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Judith Rawlins Profile
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| (Judith Ellen Riedel) |
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| 24 June 36 | is born in Wisconsin, the daughter of a successful musician |
| ? | moves with her family to Sherman Oaks, California, as a child |
| ? | studies with the Valley Community Players and has several roles with the Walt Disney Players Group |
| ? | Howard Hughes requests to meet her after seeing her picture in the paper. He is taken back by her beauty and seems to want to help her get into show business, telling her she is going to be the next Jane Russell. |
| c. 54 | marries David Rawlins, a movie editor, at age 18 |
| ? | likes to date singers like Elvis Presley, Bobby Rydell, and Vic Damone |
| 59 | director Clifford Odets and acting coach Sandy Meisner want her for the lead in The Story on Page One, but one of the big executives at 20th Century-Fox insists on newcomer Myrna Fahey |
| 7 April 61 | Harrison Carroll reports her a new twosome with Sean Flynn |
| 18 August 61 | Winchell tells that Bobby Rydell’s flinging away his money buying long-kistance calls to her in Vegas |
| 14 January 62 | the NBC television actress is photographed for newspapers demonstrating a new folding wall table. It’s a handy buffet table and when folded up, a handsome wall plaque and knick knack shelf. |
| ? | works as an animator for Walt Disney. Her films include 101 Dalmatians, Bambi, Dumbo, and Lady and the Tramp |
| ? | becomes the secretary of actor-singer Vic Damone, the ex of actress Pier Angeli |
| 25 October 63 | marries 42-year-old Vic Damone; the redhead's age is given as 34. They initially exchange vows in a Baha’i ceremony conducted by an elder of the sect, to which both belong, in Damone’s Beverly Hills home. After the ceremony, they fly to Las Vegas for a civil ceremony. The marriage license is obtained using their real names, Vito Farinola and Judith Rawlins. The ceremony is performed at the Sands Hotel by Justice of the Peace Tom Pursel. Damone’s agent Fred Apollo is best man; Judy’s friend Ellen Fensterstock is maid of honor. A hotel spokesman quotes Damone as saying the additional civil ceremony is required under Baha’i teachings. Damone heard about the Baha’i Faith, saw some meetings, and just started to believe it. He’s been in it for two years and says it has made a better man of him. Keeping with their religion, they do not drink the champagne at the reception, but Damone has two pieces of cake. |
| 21 March 64 | she and her husband are injured this Saturday night when their new $15,000 sports car skids off a snow-slick mountain highway into a canyon and hits a tree. The car, a Ferrari purchased only five hours previously by Damone, is demolished. Highway patrolmen say the fact the Damones wore seatbelts probably saved their lives. A doctor said Damone suffered abrasions, slight lacerations on his left cheek and behind one ear, severe bruises and a slight concussion; his wife received a concussion, bruises and light cuts. |
| 9 October 64 | Earl Wilson writes: “Vic and his B.W. Judy Rawlins, a former Hollywood actress, slid on the ice in their new Ferrari at Dead Man’s Summit near Rome last winter and crashed down the mountainside. Judy required 22 stitches…mostly around her head.” |
| 12 November 64 | appears with her husband in Santa Monica Superior Court where he confronts his ex-wife, actress Pier Angeli, over the custody battle for their 9-year-old son Perry. Angeli is composed during the hearing, and she and Damone exchange polite smiles, but she breaks down and weeps in the arms of her mother upon exiting the courthouse, repeating, "I want my baby back." Judge Mervyn Aggeler feels the case will require at least two days and decides to postpone the case until November 18, when a courtroom will be available. Angeli and Damone, who have been divorced for five years, each are seeking custody Perry, who presently lives with and is being cared for Damone and his current wife. Angeli obtained a warrant for Damone’s arrest after he allegedly took the boy from his grandmother’s home in New York City six weeks ago. Damone was arrested October 14 on that warrant, but received custody of the child pending the custody hearing. Among other things, Damone objects to Angeli’s having his son speak only Italian and claims that since he brought the boy to his Beverly Hills home, the youth has quickly learned English. At the hearing, Angeli told the judge she spoke to her son on the phone when she arrived in California from New York on Tuesday and “Perry wanted to see me, but his daddy wouldn’t let him. He spoke in English.” Damone said he and Judy were “perfectly willing to have the distraught Miss Angeli see her boy.” |
| 7 January 65 | among other things, Pier Angeli testifies in Santa Monica court that her ex-husband, Vic Damone, knocked her down, kicked and threatened to kill her during a visit to see their son. Outside the courtroom, Judy laughed off the “kicking” testimony. “Next to my father,” she said, “Vic is the kindest and most gentle man I’ve ever met.” |
