Jackie Coogan and Jan Clayton

I met her when I was fifteen years old in April 1959 when she sang a song for me on the Ed Sullivan Show called "What the Use of Wond'rin'" from Carousel which she originated on Broadway. The next time I met her she was appearing in the original production of "Follies' on Broadway in 1971. Then we became very close from then on. We played cards, shared dinners, went to shows, went upstate to see the fall foliage. She sent about 75 letters and cards and we swapped presents for birthdays and Christmas and other occasions. She even sang at a party and her longtime accompanist [who was my vocal coach] Jack Prenner played for her. I loved her very much and constantly miss her. She was exceptionally witty and bright. I told her she would publish a book and her name would be on the cover of it. She questioned my psychic ability, so I told her that the cab driver would confirm my ability. The cab driver said, "I never met you before! You don't know me!" So I startled the both of them when I told him that he had a walk-on in "LUTHER" on Broadway and that when he was in the chorus of a musical in the 1950's in Kansas City he was in love with the star of the show and that was a secret he never revealed to anyone. He was flabbergasted and said, "Wow! She really is psychic because I was madly in love with Jan Clayton!" And Jan said, "You were madly in love with me? Want to go out on a date?" He immediately exchanged phone numbers. She did publish a great book with a friend of her and her name is on the cover. Bewitched, Bothered and Bedeviled" a book about lyricist Lorenz Hart. Jan Clayton Born August 26, 1917 Tularosa, New Mexico, U.S. Died August 28, 1983 (aged 66) West Hollywood, California, U.S. Occupation Actress and Singer Years active 1935–81 Spouse(s) (1) Russell Hayden (married 1938–43, divorced) 1 Daughter: Sandra Hayden (2) Robert Lerner (married 1946–58, divorced) 3 Children: Daughter: Robin Lerner, Daughter: Karen Lerner. Son: Joseph Lerner. (3) George Greeley (married 1966–68, divorced) Jan Clayton (August 26, 1917 – August 28, 1983) was a film, musical theater, and television actress. She starred in the popular 1950s TV series Lassie. Born near Alamogordo, New Mexico, the only child of two schoolteachers, Clayton started singing by age four. Career Clayton was one of the original stars of the classic TV show Lassie, playing Ellen Miller from 1954 to 1957. She did a series of movies with William Boyd as Hopalong Cassidy. Jan Clayton made several films for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, FATHER WAS A PRINCE and THIS MAN'S NAVY and an unbilled role in 1948 as a singing inmate in The Snake Pit. Earlier, however, she had been selected to play the role of Julie Jordan in the original 1945 Broadway production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic Carousel. Clayton can be heard on the original cast recordings of both Carousel (1945) and the 1946 film version of Kern's 1927 musical play Show Boat. The Show Boat album was the first American production of the show to be recorded with its original cast. In May 1954, Clayton guest-starred in ABC's sitcom Where's Raymond? starring Ray Bolger as a song-and-dance man, Raymond Wallace. She played Francine Tremont, an actress and wife of a banker. In the story line, Francine is in town to make a special appearance with Bolger.In 1954, Clayton was one of the many guest stars in a television spectacular tribute to Rodgers and Hammerstein, The General Foods 25th Anniversary Show, which featured all the then-surviving stars (except Alfred Drake) of all the classic Broadway musicals that the team had written (1943–1954). Clayton and John Raitt, in full makeup and costume, performed "If I Loved You" (also known as the Bench Scene) from Carousel. It was the first opportunity for millions of viewers to see a scene from the musical, since none of the film versions of the Rodgers and Hammerstein stage musicals had yet been released. Clayton during this period also played herself in an appearance on Peter Lawford's short-lived NBC sitcom Dear Phoebe. While starring in Show Boat, Clayton met Robert Lerner, an heir to the women's clothing shops bearing his name. They were married and moved to California, where Lerner attended Loyola Law School and Clayton concentrated on mothering. "We had three children in three years", she said in a 1976 interview with People magazine. "Then came Lassie"; "I took it because