Robert Walker Obituary

Actor Walker Dies After Drug Dosage

Breathing of Film Star Stops When Doctors Use Sedative in Emotional Crisis

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 29 – Robert Walker, 32-year-old film star whose own desperate and protracted struggle with dark emotional forces topped any of his conflicts on the screen, died last night while undergoing medical treatment for the latest of many tragic crises in his life.

The actor, who attracted national attention in December, 1948, when he fled from a Topeka, Kan., psychiatric clinic and smashed up the local police station after being arrested for drunkenness, succumbed to what was reported as a “respiratory failure” after receiving a sedative injection at his Sunset Boulevard home in suburban Brentwood.

Dr. Frederick J. Hacker, a psychiatrist who had been treating Mr. Walker for eighteen months, said he had been called about 6p.m. by the actor’s housekeeper and found him in “a highly emotional state.”

He kept saying, “I feel terrible, Doc – do something quick,” the psychiatrist reported, adding that he did not know whether the actor had been drinking.

Drug is Administered

After two hours’ pleading failed to calm Mr. Walker, Dr. Hacker said he called Dr. Sidney Silver to administer sodium amytal, which “we had given him twenty-five to thirty times in the past without ill effects.”

A seven-and-one-half grain dose was given, Dr. Hacker said, only a fraction of previous doses the actor had received, but almost immediately he turned blue and gradually stopped breathing – a reaction which, Dr. Silver aid, occurred only about once in 10,000 cases. He certified the death as natural, due to respiratory failure.

Dr. Victor Cefalu, assistant county coroner, said today that a fifteen-grain dose could be toxic, and that the drug accumulated in the system. The coroner’s office said there would be no autopsy unless a member o fhte family requested it.

Mr. Walker, whose career as a star in a score of pictures had been concentrated in a brief eight years, only last Saturday had completed work in the Helen Hayes film “My Son John” at Paramount studios and had been reported in an apparently cheerful mood.

His death cut short what had been regarded as a successful comeback from a severe psychological crackup.
This manifested itself in 1945, when he was divorced after a marriage of six years by Jennifer Jones, the film actress, who subsequently became the wife of David O. Selznick, film producer.

Vanished During Film

Although at that time, only two years after his debut in “Bataan”, he was making $100,000 a year according to the divorce testimony, the actor suddenly disappeared in the midst of the filming of “See Here, Private Hargrove,” and was located only after two days.

A year later he was arrested for hit-and-run driving in Beverly Hills and fined $500. In July, 1948, he married Barbara Ford, daughter of John Ford, the producer-director, but they separated after five weeks and she subsequently obtained an annulment.

Shortly after their separation, he was arrested for drunken driving, and his treatment at the Menninger clinic in Topeka became known with his outburst there. However, he left the clinic in May, 1949, reported completely readjusted, and returned to Hollywood to resume his film career.

Though Dr. Hacker said that the actor’s psychiatric difficulties dated back to 1943, it was generally supposed (and occasional comments of Mr. Walker himself lent substance to this? that his separation from Miss Jones had precipitated his distress.

They had two children, Robert, 11, and Michael, 10, who had been visiting the actor this summer, but who were away from the home visiting friends when Mr. Walker died.

Returned to Hollywood

Since his return to Hollywood, the actor had played in “Vengeance Valley” at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, where he was under contract, and, on loan, in “Strangers on a Train” at Warner Brothers before his recent Paramount assignment. Leo McCarey, producer and director of the last picture, said:

“I have worked closely with Bob during these past few months and learned to know him as both a fine gentleman and a great actor. We had our final working session together only last Saturday. At that time he showed no indication of being in ill health. On the contrary, he did his final recording with great zest. I had just run the rough-cut of the picture for him, and, although a modest fellow, he fairly beamed at the results.”

His films also included “Madame Curie,” “See Here, Private Hargrove,” “Since You Went Away,” “Thirty Seconds Over Toyko,” “Till The Clouds Roll By,” and “Sea of Grass.”

He was the son of Horace Walker, Salt Lake City newspaper editor, who is flying here with Mrs. Walker. The actor attended the San Diego Army and Navy Military Academy, the Pasadena (Calif.) Playhouse dramatic school and the Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York.

After an unproductive stage debut in Greenwich Village, he did radio work in Tulsa, Okla. and in New York, where his voice attracted the attention of Hollywood scouts.

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