5 Weird Men of Old Hollywood — Blue Fairy Film Blog

Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff, and Bela Lugosi in 1940’s You’ll Find Out, Courtesy of RKO — Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff, and Bela Lugosi in 1940’s *You’ll Find Out, Courtesy of RKO*

I recently realized that I didn’t have a companion list to my article 5 Weird Women of Old Hollywood, and I honestly felt a little ashamed. If any gender was capable of weirdness back then, it was the men. Their weird behavior ranged from obsessive cleanliness (Clark Gable) to a need for manipulative control (Alec Guinness) and everything in between. Honestly, everyone from back then was a little wacky, most likely because the past was deeply regressive and backward, and people generally rebel against deep seated censorship and repression. While the women of the previous list were often shaped by the actions of men, these men are, for the most part, completely weird all on their own. Though there’s almost too many strange Tinseltown stars to choose from, here are just five of them for your enjoyment:

Cary Grant

Grant was the epitome of charm (he was Ian Fleming’s model for James Bond), with his suave British accent and constant casting in screwball comedies and romances alike. Though he was probably the classiest star of the day, Grant had a private life swimming with secrets. Grant’s (born Archibald Leach) mother disappeared when he was nine, and it wouldn’t be until he was thirty that he learned she hadn’t died but that his father had committed her to a mental asylum. Though married five times, Grant also lived for twelve years with actor Randolph Scott, a relationship that many believed was romantic in nature. During the late fifties Grant started LSD therapy, as advised by a doctor, and reportedly took 100 acid trips between 1958-1961. Grant retired at the age of 62, when his first and only child, Jennifer was born. He died in 1986, at the ripe old age of 82, and his ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean.

Peter Lorre

You just need to look at Peter Lorre to see that he was nowhere near conventional. His bulbous eyes and villainous roles made him famous, even lending to an animated impression in many Warner Bros. cartoons. Lorre’s first huge role was in Fritz Lang’s German language thriller M, wherein Lorre played a serial killer who targeted little girls. After escaping Hitler’s Germany Lorre moved to the US, where he was often cast as a villain or an insidious foreigner. Lorre had chronic gallbladder problems later in life and he became addicted to morphine. He was always in pain, either from his failing organ or withdrawal from drugs. He gained 100 lbs and couldn’t find work later in life. Lorre died from a stroke in 1964 and his ashes were interred at Forest Lawn Cemetery. His only daughter, Catharine, was nearly a victim of the Hillside Stranglers in 1977, but after hearing that she was the daughter of legendary character actor Peter Lorre, they let her go, a fact she learned years later when they were eventually apprehended.

Bela Lugosi

Lugosi shares many similarities to Lorre: They both were from Austro-Hungary, both played villains, and both were drug addicts. Born in what is now Romania, Lugosi became a silent film star in Weimar era Germany before coming to the United States. He starred in the 1927 play adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, a performance that would land him the titular role in Tod Browning’s 1931 classic film. Lugosi was swiftly typecast in horror films, appearing in Universal’s The Black Cat, The Raven, and Murders of the Rue Morgue throughout the thirties. Because of his thick accent and distinct look he couldn’t get any major roles, and was basically abandoned by his home studio by the late 1940s. In part because of an injury from World War I, Lugosi became heavily addicted to Demerol, and spent much of the last part of his life trying to get clean. After Edward Davis Wood Jr. tracked him down and asked him to be in his films, Lugosi gained top billing in a slew of awful B-movies, including Glen or Glenda, Bride of the Monster, and Plan 9 From Outer Space. (This relationship is hilariously explored in Tim Burton’s film Ed Wood) He died of a heart attack at the age 73, and was buried wearing his Dracula cape.

Marlon Brando

Brando was enigmatic in many ways as he was an amalgam of Hollywood success and artistic ideas of self-aggrandizing delusions of grandeur. He was a fan of The Method, a style of acting that involved always being in character. Brando starred in seminal classics such as On the Waterfront, A Streetcar Named Desire, and The Godfather, which made him into a tremendous star. This success paved the way for Brando to be a terror on set for decades, lending to some truly outlandish rumors of his crazed antics. He would often act out, lengthen productions with impossible demands, and sometimes read his lines off of objects in the scene, including a baby’s diaper when he was playing Jor-El in Superman. He had many wives and girlfriends, reportedly fathering seventeen children, though he also had rumored relationships with men, including the late James Dean and Richard Pryor. He even remarked in an interview, “I, too, have had homosexual experiences and I am not ashamed.” He also had serious food issues, resulting in his second wife, Movita, locking their refrigerator with a chain, and his friends throwing fast food over his fence when he was dieting. He would go on crash diets for much of his career, and then binge on food, occasionally splitting his pants onset. Brando died in 2004, at the age of 80.

Charlie Chaplin

Chaplin is best known for playing the lovable Tramp beside child actor Jackie Cooper, and having a passing resemblance to a certain famous historical figure. While Chaplin did a lot of great things in his career (fought fascism before it was considered cool, worked with female filmmakers, and created a studio for visionary filmmakers) he was also a very problematic person. Chaplin was a perfectionist who worked his crew ragged, and reshot scenes over and over again. For a 20-minute film he shot 40,000 reels of film, and he asked actress Virginia Cherrill to repeat the same line 342 times in City Lights. Chaplin was also a womanizer, who went after increasingly younger girls. This culminated in his marriage to Oona O’Neill in 1943, who was eighteen to his fifty-four. They went on to have eight children together and remained married until his death. Chaplin was embroiled in a paternity suit the same year he married Oona. Though DNA evidence proved that he wasn’t the father of actress Joan Berry’s child, the court proved the evidence inadmissible and forced the veteran director and actor to pay child support. Infuriated at the prospect, Chaplin moved his family to Switzerland, where he made films until his death in 1977, at the age of 88.

Celebrity weirdness is the most engaging because it is often hidden behind a completely false facade. These men all had deep-held issues and secrets that lent to addiction and suppression. Today many of them would probably have found treatment, or at least have been pitied by their adoring public. As classical stars we see them as they were on the screen, maybe the only places they could hide in plain sight.