I was dying to work." Clayton would become best known to TV audiences as Jeff Miller's (Tommy Rettig) mother on the television series Lassie (aka Jeff's Collie in syndication re-runs). Clayton played the first four seasons of Lassie, from September 1954 to December 1957, as Ellen Miller, a war widow living on her father-in-law's farm with her preteen son, Jeff, and her late husband's cantankerous old father, Gramps (played by the Canadian-born George Cleveland). Clayton brought her extensive acting experience on Broadway to the Lassie series, portraying in her character Ellen the traits of a loving mother with a wide range of heartfelt emotions ranging from sorrow and tragedy to great comedic relief. There were only a few times in Lassie when Clayton exhibited her impressive singing talents, most notably in the episode "The Gypsys" (Season 2, Ep. 15) in which she sang the song "Marushka". Despite Lassie doing well with the TV audiences, Tommy Rettig sought release from his contract in the popular series' fourth season. Clayton quit the production as well at that time. "My home life was being absolutely wrecked," she explained. "I had four children and a husband, and I was always working". The sudden death of George Cleveland hastened the departure of the remaining cast. In the episode "Transition." Ellen and Jeff start a new life in the city after selling the farm to the Martin family (co-starring Cloris Leachman and Jon Shepodd) and giving Lassie to little Timmy Martin (played by child actor Jon Provost). Clayton appeared in only one more Lassie episode after those cast changes. In "Timmy's Family", broadcast originally in December 1957, she guest-starred in a supporting role to Lassie's new family. Following her departure from Lassie, Clayton in 1959 starred in a TV pilot called "The Jan Clayton Show", a sitcom in which she portrayed a college English teacher. She produced and starred the next year in "The Brown Horse" another proposed series about a woman trying to pay for her daughter's college tuition by working in a San Francisco restaurant. Then, in 1961, she again starred in a comedy pilot based on Bess Streeter Aldrich's book Cheers for Miss Bishop. None of those three pilots was ever "picked up" or purchased by a sponsor for production as a weekly series. Clayton also performed in the 1961 episode "The Prairie Story" on NBC's Wagon Train. The episode, written by Jean Holloway, examines how the harsh prairie causes havoc in the lives of some of the women on the wagon train. Robert Horton starred in this episode, which aired three months after the death of Ward Bond. In the 1962 episode "St. Louis Woman" on NBC's The Tall Man, Clayton performed in the role of Janet Harper, a widow engaged to Tom Davis ( Canadian-born Russ Conway), a friend of Sheriff Pat Garrett (Barry Sullivan). While Tom is away from Lincoln, New Mexico, the setting of The Tall Man, on a cattle drive, Janet begins to show a romantic interest in Garrett. Roger Mobley appears in this episode as David Harper, Janet's young son. In "The Man Who Wouldn't Die", a 1967 episode of the syndicated series Death Valley Days, Clayton was cast as the Margaret Wilbarger, the sister of Texas pioneer Josiah Wilbarger, who lived for 11 years after being scalped by the Comanche. Don Collier played Wilbarger, for whom Wilbarger County, Texas, is named, along with Wilbarger's brother. Clayton was posthumously inducted into the New Mexico Entertainment Hall of Fame in 2012. Personal life Clayton's first husband was western actor Russell Hayden. The couple married in 1938 and had one daughter, Sandra Jane Hayden, who was born in 1940 but died at the age of 16 in an automobile accident on September 22, 1956. While driving her mother's Cadillac, Sandra ran through a stop sign and collided with another car. Prior to her daughter's tragic death, Clayton had divorced Russell Hayden in 1943. Three years later she married Robert Lerner, an attorney and brother of famed Broadway lyricist Alan Jay Lerner. Their marriage, which ended in 1958, produced two daughters and a son: Robin (b. 1948), Karen (b. 1949), and Joe (b. 1950). Clayton married for a third and final time in 1966 to pianist and film/television composer George Greeley. Death Jan Clayton died of cancer in West Hollywood, California, on August 28, 1983, just two days after her 66th birthday. Her ashes are buried next to the gravesite of her father at Fairview Cemetery in Tularosa, New Mexico.

