Obituaries

The loose-lipped governor who was impeached

Evan Mecham

1924–2008

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Evan Mecham was the most contentious governor in Arizona history. A conservative Republican, the onetime automobile dealer had a common touch that initially proved popular. But in 1988, after only 15 months in office, he became the first U.S. governor in 59 years to be impeached. He died last week at 83, after suffering from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Mecham, “a short, wiry bulldog of a man,” was reared on a farm in Utah, said The Arizona Republic. He flew combat missions during World War II, and was shot down just before V-E Day, becoming a prisoner of war for 22 days. “Being face to face with the Germans,” he said, “made me realize that our enemies were simply people like us, with many of the same needs and aspirations.” After the war, he married his high school sweetheart, Florence Lambert, moved to Arizona, and bought a Pontiac franchise, which made him a millionaire.

“His political rise and fall was stunning,” said the East Valley, Ariz., Tribune. After serving one term in the Arizona Senate, Mecham began eyeing the governor’s chair. He “ran as an outsider, doing battle with what he deemed the corrupt elite, a cabal of crooked politicians, wealthy power brokers, and their pawns in the media.” On his fifth attempt, in 1986, he won. But his “downfall began the day he took office.” He repealed the state holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr., arguing that King “didn’t deserve” such an honor and that “its supporters just wanted a day off with pay.” Mecham’s remarks, which enraged Democrats and Republicans alike, yielded boycotts and protests.

Other outbursts soon followed, said The Washington Post. He remarked that “working women cause divorce,” and that “Jews should face up to the fact that the United States is a Christian nation.” Mecham also said he wasn’t offended when black children were called “pickaninnies.” When some visiting Japanese businessmen heard about Arizona’s many golf courses, he said, their “eyes got round.” Ultimately, though, it wasn’t his impolitic comments that were his undoing. In January 1988, a grand jury indicted him for allegedly trying to conceal a $350,000 campaign loan. Though he was acquitted of the charges, “the state House impeached him and the state Senate convicted and removed him in April.”

Returning to private life, Mecham sold cars again, tried and failed to start a newspaper, and ran for governor for the sixth and last time in 1990. In 1992, he undertook an abortive run for the U.S. Senate. He spent the last four years of his life in the dementia unit of the Arizona State Veteran Home.

The minor actor who was a major movie monster

Ben Chapman

1928–2008

Ben Chapman’s list of acting credits was small and mostly undistinguished, including such movies as Ma and Pa Kettle in Waikiki. But he achieved pop-culture immortality by playing the title character in the 1954 3-D horror classic Creature From the Black Lagoon.

Chapman, who died of congestive heart failure last week at 79, became a contract player at Universal after his much-decorated service as a Marine in the Korean War, said the Los Angeles Times. He got his signature part by

pure luck: He was on the lot one day when a casting director called him over. “They were looking for an imposing creature,” Chapman said, “and at 6-feet-5, I filled the bill.” To build his ghoulish costume—complete with gills, dorsal fins, and webbed hands and feet—the makeup department took a complete plaster mold of his body. The final product, a form-fitting rubber suit, was hot and uncomfortable. “The whole experience was like climbing into a large body stocking with creases,” Chapman recalled. He was actually one of two actors who played the creature; Ricou Browning, an experienced diver, did the underwater scenes, while Chapman donned the outfit for land shots.

Chapman’s Universal contract expired soon afterward, and he became a real estate salesman in Hawaii, said the Akron Beacon Journal. He didn’t appear in his famous film’s two sequels, Revenge of the Creature (1955) and The Creature Walks Among Us (1956). “Sure, I kind of resented that they didn’t call me back, but what are you going to do?” Chapman said. “Besides, ethnically, I’m Polynesian, so nothing really bothers me.” But horror fans loved him, and for years he did a brisk business at conventions and autograph signings. For the Creature, Chapman had abiding affection. “I didn’t want him to be just a monster,” he explained. “I wanted there to be some sympathy for him. I always say that he’s my alter ego.”

The popular author who wrote The French Connection

Robin Moore

1925–2008

Robin Moore, who died last week at 82, was a best-selling author with some 80 books to his credit. His most successful were The Green Berets and The French Connection, both of which became movies, with the latter winning the 1971 Oscar for Best Picture.

A Harvard graduate, Moore flew combat missions in World War II, said the Kentucky New Era. His postwar jobs provided raw material for early novels such as Pitchman, which was about television, and Hotel Tomayne, which concerned the hotel business. “He also served with the New York Police Department, and the book The French Connection was a result of one of New York’s most successful drug busts.” By parlaying his connection with a Harvard classmate, then–Attorney General Robert Kennedy, Moore got special clearance to write about the Army’s 5th Special Forces Group, resulting in The Green Berets. He also co-wrote the movie’s distinctive theme. “The song topped music charts, and it was said that it continued to bring tears to the writer’s eyes.”

Moore’s fortunes dipped after he co-wrote The Happy Hooker with Xaveria Hollander in 1972, said the Associated Press. In 1981, he collaborated on the screenplay for the disastrous war epic Inchon. Then he ran into some legal problems. In 1986, he “pleaded guilty to selling fraudulent literary tax shelters.” He spent his last years with his wife, Helen, in Hopkinsville, Ky., “which borders Fort Campbell, the sprawling Army post that is headquarters to a Green Beret group.”