Sunday, July 15, 2012

Natalie Wood :The Death Certificate Of Legendary Hollywood Actress Natalie Wood Changed From ‘Accidental Death’ To ‘Undetermined’.

Officers from the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office have filed to make the change official six months after reopening the case of the West Side Story star whose body was found floating in the Pacific Ocean in November 1981.
A police source said last night: ‘There were bruises on the body that cannot be explained by drowning. The investigation is ongoing into determining the cause of Miss Wood’s death.’
The source described Wood’s husband, Hart To Hart star Robert  Wagner, now 81, as a ‘person of interest’ in the case, which has become one of Hollywood’s greatest mysteries. It was reopened last November after new witnesses said they had heard the actress scream in terror on the last night of her life.
Wood, 43, was on the yacht Splendour with Wagner and her alleged lover, actor Christopher Walken, now 69, when she vanished overboard on November 29.
Her husband has always insisted she drowned accidentally after falling overboard as she tried to secure a dinghy banging against the boat’s side.
But Wood’s sister Lana told The Mail on Sunday last year that she always suspected foul play:
‘Natalie would never have gone out in the middle of the night to secure a dinghy. She was terrified of water. Her death was no accident. I’ve always believed she was murdered.’
Last year, new witness Marilyn Wayne, who was on a nearby boat, said she heard Wood ‘screaming in terror’ on the night of her death.
 

In a sworn statement, she said: ‘My cabin window was open. A woman’s voice, crying for help, awakened me. “Help me, someone please help me, I’m drowning,” I heard.’ Wayne said she called the harbour patrol officer but her calls went unanswered.
Changed: TMZ says that Los Angeles detectives have changed Natalie Wood's death certificate status from 'accident' to undetermined'; she is pictured with then-husband Robert Wagner
Changed: TMZ says that Los Angeles detectives have changed Natalie Wood's death certificate status from 'accident' to undetermined'; she is pictured with then-husband Robert Wagner

Natalie Wood (DEAD 11/1981) at Avoriaz in the French Alps . REXSCANPIX.
Robert Wagner and his wife Natalie Wood (DEAD 11/1978)
Beauty: Natalie Wood, seen skiing in the French Alps c.1980, and right, with her husband at AFI
Famous actress: Wood starred opposite James Dean in the 1956 classic Rebel Without A Cause
Famous actress: Wood starred opposite James Dean in the 1956 classic Rebel Without A Cause
Funeral:
Funeral: Robert Wagner bends over to kiss the flower-covered casket of his wife during graveside ceremonies for her at Westwood Memorial Park Cemetery in December 1981
Wagner and Walken said the death was accidental after a night of heavy drinking. A jealous Wagner had rowed with Walken when he allegedly flirted with his wife. Wagner has always maintained he had nothing to do with his wife’s death, describing it as ‘a tragic accident’.
But the Splendour’s captain, Dennis Davern, allegedly told Lana that Wagner did nothing to save his wife.
‘Dennis said everyone was drunk and a fight broke out and Natalie was in the water and he and RJ [Wagner] did nothing to pull her out,’ said Lana. ‘Dennis said RJ told him to “leave her there, teach her a lesson”.’
Coming out: Former captain Dennis Davern is blaming Robert Wagner for Natalie Woods' death saying he did not let them do anything to find her
Coming out: Former captain Dennis Davern is blaming Robert Wagner for Natalie Woods' death saying he did not let them do anything to find her
Mystery:
Mystery: The yacht 'Splendour' was pictured today moored in a harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii after investigators reopened the case into the mysterious death of Natalie Wood


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2170039/Natalie-Wood-cause-death-Certificate-changed-accident-undetermined.html#ixzz20jTD7C40

Monday, July 2, 2012

Saturday, June 16, 2012

April Ashley : Britain's first Transsexual, her lovers included Omar Sharif and Peter O'Toole

