Friday, October 16, 2020

TinselTales: Murder "in the Family"

Archie and Edith Bunker. Television icons thanks to the unbel- ievable success of the Norman Lear sitcom All in the Family, which ran from 1971-1979 (thereupon followed by an augmented continuation, Archie Bunker's Place, until 1983, which was mostly without Edith.) Having segued through the loss of key characters such as daughter Gloria and son-in-law Mike, the show now had a new adolescent character called Stephanie in order to help generate new story lines. The episode, "The Return of Stephanie's Father" had the Bunkers grappling with the notion that their new little moppet was about to be reclaimed by her ne'er do well papa and taken to live in a derelict hotel.

Arriving at said hotel, Carroll O'Connor (as Archie) and Jean Stapleton (as Edith) are appalled. O'Connor doesn't even want to look at, much less smell, the place.

There's a careworn desk clerk checking people in by the hour rather than the night.

In the lobby are a couple of men of ill repute.

Finally, Stapleton and O'Connor are greeted by the tenant and soon try to find a place to sit and hash out the details of this sudden attempt at Stephanie's custody after having been in their care.

The desk clerk in this episode was portrayed by one Victor Kilian. Having begun acting on Broadway in the mid-1920s, he had proceeded to a film career (followed by much television) in an assortment of useful parts. At the time of this filming, he was just shy of 88 years of age.

The bum shown getting an earful from O'Connor was played by Charles Wagenheim. Wagenheim also acted on Broadway from the early-1920s to the late-1930s and then moved on to countless film roles. He then acted plentifully on television. He was nearly 84 at the time of this episode's filming.

The House of Frankenstein (1945)
Sadly, Wagenheim would not be among the viewers watching the March 25th, 1979 airing of this episode, "The Return of Stephanie's Father." On March 6th, he returned home to the Hollywood apartment he shared with his invalid wife to discover the young female nurse they'd hired to look after her going through their drawers attempting to steal! Caught in the act, she responded by bludgeoning the poor man to death (then calling to report that she'd "found him" that way.) Wagenheim's 50-year career included movies such as The Song of Bernadette (1943), The Spiral Staircase (1946), Executive Suite (1954), The Diary of Anne Frank (1959, as the thief who breaks into the factory below), Hello Dolly! (1969) and many, many others.

Blondie for Victory (1942)

I Escaped the Gestapo (1943)

Canyon Crossroads (1955)


Perhaps his most notable role of all, as the assassin in the famous umbrella sequence of Alfred Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent (1940.)

But the horror doesn't stop there. Wagenheim was murdered on March 6th, which happened to be the 88th birthday of his recent costar Victor Kilian. Kilian had to have been distressed to hear of the murder of a recent coworker. But he didn't have time to fret... On March 11th, he too was found beaten to death in his luxury apartment! Like Wagenheim, he found himself at the mercy of a burglar or burglars who had intruded while he was watching TV. Five days apart, one mile away from one another, these longtime performers and recent coworkers were gone.

The woman who killed Wagenheim, ironically named Stephanie, was sentenced to only 8 years in prison for the senseless killing of the veteran actor. God only knows what she actually served after her voluntary manslaughter plea deal... There wound up being no direct correlation between the two killings.

With Patricia Hitchcock in Broadway's Solitaire.
Killian had worked on many, many movies including Ramona (1936), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938), Only Angels Have Wings (1939), Reap the Wild Wind (1942), Gentleman's Agreement (1947) and many others. It all came screeching to a halt when he was blacklisted during the McCarthy witch hunt in the early-1950s. However, he was able to resume a Broadway career (including a turn in Look Homeward, Angel with Miriam Hopkins and Andrew Prine) until TV came along with its employment opportunities.



In his day, Kilian could boast featured billing in movies like Bad Boy (1935.)



King of the Lumberjacks (1940)

Kilian got a late-career boost as the father of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, a Norman Lear sitcom with a cult following.

As a lascivious old coot (and "The Fernwood Flasher!"), he made quite an impression on viewers.