Jackie Coogan Born October 26, 1914, in Los Angeles, California, USA Died March 1, 1984, in Santa Monica, California, USA (heart attack) Birth Name John Leslie Coogan Height 5' 7" (1.7 m) Jackie Coogan was born into a family of vaudevillians; his father was a dancer and his mother had been a child star. On the stage by age 4, Jackie was touring at age 5 with his family in Los Angeles, California. While performing on the stage, he was spotted by Charles Chaplin, who then and there planned a film in which he and Jackie would star. To test Jackie, Chaplin first gave him a small part in A Day's Pleasure (1919), which proved that he had a screen presence. The movie that Chaplin planned that day was The Kid (1921), where the Tramp would raise Jackie and then lose him. The movie was very successful and Jackie would play a child in a number of movies and tour with his father on the stage. By 1923, when he made Daddy (1923), he was one of the highest-paid stars in Hollywood. He would leave First National for MGM where they put him into Long Live the King (1923). By 1927, at age 13, Coogan had grown up on the screen and his career was going through a downturn. His popular film career would end with the classic tales of Tom Sawyer (1930) and Huckleberry Finn (1931). In 1935, his father died and his mother married Arthur Bernstein, who was his business manager. When he wanted the money that he made as a child star in the 1920s, his mother and stepfather refused his request and Jackie filed suit for the approximately $4 million that he had made. Under California law at the time, he had no rights to the money he made as a child, and he was awarded only $126,000 in 1939. Because of the public uproar, the California Legislature passed the Child Actors Bill, also known as the Coogan Act, which would set up a trust fund for any child actor and protect his earnings. In 1937, Jackie married Betty Grable; the marriage lasted 3 years. During World War II, he served in the Army; he returned to Hollywood after the war. Unable to restart his career, he worked in B-movies, mostly in bit parts and usually playing the heavy. In the 1950s he started to appear on television, and he acted in as many shows as he could. By the 1960s he would be in two completely different television comedy series.. The first one was McKeever and the Colonel (1962), where he played Sgt. Barnes in a military school from 1962 to 1963. The second series was the classic The Addams Family (1964), where he played Uncle Fester from 1964 to 1966. After that, he continued to make appearances on television shows and a handful of movies. He died of a heart attack in 1984. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Tony Fontana Trivia (35) Son of Jack Coogan Sr. and Lillian Coogan, vaudeville performers who put him on stage as part of their act when he was just 16 months old. Older brother of Robert Coogan. Grandfather of actor Keith Coogan. In 1935, at age 21, he had the traumatic experience of losing his father, Jack Coogan Sr., and his best friend, actor Junior Durkin, when both were killed in an auto accident in the California mountains. Durkin died almost instantly at the scene, and Coogan Sr., who had been driving, a few hours later at a local hospital. Jackie, though badly injured, was the sole survivor of the accident. He would later call it the single saddest day of his life. Although he eventually reconciled with his mother and stepfather after the lawsuit over his earnings, things were never the same, and his advice to future child stars was "stay away from mothers." Always considered his proudest moment his 1972 reunion with Charles Chaplin. After two decades of exile from the United States, Chaplin returned in March of that year to receive the Handel Medallion in New York City and a special lifetime achievement Oscar in Hollywood. Coogan was one of several people on hand to greet Chaplin when he arrived at Los Angeles International Airport. After greeting the other members of the party with perfunctory handshakes, Chaplin, immediately recognized Coogan (whom he hadn't seen in decades), warmly embraced him, saying, "You know, I think I would rather see you than anybody else." Chaplin later told Coogan's wife, "You must never forget that your husband is a genius.". When he was cast as Uncle Fester on The Addams Family (1964), Coogan was 49 years old and nearly broke. After the series ended in 1966, he never lacked work again, with numerous television and film appearances, although most of these were only small parts. His contract with Metro earned him $1 million per year. After money problems with his parents, he helped to organize and get passed in law the Coogan Bill, which protected child actors from such abuse in the future. Biography in "Who's Who in Comedy" by Ronald L. Smith, pp. 116. New York: Facts on File, 1992. ISBN 0816023387. He was engaged to stunning actress Toby Wing in 1935. When approached for autographs while dating her he would often write inscriptions backward to impress her, more or less confusing the autograph seeker. They eventually broke up over differences in their temperaments, just adding to 1935 being probably the single worst year of his life given his father's death and mother's refusal to pay out his childhood earnings. During his service in the US Army, in March 1944, he served in the China-Burma-India Theater as the pilot of a CG-4A Waco (a wood-and-canvas transport glider). Biography in "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives., Volume One, 1981-1985," pp. 174-176. