Monday, January 01, 2018

Blind Items Revealed #34 - Old Hollywood

September 9, 2017

Back in the day this actor was A++ list. He is still alive and still permanently A list. When this particular event happened, he was just getting to A list. Anyway, he was making one of the least memorable movies of his career. His co-star was a foreign born actress who is alive and an Academy Award winner/nominee was fending off a rape from a man she knew well and accidentally killed him. With the help of our actor and the police, the death was ruled a suicide.

Burt Reynolds/Sarah Miles/David Whiting

15 comments:

Andi said...

Wow, so was Burt not always a tool or is not a total tool?

sandybrook said...

The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing

Don Kieballs said...

enty has been trying to kill Burt Reynolds off for years now, but he's hanging on just to annoy him

Andi said...

I just came accross the site of an ex GF of David's. She has some interesting things to say about him.

http://laurapauling.com/the-real-hollywood-mystery-that-inspired-the-gatsby-game-by-anne-r-allen/

bunnyzenpeace said...

Interesting article on this-

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070363/trivia

Seachica said...

Great find, Andi!

Spiffypaws said...

I live in Jupiter. Have seen him in the past at a local grocery store (Publix) even though he is supposedly bankrupt, he always pays in 100 dollar bills.

Moose said...

The story of his death, from IMDB:
Sarah Miles' business manager-boyfriend David Whiting was found by her dead in her Gila Bend, Arizona motel room during production of this movie. The death made headlines around the world. Time magazine on 26 March 1973 reported: "Pills and bottles were scattered around his body, and bruises and a bloody cut were found on his head." The night prior to the discovery of his body, Whiting had allegedly assaulted Miles after she had come back late at night from a birthday party for Burt Reynolds. Reynolds let Miles stay in his room for protection. Miles testified that Whiting had "got ahold of me and began throwing me about the room". Reynolds, when he saw Miles after her nanny, overhearing the confrontation, had called him, was quoted as saying, "Christ Almighty, you're a mess!" Miles' injuries allegedly included a bloody nose, a bruised forehead and a cut lip. The official cause of Whiting's death as ruled by the coroner / county medical examiner was suicide by overdose of the drugs Methaqualone, Benadryl and a Librium-type drug. Reportedly, Miles and Reynolds did not wish to testify at the inquest one month after the incident but were forced to when Whiting's mother, Mrs. Louise Campbell, successfully obtained a court order for them to testify. According to the Time magazine article, " . . . a pharmacologist hired by Whiting's mother said that the amount of methaqualone in Whiting's bloodstream need not have been fatal. Left unexplained was how Whiting's blood came to be on a pillowcase, towel, tissues and the washbasin in his own room, as well as on a blue sweater he had apparently been wearing. Also unaccounted for were the severe cut on the back of his head and scratches on his stomach, chest and knuckles." It was later revealed that Miles and Whiting had been having an affair, and this, together with the resulting publicity, contributed to the disintegration of her marriage to Robert Bolt.

Scandi Sanskrit said...

Bless his heart. 💛

CJ said...

Little known bit of trivia: When George Lucas was casting the original 1977 Star Wars, the first person he offered the Han Solo role was ... Burt Reynolds.

FeistyPanda said...

Interesting, because on wiki, it says the coroner ruled it accidental death and there were only trace drugs in his system.

AIP said...

More the publicity than anything else: she had an affair with Robert Mitchum during the filming of Ryan’s Daughter, that was an open secret.

IanPhlegming said...


@AIP - Always wondered what really went down on the set of "Ryan's Daughter." There's something....foul about that movie. Just feels "off." Forgotten screen heartthrob Christopher Jones, poised for superstardom, left the industry and never worked again following the David Lean film, and Lean himself didn't make another picture for nearly 25 years.


https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/ryan-s-daughter-star-christopher-jones-dies-aged-72-1.1685662

IanPhlegming said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
LandOfCleve said...

From Wikipedia: Miles stated, in 2012, that she's been drinking her own urine for over 30 years, as she feels it improves her health in a variety of ways.

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