This is indeed a more gruesome post than we might typically put up, but it is mere weeks from Halloween, after all, so the time is sort of right in a way.  What are the chances of these still-active, octogenarian actors meeting their fates in these awful ways after enjoying such long careers on screen? It just isn't fair. My mind was blown when I found out about this, though, and wanted to share.

7 comments:

  1. For all the big stars of the golden years of Hollywood, your Stanwicks, Garlands, Gables, Hayworths, Astaire and Rogers, it's the wonderful character actors who played all those supporting roles that glued a lot of these movies together. Many times, for someone like me who loves all those old films, it's these contract actors that I look forward to seeing more than the stars. Florence Bates, Raymond Walburn, Eric Blore, Beulah Bondi. There is true joy in watching them work.

    I never knew the story about Victor Kilian but boy I remember him in so many things. How wonderful he got to work so late in late and in such an iconic show!

    Sadly, I went to my Halliwell's Film Goers Companion to look up Charles Wagenheim and he wasn't in there! I have watched Executive Suite so many times and I can't think who he was unless he was the guy who move a couple pieces of furniture in the conference room for secretary, Nina Foch.

    Today is the birthday of one of my celebrity encounters, actress Marsha Hunt who turned 103 today and is still with us. She played the musical daughter with spectacles in Greer Garson's Pride and Prejudice, James Craigs flighty on the surface but true blue heart of gold rich girlfriend in A Human Comedy and Susan Haywards picture perfect rival in Smash Up, the Story of a Woman. When I was doll collecting and art directed a few doll conventions Marsha was the inspiration for the theme of one of the conventions in Los Angeles. I got to do 2 illustrations of Miss Hunt in a costume from Smash Up and wearing the pink wool suit with matching fur cuffs she wore to her for real wedding. All the attendees got prints of my artwork and Marsha was so sweet and appreciative, treated me like a star when she was the one! Her career was sadly cut short due to the communist witch hunts but she remained progressive and and a supporter social justice and even wrote a song supporting gay marriage! But again, she was one of those wonderful supporting players.

    Thanks for this post, it's wonderful to think these people who most people have seen over and over again aren't forgotten. But sadly sometimes it doesn't end as well as it should have.

    BrianB

    ReplyDelete
  2. I hate to be a stinker, but I can’t help but make a connection with the two murders and the fact that they were in a show with a child, Danielle Brisebois. There was a lot of victimization of children in old Hollywood. It wouldn’t surprise me if something bad happened to DB on the set at the hands of these two guys, and the killings were retribution driven. It just seems too coincidental the way they were killed, and the timing. Probably wrong about the motive, but it doesn’t seem like a coincidence to me. And there, now I’ve infected the comments with a horribly pessimistic train of thought. Sorry everyone.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Very interesting. Thanks for another great post.

    ReplyDelete
  4. BrianB, Wagenheim is a character called Luigi Cassoni in "Executive Suite." (It's been too long since I've seen it to know how he figures into anything...!) That's amazing that you got to meet Marsha Hunt! Incredible, too, that she's still alive. Clearly a lot of personal determination there, considering what she went through. She was considered a very promising performer if I recall correctly. Must have been quite a disappointment to overcome, from MGM to being blacklisted...

    Holy shit, Shawny! That's quite a leap...! LOL More likely, these poor old souls were the victims of a nationwide rise in crime and financial woes stemming from the aftermath of inflation, the energy crisis and so on. Urban areas (in this case Hollywood) could be quite dangerous for people in the mid-'70s and beyond. It had only been three years since Sal Mineo was stabbed to death there for whatever was in his wallet by someone who didn't even realize who he was. In any case, as I say, Wagenheim knew his killer and she was caught and sentenced. I think Kilian's remained unsolved. As we've seen many times since, there is always new scum coming off the treadmill to take what's not theirs. Paging Charles Bronson!

    Thank you, Unknown. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Poseidon, yeah, I can be a bit messed up in my thought process sometimes. Usually I edit myself better. Oh well.

    ReplyDelete
  6. sal mineo and christina helms were also murdered around that same time and fairly close by.

    ReplyDelete

Abusive or hateful comments will be removed.