Hollywood Boozers, Brawlers and Hard-Luck Cases: Fifteen Ill-Fated Actors of the Golden Age

The Golden Age of Hollywood wasn’t so golden for some actors whose addictions, lousy behavior, and/or bad luck ruined their careers. Back in the day, the big Hollywood studios covered up scandals for their A-list movie stars, but lower-rung players were not so lucky. Wagner (Hollywood’s Hard-Luck Ladies) devotes a chapter each to 15 actors, many unknown today, who enjoyed some fame before tragic circumstances or bad decisions took it all away. They include Ross Alexander, David Bacon, James Cardwell, William Eythe, Billy Halop, Weldon Heyburn, Ronald Lewis, Tom Neal, Allan Nixon, Craig Reynolds, and Danny Scholl. Better-known actors profiled here include King Kong’s Bruce Cabot; Wallace Ford, who acted in over 150 films, including Hitchcock’s Spellbound, but ended up in an unmarked grave; Lawrence Tierney, who specialized in playing gangsters and made a comeback in Reservoir Dogs, until alcohol-fueled rages were his undoing; and Sonny Tufts (star of The Virginian and So Proudly We Hail, but probably more famous for incidents such as biting a showgirl’s thigh).