Picture-Play Magazine (Sep 1928 - Feb 1929)

25 Arnold Kent. Larry Semon. Ward Crane. e rata 1 umber Three times death has visited the film colony, taking a toll of three and bearing out the superstition that one death is followed by two others. B$ Ann Sylvester TF Hollywood has an unfortunate or sorrowful digit in the scale of numerology, it must be three. There is an old theatrical superstition that the death of one actor will be followed by the deaths of two others. Actors are notoriously superstitious, and sadly enough, this has worked out with fatal precision in three cycles of Hollywood casualties. Several years ago, Hollywood mourned the passing of beautiful Barbara La Marr. Not long after her death, Lucille Ricksen passed away, and then Rudolph Valentino. Last summer the colony was shocked by the death of George Siegmann, the well-known character actor. Soon enough to be in the same cycle went Frank Currier and Ward Crane. Lately Larry Semon, George Beban, and Arnold Kent have been snatched from the cast of Hollywood by accident or illness. Death ! Three times the cycle of the Grim Reaper has rolled around, harvesting from the studios young men in the prime of their careers, old men on the outer edge of theirs. In three periods, Death has cast the mantle of mourning on Hollywood for three deaths ! A superstition ? Possibly. A coincidence ? Certainly. Now that the cycle of three has been completed, will the studios be freed of their dread superstition? Or will the sorrowful coincidence of two deaths following one repeat itself in future movie history, as it has in the past? Oddly enough, it was Ward Crane who first spoke of actors' deaths in threes to me. He asked if I had ever noticed that death came to the colony where it was so little expected. Barbara La Marr, of course, had been ill. So had little Lucille Ricksen. Those who knew them best realized that only a miracle of strength could pull them through. But Rudy ? He had been in the very glow of health and enthusiasm one week before he started on that New York trip, from which he never returned to Hollywood. Ward and I had both seen him a couple of days before his departure. I had gone up to Falcon's Lair for an interview. To my mind, Valentino never looked better or happier in all the time I had been seeing him about Hollywood. His feet were planted firmly on the road to greater fame. He was no longer worried with financial or domestic difficulties. And yet he spoke entirely of futility — and death! The title of that story was "If I Had It To Do Over Again." It was never printed. It would have been too sad. For throughout that last interview, Rudy had spoken only of his past — reviewing his mistakes, discussing the things he would like to do over again, if he had the opportunity. There was not one word of his future, or his plans. When I told Ward that story, he remarked, "Just another coincidence of that cycle of three deaths." It is ghastly that Ward should have been in another cycle of three deaths ! Late in 1927 he was taken ill with serious lung trouble, and died several months after Siegmann and several weeks after Frank Currier. In the last cycle the element of unexpected death, of which Ward spoke, was shocking. Arnold Kent was in the midst of filming "Four Feathers," which is to be one of Paramount's most important releases of the season. It was the biggest role the young Italian actor had landed since he came to Hollywood, and his career was opening brightly before him. On the fatal evening of the accident that resulted in his death, he had invited Ruth Chatterton's secretary to dine with him at The Cliff Dwellers, a popular cafe between Hollywood and Los Angeles. The restaurant is situated at a dangerous crossing, and as Kent was escorting the young lady across the street, he was struck by Continued on page 111