| 8 August 65 | her daughter Victoria Catherine is born in Los Angeles |
| October 66 | her daughter Andrea is born |
| 20 July 68 | her daughter Daniella E. is born in Los Angeles |
| 2 September 70 | files suit for divorce from Damone and asks for custody of their three daughters and possession of their Beverly Hills home. She asks that the marriage be dissolved on the customary California grounds of irreconcilable differences. |
| 28 June 71 | divorces Damone, who will remarry in 1974. Damone discloses in a property agreement that he is contemplating filing for divorce. The settlements provides for the sale of the couple’s Beverly Hills home and gives $2,100 a month support for her and their three daughters. The next years will be hard ones for her because she is in a lot of pain, physically and emotionally. She will never remarry. |
| 13 July 71 | Damone files for bankruptcy in federal court claiming he is more than $700,000 in debt, mostly because of back taxes. He says there is no alternative and his financial problems resulted from bad income tax advice and his being involved with a promotional group that resulted in his being duped into signing a bank note for $250,000. He lists debts as $784,137 and assets as $35,371. He owes $277,797 in federal income tax, $18,833 in state tax, $2,211 in city and county tax, $108,377 to a California bank for his Beverly Hills house, $216,000 to a Denver bank in stock shares, and $49,533 in unsecured debts to several dozen business firms. He reportedly makes $25,000 a week for his frequent Las Vegas appearances. |
| c. 73 | tries to get her career in show business back on track during the last year of her life |
| becomes addicted to prescription drugs |
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| 26 March 74 | Damone announces he will marry 26-year-old Becky Ann Jones, a reported Houston oil heiress |
| 28 March 74 | is found dead at age 37 in the bedroom of her Bel Air/Mandeville Canyon home by her five-year-old daughter Daniella. A spokesman for Damone says the singer is “crushed” by the news of his former wife’s death and his upcoming marriage to Becky Jones, planned for April 12, may be put off. |
| 29 March 74 | an autopsy is ordered. Police Lieutenant William Mathieson said there was no indication Miss Rawlins had been murdered and no suicide note was found. Some pain pills, prescribed by a physician following dental work, were found near her bed, but it was not known if she had taken any, he said. |
| 9 April 74 | Damone announces his upcoming marriage to Becky Jones saying, “…and please understand that I’m not a heavy, that I had nothing to do with what happened to Judy. I was crushed when Judy died, but I love Becky and my three little girls need a mother. It’s not a sudden thing.” He is sure the death was an accident, even though the county coroner’s office listed it as probable suicide. The police told Damone she was found with a newspaper folded to a story “about Vicky and I taking out our license. But she was also eating ice cream. You don’t commit suicide after eating ice cream.” He said his former wife had been taking pain killers for years because of a spine problem and “she’s taken too many pills before. I don’t think she knew what she was doing. She was in deep pain and the dental work just compounded it. Please understand it’s not what some people think it is—that I’m burying one wife and marrying another. Judy and I were divorced since 1971. That’s a long time and there was nothing between us.” He said he planned to marry Becky two years ago “but the same thing happened again. Judy took too many pills and I had to take over the kids while she went to a clinic to straighten herself out. As I said, she took pills because she had terrible back problems. She went to 16 or 20 doctors a year, and she’d ask them for pills. One would give them to her before he’d catch on and she’d have to go to another doctor." |
| her death is ruled an accidental overdose of the new pain killer Darvon. Her death certificate states: "an acute propoxyphene and ethchlorvynol intoxication ...accidental." |
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| is interred as Judith Riedel Rawlins at San Fernando Mission Cemetery, Mission Hills, California |
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| 12 April 74 | Damone marries 26-year-old Becky Ann Jones at Westwood United Methodist Church. They had been planning the marriage for two years. It's Jones' first marriage and Damone's third. |
| Sources: Andrea Damone, Fallen Angels by Kirk Crivello, Made in Heaven by Victoria Houseman, The Capital, Charleston Daily Mail, The Daily Courier, The Daily Messinger, Eureka Humboldt Standard, The Fresno Bee Republican, The Gleaner, Great Bend Tribune, Indiana Evening Gazette, The Independent, The Long Beach Independent, Northwest Arkansas Times, Oakland Tribune, Pacific Stars and Stripes, Pasadena Star-News, Reno Evening Gazette, San Mateo Times, The Sheboygan Press, The Times Standard, Winnipeg Free Press, www.IMDb.com, www.Findagrave.com, www.Ancestry.com | |
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| Links: Find A Grave: Judith Rawlins | |