WARHOL, FROM HIS DEATH AND DISASTER SERIES (1962-1967)

As McHale made her tragic leap, her white scarf floated down to the street, catching the eye of patrolman John Morrissey, who was directing traffic on Thirty-third Street and Fifth Avenue. Stunned pedestrians who gathered around the crash site noticed a string of pearls clutched between McHale's fingers. But it was the note she left behind that struck the most poignant note of all. Discovered on the observation deck along with her coat and a brown make-up bag filled with family photographs, it read: “I don’t want anyone in--or out--of my family to see any part of me. I beg of you and my family--don’t have any service for me or remembrance for me. My fiance asked me to marry him in June. I don’t think I would make a good wife for anybody. He is much better off without me. Tell my father, I have too many of my mother’s tendencies.”

EVELYN McHALE...SMILING FOR THE CAMERA

From the moment Wiles' photograph appeared in Look magazine, Evelyn McHale became an object of fascination in pop culture. Yet, despite the high-profile circumstances of her death, we still know very little about her. What we do know is that she was born on Sept. 20, 1923 in Berkeley, California, the sixth child of Vincent and Helen McHale (she was one of seven), and that after moving to Washington DC where Vincent worked as a Federal Bank Land Examiner, the McHales divorced. Following the divorce, Vincent took custody of the children and relocated to Tuckahoe, New York, where Evelyn attended high school. After graduation, she joined the Women's Army Corps and was stationed in Jacksonville, Missouri. One of the few anecdotes we have from Evelyn's personal life is that, after her discharge from the army, she allegedly burned her uniform.

With her army career behind her, Evelyn settled in Baldwin, New York, living with her brother and sister-in-law, and taking a position as receptionist for an engraving company. It was at this point that she met Barry Rhodes, an ex-GI studying at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. Shortly after meeting, the couple began making plans to marry at Rhodes' house in Troy, New York. The wedding date was set for June, 1947. The day before she died, Evelyn traveled by train to Easton to celebrate her fiance's 24th birthday. According to Rhodes, as the couple kissed good-bye the next morning, "(Evelyn) was as happy and normal as any girl about to be married."

So, what happened between that farewell kiss and the moment when Evelyn McHale made the decision to end her life? We'll never know, of course. That's one of the reasons that McHale's story remains such a source of fascination. That...and the eerily composed look on her face as she lay atop the crumpled roof of that limousine 86 stories below the Empire State Building observation deck. Her last words, scrawled in the note that she left behind, indicate that she was troubled, but without any accompanying details, we can only guess as to the nature of those troubles. There is something undeniably chilling about the final request included in her suicide note: "I beg of you--my family--don't have any service for me or any rememberance for me." The thought that a beautiful young woman, who seemed to have everything to live for, wished, in her final moments, to be forgotten in death may be incomprehensible to those of us who know nothing about McHale's personal suffering, but it speaks volumes about the self-loathing that must have shadowed her life until that moment. And it is, of course, painfully ironic, that, in choosing to end her life in the manner she did, Evelyn McHale achieved the exact opposite of what she had wished for.

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

THE SPLENDOR OF IT ALL: NATALIE WOOD'S DEATH STILL A MYSTERY

NATALIE WOOD: A GLITTERING CAREER OVERSHADOWED BY DARKNESS ABOARD "THE SPLENDOR"

Thirty years ago, on the night of November 29, 1981, the body of actress Natalie Wood was found floating in the dark water beside a yacht called "The Splendor" off South Catalina Island following a night of intense partying among Wood, her husband, Robert Wagner, and Christopher Walken, who was co-starring with Wood in a film called "Brainstorm." The Los Angeles County Coroner's Office ruled Wood's death an "accident", but eight months ago, amid reports of becoming "privy to new information", officials changed the cause of death to "Undetermined" and reopened investigation into the case. Although they have remained generally tight-lipped about the details of that "new information", a spokesman for the department mentioned that bruises were found on Wood's body that night, underneath the jacket that the star of "West Side Story" and "Splendor In The Grass" was wearing over her nightgown at the time of her death. Wood's sister Lana had previously tried, unsuccessfully, to get the case reopened.

ROBERT WAGNER: DOES HE KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT NATALIE HE HASN'T BEEN TELLING?

Among the odd facts surrounding Wood's death were the testimony of a woman on a nearby yacht who claimed that she heard a woman scream for help around midnight on the night that Wood died, reports that Walken and Wagner were engaged in a loud argument around the same time, and Wood's well-known fear of water, which puts a decided damper on the theory that she drowned accidentally whilst trying to stop a dinghy from banging against the side of the yacht and interrupting her sleep. The captain of the yacht, Dennis Davern, has stated publicly that he believes Wagner was responsible for the 43-year-old actress's death, saying that, on realizing that Woods was missing, "We didn't take any steps to find her." He added, "I did lie on a report several years ago."

DENNIS DAVERN: CAPTAIN OF "THE SPLENDOR" AND (APPARENTLY) RESTLESS SOUL ON A MISSION

So far, law officials haven't come up with anything that they believe will "shed new light on the case." But the investigation remains open...as does the mystery that continues to surround the untimely death of one of Hollywood's most beloved actresses.

THE WEIRD (ER) SIDE OF ROCK AND ROLL

CHUCK NEGRON'S EXPLODING PENIS