Charles Boyer

Charles Boyer - who was born on August 28th, 1899, in Figeac in south-west France - was a French-American actor who appeared in more than eighty films between 1920 and 1976.  The son of Augustine Louise Durand and Maurice Boyer, a merchant, Boyer was described as a shy smalltown boy who discovered movies and theatre at the age of eleven.  Performing comic sketches for soldiers whilst working as an orderly during World War I, Boyer's first film was the French silent movie L'homme du large in 1920.  With the coming of sound, his deep voice and French accent made him a romantic star.  Moving back and forth between France and Hollywood in the 1930s, Boyer married the British actress Pat Patterson only three months after meeting her in 1934.  His international breakthrough came with the film Mayerling in 1936.  He then played opposite Marlene Dietrich in that same year in The Garden of Allah and I Loved a Soldier, and with Greta Garbo in Conquest and Claudette Colbert in Tovarich in 1937.  In September, 1939, Boyer was drafted into the French army, but was discharged in November, with the French government believing he would be better employed making films.  However, by the early 1940s, Boyer had begun losing his hair and developed a paunch, whilst also being noticeably shorter than his leading ladies like Ingrid Bergman.  He became a naturalised citizen of the United States in 1942.  In 1943, Boyer's only child - Michael Charles Boyer - was born.  Continuing to star in films, such as Gaslight with Ingrid Bergman and Joseph Cotten, during the 1940s, by the end of that decade Boyer was no longer the star he was, with the 1948 film with Ingrid Bergman, Arch of Triumph, failing at the box office.  He made his first appearance on Broadway in Red Gloves - which ran for 113 performances - in 1948-'49.  Boyer then moved into television, being made rich by becoming one of the pioneering producers and stars of the anthology show, Four Star Playhouse, which ran from 1952 to '56.  He continued to appear in films and on stage, in both the U.S. and France, throughout the 1950s and '60s.  He was nominated for the Tony award as Best Actor (Dramatic) in the 1963 Broadway production of Lord Pengo, which ran for 175 performances, although Man and Boy, during the same year, only went for 54 performances.  Boyer's son, Michael, committed suicide by shooting himself in the head at the age of 21 in 1965, after his girlfriend had left him.  Continuing into the 1960s and '70s, Boyer's career had lasted longer than many romantic stars, earning him the nickname "the last of the cinema's great lovers".  In March, 1970 - finding living in Los Angeles traumatic after his son's death - Boyer returned to live in Europe.  One of his last roles was in the 1974 French film, Stavisky, which won Boyer the New York Film Critics' Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor, and also received the Special Tribute at the Cannes Film Festival.  His last role was in the 1976 film, A Matter of Time, directed by Vincente Minnelli, and starring Vincente's daughter Liza Minnelli, as well as Ingrid Bergman.  After being diagnosed with a brain tumour, Boyer's wife died of cancer in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.A., on August 24th, 1978.  Distraught by her death, Boyer took an overdose of the barbiturate Seconal two days later whilst at a friend's home in Scottsdale, Arizona.  He was taken to hospital in Phoenix, where he died on August 26th, 1978.  Two days before his 79th birthday, Charles Boyer was 78 years old.  He was interred in Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California, alongside his wife and son.

Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Michael Bourdain - who was born on June 25th, 1956, in Manhatten, New York City, U.S.A. - was an American celebrity chef, author, and documentarian.  The older of two boys born to Gladys and Pierre Bourdain, he described his childhood as being happy and loving.  Whilst on a family holiday in France in his youth, Bourdain tasted his first oyster on a fisherman's boat, which he credits as stimulating his love of food.  After graduating from high school in 1973, Bourdain enrolled at Vassar College in New York, but dropped out after two years.  His interest in cooking was kindled whilst he worked at several seafood restaurants in Massachusetts during his college years, and he subsequently trained at The Culinary Institute of America, graduating in 1978.  From there, he went on to run several restaurant kitchens in New York City.  Whilst at high school, Bourdain began dating an older girl, Nancy Putkoski, whom he described as "a bad girl" and "part of a druggy crowd"; the pair married in 1985.  Bourdain himself became a regular user of many recreational drugs, from cannabis to heroin.  His first book, a culinary mystery called Bone in the Throat, was published in 1995, but sold poorly, as did the follow-up, Gone Bamboo.  However, subsequent books, all about food as well as his travels around the world, were much more successful.  His 2001 book, A Cook's Tour - written to tie-in with his first television series of the same name - became a bestseller.  Bourdain thereafter hosted many food-themed television programmes, working for the Travel Channel from 2005 to 2013, and for CNN from 2013 to 2018.  He was known for his put-downs of other celebrity chefs, but was quick to praise those he admired.  Smithsonian Magazine described Bourdain as "the original rock star" of the culinary world, and he became known as a "bad boy" of cooking for his frequent use of expletives and sexual references on his No Reservations television show.  After twenty years of marriage, Bourdain divorced from his first wife in 2005, marrying Ottavia Busia in 2007.  Busia bore Bourdain his only child - a daughter named Ariane - that same year.  Previously a heavy smoker, Bourdain gave up cigarettes in 2007 for the benefit of his daughter's health, but started smoking again towards the end of his life.  Although Busia sometimes travelled with Bourdain, and even appeared in a few of his T.V. shows, the strain of Bourdain being away filming 250 days a year put a strain on the relationship, resulting in the couple separating in 2016, after which Bourdain entered into a relationship with Italian actress, Asia Argento.  In 1998, Bourdain became executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles restaurant in Manhatten, but the business went bankrupt in 2017.  In early June of 2018, Bourdain was in Strasbourg, France, filming an episode of his Parts Unknown programme.  On June 8th, his friend Eric Ripert became concerned that Bourdain had missed breakfast and dinner.  Ripert subsequently found Bourdain hanging in his room at the Le Chambard hotel in Kayersberg, near the city of Colmar, from an apparent suicide.  An inquest heard that Bourdain's body contained no traces of narcotics, and his suicide appeared to be an impulsive act.  Anthony Bourdain was 61 years old.

Chris Morgan

Christopher Morgan - who was born on July 29th, 1952, in Cardiff, Wales, U.K. - was a Welsh journalist and television- and radio-presenter. Educated at Cardiff High School, and at Atlantic College in the Vale of Glamorgan, he was the oldest of four children born to parents who were both bank cashiers. Following sixth-form, Morgan attended the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, where he stood as a Labour Party candidate for the local authority, as well as becoming treasurer of the National Union of Students. After graduating with a Master of Theology degree in 1976, he moved into the media the following year by joining the BBC's Religious department. In 1978, he began training as a journalist at BBC Wales, working as a reporter and presenter on both radio and television, eventually becoming one of the main presenters on the flagship BBC Wales news programme, Wales Today. A committed Anglo-Catholic Christian, Morgan was a close friend of the future Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and was best man at Williams's wedding in 1981. Moving to London in 1990, Morgan became a reporter for Thames News and TV-AM; whilst also, for seven years between 1990 and 1997, presenting the Radio 4 Sunday-morning programme, Sunday, which focused on religious and moral issues. Morgan was appointed Religious Affairs correspondent for The Sunday Times in 1997, a post he held until his death. From the year 2000, he began contributing to a number of television news programmes on religious affairs, and appeared regularly on BBC News 24, Sky News, and CNN. In 2005, Morgan's mother - to whom he was very close, and whom he telephoned at least three times a day - passed away. Without a wife or children to depend on for support (Morgan never married), he began to become quite depressed, although he seemed to keep much of his sadness to himself, and managed to maintain a facade of competent professionalism. However, by 2007, Morgan began to suffer from bouts of depression, for which he sought psychiatric help, even being sectioned at one point. He became more reclusive, often not returning phone calls or e-mails. In the Spring of 2008, Morgan contributed a couple of articles to The Sunday Times, this return to productivity leading friends to believe he was returning to some measure of good health. Sadly, his recovery was shortlived, as - on the afternoon of Friday, May 30th, 2008 - Morgan's body was found by British Transport Police on the track at Kings Langley railway station in Hertfordshire, having been in collision with a Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston train. His death was ruled a suicide. Chris Morgan was 55 years old.