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1998. Was engaged to starlet Toby Wing during much of 1935. The two broke up when Coogan went into a depression complicated by alcohol abuse after discovering his mother and stepfather squandered his childhood fortune. In The Addams Family (1992), a hardware shop was named "Coogan's" in his honor. Interviewed in "Talking to the Piano Player: Silent Film Stars, Writers and Directors Remember" by Stuart Oderman (BearManor Media). Ex-stepfather of Don Stroud. Uncle of Jonathan Coogan. College friend of kidnapping/murder victim Brooke Hart. It was reported that Coogan participated in the notorious lynching of Hart's killers. Has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1654 Vine St. Producer Sol Lesser admitted that the original master of Coogan's 1922 Oliver Twist (1922) was burned for its silver nitrate content--which was worth $80. Coogan worked to raise $1,000,000 for Armenians and Greeks displaced during World War I, working with Near East Relief. He toured across the US and Europe in 1924 on a "Children's Crusade" as part of a fund-raising drive, which ended up providing more than $1,000,000 in clothing, food, and other contributions (worth more than $13 million adjusted for 2012 dollars). Coogan was honored by officials in the US, Greece, and Rome, where he met with Pope Pius XI. During the mid-'30s he led a 17-piece orchestra on a tour of one-night stands. He claimed to have earned $12,000 a week. His parents, Lillian and John Coogan were seasoned career vaudevillians who first presented Jackie to stage audiences at 16 months. His 1920s contract with MGM earned him $500,000 plus 60% of the gross titles of such films as Tom Sawyer (1917) and Little Robinson Crusoe (1924). Estimates vary but during his eight-year run of success as a child star, Coogan earned somewhere between $4 million-$8 million. Olympic medalist Duke Kahanamoku was his swimming instructor. Coogan enlisted in the Army in March 1941. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, he requested a transfer to the US Army Air Force as a glider pilot because of his civilian flying experience. After graduating from glider school, he was made a flight officer and volunteered for hazardous duty with the 1st Air Commando Group. In December 1943 the unit was sent to India, where he flew British troops and landed them at night 100 miles behind enemy lines in Burma on March 5, 1944,. He starred in "Forever Ernest," a 1930s radio show, but it was canceled. His health was seriously damaged by years of chain smoking and heavy drinking. In September 1924 he had a 15-minute meeting with Benito Mussolini, who gave him an autographed photo inscribed "Al Piccolo Grande" (To the Little Great One). Retired from acting in 1980 after filming "The Escape Artist". His last released film "The Fury" had been filmed in 1979. After early sound versions of "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn" his career waned. "Senility hit him at 13", Hollywood wags quipped. Although his performances in "The Kid" and "Oliver Twist" were critically acclaimed, in many of the other films he starred in as a child actor Coogan was felt to be miscast. In 1937, he was sued by performer Thaya Foster when she and Lila Lee was injured in an automobile accident while on tour with big band that Coogan was conducting. Lee and Lillian Tours, also touring with the show, spoke on Foster's behalf during the trial. The California State Industrial Accident Board eventually found, in January, 1938, that the company Consolidated Radio Artists, was responsible; Coogan, who like Foster was an employee of Consolidated, was not liable. In one popularity poll of the 1920s, he topped Rudolph Valentino and Douglas Fairbanks, according to the New York Times. Personal Quotes (16) Hollywood is a lovely place to get knifed in. Today's stars are deadheads compared to the Doug Fairbanks, Errol Flynns, and Clark Gables of my day. Whatever happened to the strong leading man with no hang-ups? And today's child stars? I don't see the ability of any of these kids to carry a picture by themselves... I think their ability lasts