JEFF CHANDLER

THE FORGOTTEN MATINEE IDOL OF THE 1950S 

Jeff Chandler looked as though he had been dreamed up by one of those artists who specialiZe in male physique studies or, a mite further up the artistic scale, he might have been plucked bodily from some modern mural on a biblical subject. For that he had the requisite Jewishness (of which he was very proud) – and he was not quite real. Above all, he was impossibly handsome. He would never have been lost in a crowd, with that big, square, sculpted 20th-century face and his prematurely grey wavy hair. If the movies had not found him the advertising agencies would have done – and in fact, whenever you saw a still of him you looked at his wrist-watch or pipe before realising that he wasn't promoting something. In the coloured stills and on posters his studio always showed his hair as blue, heightening the unreality. His real name was Ira Grossel and his film-name was exactly right. Shortly after completing his role in Merrill's Marauders  in 1961, Chandler injured his back while playing baseball with U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers who served as extras in the movie. He entered  Culver City hospital and had surgery for a spinal disc herniation on May 13, 1961. There were severe complications; an artery  was damaged and Chandler hemorrhaged. In a seven-and-a-half-hour emergency operation over-and-above the original surgery, he was given 55 pints of blood. Another operation followed, date unknown, where he received an additional 20 pints of blood. He died on June 17, 1961. His death was deemed malpractice.\ and resulted in a large lawsuit and settlement for his children.

WATCH A SELECTION OF CHANDLER'S FILMS HERE