Rachel Roberts

Rachel Roberts - who was born on September 20th, 1927, in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, Wales - was an award-winning Welsh actress.  The youngest of two daughters born to Richard (a church minister) and Rachel Ann Roberts, she studied at the University of Wales and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, before beginning work with a repertory company in Swansea in 1950.  She made her film debut in the 1953 Welsh-set comedy, Valley of Song.  In 1955, Roberts married the actor Alan Dobie, but they divorced in 1960.  That same year (1960), she won a British Academy Film Award for her performance in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, and in 1963 won a further BAFTA and an Oscar nomination for her role in This Sporting Life.  In 1961, Roberts married the English actor Rex Harrison in Genoa, Italy.  The marriage was tumultuous, with both partners engaging in excessive drinking, as well as engaging in public fights.  Harrison later left Roberts, and they divorced in 1971, with Harrison going on to marry Roberts's former best friend, the British socialite, Elizabeth Rees-Williams.  Devastated by her divorce from Harrison, Roberts moved to Hollywood in 1975 in an attempt to put the failed marriage behind her, subsequently appearing in supporting roles in several American films, such as Foul Play in 1978.  In 1976, she won a Drama Desk award for her performance in the Alan Bennett play, Habeas Corpus, and in 1979 she co-starred in the LWT production of Bennett's The Old Crowd.  Roberts's final British film was Yanks, directed by John Schlesinger, in 1979, for which she received a Supporting Actress BAFTA.  Roberts had become known within the entertainment industry for her eccentric behaviour, that seemed to stem from her alcoholism.  She had a habit of imitating a Welsh Corgi when intoxicated; and once, at a party thrown by the actor Richard Harris, she attacked the actor Robert Mitchum on all fours, chewing his trousers and champing on his bare skin, saying, "There, there".  In 1980, Roberts tried desperately to win back Harrison, but it was a hopeless case, as by this time he was married to his sixth and final wife, Mercia Tinker.  By 1980, Roberts was living on-and-off with a Mexican man twenty years her junior, Darren Ramirez, although the relationship was largely platonic as Roberts had become obsessed with winning back Harrison.  On November 26th, 1980, Roberts's body was found by her gardener - lying amongst shards of broken glass on her kitchen floor - at her home in Los Angeles.  Initially attributed to a heart attack, Roberts had in fact fallen through a decorative glass divide between two rooms, after swallowing a strong alkali, as well as barbiturates and alcohol, as detailed in her posthumously-published journals.  Roberts was cremated at the Chapel of the Pines Crematory, with her journals becoming the basis for No Bells on Sunday: The Memoirs of Rachel Roberts.  In 1992, Roberts's ashes - along with her friend, the actress Jill Bennett (who took her own life in 1990) - were scattered on the River Thames by director Lindsay Anderson during a boat trip.  The event was included in Anderson's BBC documentary film, Is That All There Is?  Rachel Roberts was 53 years old.