Honoured: April Ashley, now 77, was Britain's first Transsexual, her lovers included Omar Sharif and Peter O'Toole
Born plain George Jamieson, he became the first Briton to have a sex change and sparked countless lurid headlines.
But today actress and campaigner Miss April Ashley is appointed an MBE for services to transgender equality.
The award marks the latest chapter in the sensational life of the 77-year-old, a veteran of numerous sex scandals.
In her glamorous heyday she became a Vogue model, seduced actors Omar Sharif and Peter O’Toole and attracted the amorous attentions of Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso.
But her world came crashing down in the Sixties when a ‘friend’ sold her story to a newspaper and intimate details of how she had been turned from a man into a woman under a surgeon’s knife caused a sensation.
She bounced back, marrying an aristocrat but that only led to more astonishing revelations.
April was born into a seafaring Liverpudlian family in 1935 and says she knew from the age of three there was something ‘different’ about her.
Dark, slightly built and effeminate, the young George became the victim of daily beatings at school. At 15, in a vain attempt to become masculine, he signed up for the merchant navy but after two years at sea – once more a magnet for bullies – he resolved to commit suicide. A failed attempt saw him ‘dishonourably discharged’ and after two further attempts he was locked up in a mental institution.
Eventually allowed out, George headed for London – once sharing a boarding house with former deputy prime minister Lord Prescott – where he began cross-dressing.
 He moved to Paris in 1955, calling himself Toni and working as a hostess at Le Carousel, a drag club, where he mingled with a set that included Ernest Hemingway, Jean Paul Sartre and Bob Hope.
In 1960, at the age of 25 and having saved £3,000, he travelled to Casablanca and was introduced to Moroccan surgeon Doctor Burou, known as The Wizard of Casablanca, who had carried out eight previous sex change ops.
George Jamieson as a teenager
And as April Ashley
The procedure lasted seven hours, and afterwards she returned to London, where her striking looks soon led to a modelling assignment for Vogue, shot by David Bailey, and to a minor role in the Bob Hope and Bing Crosby film The Road To Hong Kong.
But success came abruptly to an end in 1961 when a friend sold her story to the Sunday People, published under the headline: The Extraordinary Case Of Top Model April Ashley – Her Secret Is Out.
She became a celebrity ‘freak’ but her notoriety didn’t stop her marrying into the aristocracy. In 1963 she wed Arthur Corbett, the Eton-educated son and heir of Lord Rowallan.
When they met Corbett was already married with four children and had a penchant for dressing up as a woman himself.
He eventually left his wife and April moved into the highest echelons of British society before the marriage collapsed.
Flashback: How the Sunday People reported the revelation that April Ashley was born a man, in 1961
Flashback: How the Sunday People reported the revelation that April Ashley was born a man, in 1961

Shock: The News of the World's spread on May 13, 1962
Shock: The News of the World's spread on May 13, 1962
She once again hit the headlines after Corbett petitioned for divorce in 1969.
It became one of the most talked about events of the decade with details of the case exploding over the newspapers. The couple faced each other in the courtroom, with Corbett claiming the union should be annulled on the grounds that because Ashley had been born a man, the marriage had never been legally sound.
The court agreed, setting a precedent which left transsexuals in gender limbo, until laws came into effect eight years ago that allowed them to be recognised legally as women.
Unfortunate: April Ashley's wedding to Arthur Corbett was delayed after intrusions into her life
Unfortunate: April Ashley's wedding to Arthur Corbett was delayed after intrusions into her life

In 1983, despite almost reaching 50, she had a one night stand with Michael Hutchence, who was just finding fame with INXS.
Following a hard fought campaign, April was finally able to legally call herself a woman in 2004, when the Government’s introduced the Gender Recognition Act.
It was not until 2005 that she was granted a new birth certificate, asserting that she was born female – with the help of old housemate John Prescott.
She says: ‘He was ever so supportive… he and his wife still send me Christmas cards.’
She now lives alone in Fulham, West London.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2160090/Cabin-boy-Briton-sex-change-operation-awarded-MBE-services-transgender-equality.html#ixzz1xwfLn5Vw