as long as a commercial; on, off, hey, wasn't he cute? I drank milk from my own ranch. I had a 65' by 80' room filled with toy trains and my own golf course and football field in my backyard. Other boys went to see Babe Ruth. Babe Ruth came to see me. [Asked about what gratified him most after a long life] The thing I am proudest of is that I've never been beaten at Scrabble. There were 300,000 people waiting on the clock at Southhampton to meet me. And thousands more outside my hotel in London. Every hour I would go out on the balcony and wave. It was the lowest point in my life because my stepfather was related to many people and was blackballed by the studios. I found out then the only thing anybody respects in this world is a dollar. Without money, you're nothing. I had the flu in New York and pushed the President of the United States off the front pages. I was very close to my father. Very close. My father wanted me to have the money. [on meeting Charlie Chaplin] It was around 11 at night, in the Alexandria Hotel. I talked with Mr. Chaplin a while, then fell asleep in a chair in the hotel lobby. Normal boy? How would I know what a normal boy would do? When I was 7, we bought a big house at the corner of Wilshire and Western and put in one of the earliest swimming pools in Southern California. Being who I was, I had the best swimming instructor - Duke Kahanamoku the year after he won the Olympics. When I was 10, I was playing golf exhibitions with Gene Sarazen and Walter Hagen. I surfed from Baja California to San Francisco when there were only nine or 10 surfers on the entire Pacific Coast. I spent three-month summer vacations in our High Sierra cabin 60 miles from the nearest road. I drank milk from my own ranch. Other boys went to see Babe Ruth. But Babe Ruth came to see me. Mr. Chaplin took me to a Barnum and Bailey circus right after we finished 'The Kid.' I never saw him much after that. I stopped at his studio once when I was 21. When I mentioned I'd never seen 'The Kid,' he shut down the picture he was shooting, took me to lunch, and then to a projection room where he played the organ to accompany the picture. I never had seen the picture. I'd gone to the premiere, but I fell asleep. I gave Douglas Fairbanks the idea of doing 'The Black Pirate.' I sat with Doug and Mary at the Photoplay Awards. I had just read Howard Pyle's 'Book of Pirates,' and I told Doug all about the book. After dinner Doug said to my father, 'Big Jack, can I borrow Jackie? He's got a book we want to talk about.' So I spent the night at Pickfair. While Doug wrote out a descriptive script from the book, Mary and I had a pillow fight. She was very short, only about 4 feet 11 inches, and I used to think she was a kid. I used to think Chaplin was a kid too because he was so much smaller than the people who surrounded him. Doug gave me a check for $10,000. When I showed it to my dad, he said, 'You don't want to take that. Isn't Douglas a friend of yours?' I said, 'Yes." Well, do you sell things to your friends?' I told my dad, 'You pay me a dollar every time I invent something for one of my movies!' But I gave the check back. You could walk down the street and meet the top 10 box-office stars; and if Doug and Mary and Tom Mix weren't on the street, they were having a hamburger at the White Spot; and on Monday nights all Hollywood went downtown to see their old friends in vaudeville at the Orpheum. I was with Mr. Chaplin for one year and three days, an enormously long time to make a movie then, but he was writing the picture as we went along and sometimes we would close down for 10 days or two weeks while he got an idea. The picture was Chaplin's supreme effort, the test of whether he was a baggy pants comic or a real fine actor. After the picture was made, his fame was greater than anybody's in Hollywood. I was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital when I was 6. A car accident. My head was split in five places, a double basal fracture. I was out of the hospital 14 days later. And then seven trips behind the Jap lines and not a scratch on me. There's nobody left alive today from one picture I made. 'Oliver Twist.' 1922. We paid Lon Chaney $10,000 a week to play Fagin. My dad took me aside and said, 'You've got to protect yourself against this man.' I wanted to excel at everything I did. I loved my work. I had a fierce competitive spirit; and Chaney and I did everything but pick our noses to steal the scenes from each other. Today, in television, the idea is to hire $300-a week good-looking kids. When Peter Duel killed himself, the blood wasn't even dry before they had his part [in "Alias Smith and Jones"] recast. [on the Addams Family] I used to be the most beautiful child in the world and now I'm a hideous monster! Salary (2) The Kid (1921) $75 per week Peck's Bad Boy (1921) $2,000 a week