Bob Carlos Clarke

Robert Carlos Clarke - who was born on June 24th, 1950, in Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland - was an Irish photographer, who was best-known for his highly-stylized erotic images of women.  From a fading aristocratic family, and the son of Charles Carlos Clarke and his much-younger secretary Myra Dora Lynn, Clarke was sent to boarding school in England, which he hated.  On returning on one occasion from school to Ireland, he found his place in the family home had been usurped after his mother had given birth to a younger brother, Andrew.  Bob didn't like having a sibling rival, and would abuse his brother, including nailing him into a box and pushing him downhill.  (Andrew died of a heroin overdose in 2008.)  At the age of sixteen, Clarke broke up with a girl who had threatened to kill herself if he did so.  Clarke charmingly send her a letter containing a bullet and a note saying, "This one's on me."  After school, and a brief spell in Belfast, Clarke enrolled at Worthing College of Art in West Sussex in 1970.  Around this time, he began photographing nudes for "Gentleman's" Magazines.  Whilst at college, Clarke met Sue Frame, a part-time model; the pair married in 1975.  By 1975, he had enrolled at the London College of Printing, and that same year graduated with an M.A. in photography from the Royal College of Art.  Frame was Clarke's muse for nine years, but it was after only two years of marriage that Sue realised he was having an affair with Lindsey, who would become his second wife, as well as "dabbling" with other women.  Sue Frame claimed that Clarke said about her: "I will kill you first before you leave me."  Frame soon divorced Clarke and moved to South Africa, the two never meeting again.  In 1992, Lindsey gave birth to Clarke's only child, Scarlett, and Lindsey became his second wife in 1997.  Lindsey later described Carlos Clarke as, "amoral".  Carlos Clarke's career took off in 1980, when he produced the photographs for a book of Anais Nin's erotic stories, Delta of Venus.  A series of glossy coffee-table books followed through until the early 2000s, and he became renowned for his portraits of celebrities, as well as producing advertising campaigns for Levi's, Smirnoff, and Volkswagen.  In 1990, he produced a book, White Heat, featuring the then-largely-unknown chef Marco Pierre White looking like a rock star in his white-hot kitchens.  Apparently, in the late-1990s, Clarke began to become disillusioned with himself and his career.  He saw the recent innovation of digital photography as a threat to the skills he had spent decades honing.  By September of 2005, Clarke was behaving oddly.  His wife would often find he had gone missing from the flat they shared with their daughter; she sometimes found him sitting in his van, muttering darkly about suicide, and admitting, "I don't know what I'm doing."  In March of 2006, Lindsey persuaded Clarke to check into The Priory Clinic for psychiatric treatment.  After two weeks, he seemed to be improving.  However, on March 26th, 2006, Clarke walked out of The Priory, and took himself a mile to The White Hart Lane level-crossing, near Barnes, south-west London, where he threw himself under the passing 10.53 Windsor to Waterloo train.  Bob Carlos Clarke was 55 years old.

Margot Kidder

Margaret Ruth Kidder - who was born on October 17th, 1948, in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada - was a Canadian-American actress and activist.  One of five children, she moved frequently throughout Canada due to her father's occupation as an explosives expert and engineer.  At age twelve, her mother took Kidder to New York to see the musical Bye Bye Birdie, which stimulated her interest in theatre and film.  At fourteen, Kidder attempted suicide by swallowing a bottle of codeine capsules after her boyfriend broke up with her.  About this time, she took up acting, graduating from high school in Toronto in 1966, the same year in which she had an illegal abortion after finding herself pregnant.  Kidder then relocated to Vancouver to study at the University of British Columbia, but dropped out after one year, returning to Toronto to work as a model.  Kidder made her film debut in the 1968 Canadian film The Best Damn Fiddler from Calabogie to Kaladar.  Her 1969 appearance in the drama series Corwin earned her a Canadian Film Award for "outstanding new talent".  In the 1970s, Kidder began a relationship with the film director Brian De Palma, and he cast her in the lead role in his acclaimed 1973 film, Sisters.  Kidder won two Canadian Film Awards for Best Actress in 1974, and that same year made her directorial debut with the 50-minute film, Again.  In 1975, she was hired to direct a documentary short film about the making of the film The Missouri Breaks, but was fired from the project.  After becoming romantically involved with the novelist and director Thomas McGuane, Kidder gave birth to their daughter, Maggie, in October, 1975.  The couple married on August 2nd, 1976, but divorced on July 21st, 1977.  In 1978, Kidder was cast in her most-iconic role as Lois Lane in the box-office smash, Superman, winning a Saturn Award for Best Actress in the process.  The Amityville Horror in 1979 further cemented Kidder as one of Hollywood's leading ladies.  She married the actor John Heard that year, but they separated after only six days of marriage, and divorced in 1980.  The 1980s saw Kidder star in three sequels to the original Superman film.  Early in the decade, she was romantically linked to the comedian Eddie Murphy and the Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau, although neither relationship lasted long.  In 1984, she produced and starred in the Canadian T.V. film, Louisiana, having already married the film's director Phillipe de Broca in France in 1983.  Once again, this marriage - Kidder's third and final - was shortlived, ending in divorce in 1984.  Kidder received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder in 1988, although she rejected the recommended lithium treatment.  1990 saw her seriously injured in a car accident on the set of a T.V. series she was making, rendering her partially paralysed for a while, and unable to work for two years.  The lawsuit she launched, from which she received no settlement, left her in subsequent financial difficulties.  Whilst working on her autobiography on her laptop computer in April, 1996, a virus wiped out all her hard work, and she travelled to California hoping a company there would be able to retrieve the lost work.  They were unsuccessful, and Kidder then entered a manic state, disappearing for four days.  She was found in a distressed state, having lost caps on her teeth after an attempted rape, and was placed in psychiatric care.  However, Kidder continued to act regularly up until 2017, as well as lending her support to environmental and anti-nuclear causes.  She became an American citizen in 2005, and spent her later years living alone with her dogs in a log cabin.  On May 13th, 2018, Kidder was visited by her friend, Joan Kesich, who found her unresponsive at her home in Livingston, Montana.  Kidder's agent initially stated that, "she passed away peacefully in her sleep", but an inquest later revealed her death was a suicide as "a result of a self-inflicted drug and alcohol overdose".  Kidder was cremated, and her ashes scattered at her favourite locations in Canada, as well as in the wilds of Montana, amongst the bears and wolves she so loved.  Margot Kidder was 69 years old.

