It Was a Very Good Year

It's 1964, and Barbara Loden (July 8, 1932 - September 5, 1980) and Mark Herron (July 8, 1928 - January 13, 1996) are on top of the world.



A former pin-up girl, Barbara Loden stunned critics with her vulnerable portrayal of a Marilyn Monroe-esque actress in After the Fall, a play written by none other than MM's last husband, Arthur Miller. She won the 1964 Tony and Outer Critic's Circle awards, and seemed poised for a bright career on stage and film.




Bit actor Mark Herron had just appeared (briefly) in Fellini's 8 1/2 (1963) when he met and began a highly-publicized relationship with none other than Judy Garland. He became her tour promoter, and produced her legendary 1964 London Palladium concerts with daughter Liza. Garland announced their marriage that year, but since her divorce from Husband No. 3, Sid Luft, had not yet been finalzied, they didn't officially marry until November 14, 1965.



Barbara Loden married legendary producer/director Elia Kazan, but her career didn't flourish as expected. She was reportedly fired from the Burt Lancaster film The Swimmer (1968) after Lancaster viewed the rushes and realized that Loden was dominating their scenes together. A TV movie with Burt Reynolds, Fade-In (1968), failed to win any new fans. However, in 1971, Loden won unexpected art house acclaim with Wanda, an independent film she wrote, directed and starred in. It won the Venice Film Festival's International Critics Prize, but Loden never fulfilled the promise of this success; reportedly, Kazan was resentful and condescending of the praise lavished on his young wife. She died, far too young, at age 48 after her breast cancer had spread to her liver.



As might be suspected, the glamour and excitement of being Judy Garland's companion wore thin compared to surviving within the chaos and madness that was her life. Less than a year after their official wedding, Garland and Herron had divorced amidst ugly claims of wife beating (it's been chronicled that Garland would inflict wounds upon herself, then blame Herron), and Garland's assertation that their union had never been consummated. Herron quietly slipped back into obscurity, and resumed the long-term relationship he had left to wed Garland: with rather hunky character actor Henry Brandon. They were together until Brandon's death from a heart attack in 1990; Herron died of cancer six years later.


HENRY BRANDON, C. 1959

Brandon, incidentally, had a pretty fabulous career, playing the evil Silas Barnaby in Laurel & Hardy's Babes in Toyland (1934) and Acacius Paige in Auntie Mame (1958). He also played the title role in the 1940 serial Drums of Fu Manchu, and seems to be having a marvelous time doing so:



So, for a moment, let's honor our two ill-starred birthday celebrants and remember them at the peak of their youth and glamour. We pretend it's 1964 all the time around here, anyway. There they are, still beautiful, still in the throes of applause and lights and tinsel. Barbara and Mark, wherever you are, we hope you're whooping it up.