Ted Moult

Edward Walker Moult - who was born on February 11th, 1926, in Derby, England - was a British farmer, who later became a well-known television- and radio-personality in the United Kingdom.  The eldest of the six children of William Moult, Ted grew up on the family's farm in Derbyshire.  He left Derby School in 1944 at the age of 17, and by the age of 22 had his own dairy farm at Sinfin on the outskirts of Derby.  Moult first came to public attention in the 1950s, when he appeared on BBC Radio's general knowledge quiz, Brain of Britain.  Despite being knocked out in the first round, his quick wit and "gift of the gab" was noticed by BBC producers.  This quirky mixture of eccentric farmer, sharp intelligence, and comedic timing, proved a hit with audiences, and he was invited onto discussion programmes such as Any Questions?, and panel games such as Ask Me Another and What's My Line?  By the mid-1960s, Moult had become a household name.  He was credited with introducing the concept of "pick-your-own"  strawberries at his farm in 1961, and was the subject of This is Your Life with Eamonn Andrews in February of 1964.  Moult's media appearances continued throughout the 1960s and '70s, being a regular guest on Call My Bluff and Celebrity Squares.  He was the presenter of the Farming documentary programme from 1959-'69, as well as playing the Story Teller in the children's show Play School from 1964-'71.  Moult also took small parts as an actor, appearing in a 1980 episode of the television series All Creatures Great and Small, and playing the part of Bill Insley in the BBC Radio 4 farming-themed soap opera, The Archers, from 1983-'86.  In 1976, he starred in a popular television commercial for Jacob's Cream Crackers, and in the 1980s fronted a series of adverts for Everest double-glazing.  Moult's autobiography, Down To Earth: The Life and Views of Ted Moult, was published in 1973, and in 1983 he appeared as a celebrity guest on darts-themed gameshow, Bullseye, winning £180 for charity.  In 1986, several weeks of wet weather lead to worry for arable farmers like Ted trying to gather their harvests.  His wife said that the normally cheerful Ted had become withdrawn, and that, "he suddenly became massively depressed, and his judgement seemed to fail.  All his optimism seemed to evaporate.  It was almost as though a curtain fell over his life."  Moult had persuaded himself that he was never going to get his grain into the barn.  On the morning of September 3rd, 1986, he locked himself into his office and shot himself dead.  He was survived by his wife, Marie Rose - known as Maria - (1932-2014), and several (at least four!) children.  After a private funeral, his life was celebrated at a public ceremony in Derby Cathedral.  He was buried in the parish churchyard in Ticknall, the small village where he farmed.  Ted Moult was 60 years old.