B6 ez sU THE WASHINGTON POST.WEDNESDAy, MARCH 18 , 2020
obituaries
BY HARRISON SMITHStuart Whitman, a rugged
Hollywood actor who earned an
oscar nomination for his por-
trayal of a child molester in “The
mark” b ut was better known as a
leathery star of action films and
Westerns, including the 1960s
television series “Cimarron
Strip,” died march 16 at his
home in montecito, Calif. He
was 92.
He had skin cancer, said his
son Justin Whitman.
With his tousled dark hair,
roguish smile and boxer’s phy-
sique, mr. Whitman was a half-
century staple of film and televi-
sion, appearing in studio block-
busters and John Wayne epics as
well as exploitation films and
horror schlock.
He played an Army paratroop-
er in the D-Day movie “The
Longest Day” (1962), a brash
pilot in the British comedy
“Those magnificent men in
Their flying machines” (1965)
and a misguided zoologist in
“Night of the Lepus” (1972), a
box-office dud — now a cult
classic — in which his character
unleashes a race of mutant,
bloodthirsty bunnies that
seemed to anticipate the killer
rabbit in “monty Python and the
Holy Grail.”
mr. Whitman turned to acting
after serving in the Army Corps
of Engineers, where he spent his
free time sparring and compiled
a near-perfect record as an ama-
teur light heavyweight boxer.
returning to Los Angeles, he
rented out a bulldozer to supple-
ment his meager acting income,
then abandoned the construc-
tion business when he began to
have more success on-screen in
films such as “Darby’s rangers”
(1958).
Hollywood columnist Hedda
Hopper speculated that he might
be the h eir to Clark Gable, c alling
mr. Whitman “a fresh personali-
ty with tremendous impact.” of-
ficials at Twentieth Century fox,
where mr. Whitman was on con-
tract, suggested in 1960 that
based on the number of fan
letters he received, mr. Whitman
was primed to be “the next big
young male star.”
Indeed, he starred as the up-
standing marshal Jim Crown in
“Cimarron Strip,” which pre-
miered on CBS in 1967 and ran
for one unconventional season,
with weekly 90-minute episodes
that reportedly cost a staggering
$350,000 to $400,000 each. But
he thrived playing heels, vaga-
bonds and seductive womaniz-
ers, including in the 1959 Wil-
liam faulkner adaptation “The
Sound and the fury.”
“I like those kind of guys I
suppose because I can’t be that
way myself,” mr. Whitman once
told columnist Joe Hyams. “If I
was, it would shatter a few things
— namely my wife and four
children.”
In 1961, he starred as gambler
Paul regret in “The Comanche-
ros” (1961), the last feature film
by “Casablanca” director mi-
chael Curtiz. The role had al-
ready been assigned, mr. Whit-
man said, but he talked his way
into the part after a 20-minute
conversation with Wayne, who
played the movie’s Te xas ranger
hero. The duo became chess
partners, playing games in be-
tween takes.
mr. Whitman “always consid-
ered himself a bit of a cowboy,”
his son Justin said by phone. He
went on to portray an Army
captain in the 1964 Western “rio
Conchos,” which featured foot-
ball star Jim Brown in his movie
debut, and starred as a big-game
hunter who survives a plane
crash and turns against his fel-
low passengers in “Sands of the
Kalahari” (1965).
Ye t he also pushed back
against that image, notably in
“The mark” (1961), an explora-
tion of sexual deviance in w hich
mr. Whitman played a convict-
ed sex offender who seeks guid-
ance from a psychiatrist (rod
Steiger). He o nce explained that
he had taken the part to test
himself, telling the Chicago
Daily News: “I wanted to find
out if I was in the right busi-
ness.”
Decades later, he acknowl-
edged that h e had put off reading
the script until he arrived in
London, in preparation for
shooting in Ireland. “my first
thoughts were ‘I can’t do this,’
and [I] tried to think of an excuse
to get out of it,” mr. Whitman
told interviewer Nick Thomas.
“Later, I got a call from Steiger,
who wanted to meet and re-
hearse at his place. We worked
our way through and it turned
out fine.”mr. Whitman received an
Academy Award nomination for
best actor but lost to “Judgment
at Nuremberg” star maximilian
Schell, whose sister, actress ma-
ria Schell, played mr. Whitman’s
love interest in “The mark.”
“I had a tough time breaking
my image in that movie,” mr.
Whitman told the Chicago Daily
News in 1967. “I’ve been a psycho
three times since.”
The older of two children,
Stuart maxwell Whitman was
born in San francisco on feb. 1,- The family moved fre-
quently because of his father’s
work in real estate, and mr.
Whitman said he attended 26
schools before graduating from
Hollywood High in Los Angeles.
He served in the Army Corps of
Engineers after World War II a nd
attended Los Angeles City Col-
lege on the GI Bill.
Defying his father, who threw
him out of the house when he
learned mr. Whitman was pursu-
ing a career in show business,
mr. Whitman made his profes-
sional stage debut in a touring
production of “Here Comes mr.
Jordan.” And he took bit parts on
screen, beginning with the 1951
sci-fi disaster film “When Worlds
Collide.”
His marriages to Patricia La-
Londe and Caroline Boubis end-
ed in d ivorce. In 2 006 he married
Yuliya (sometimes spelled Julia)
Paradiz. In addition to his wife,
survivors include four children
from his first marriage, Linda
Whitman van Hook and Antho-
ny, michael and Scott Whitman;
a son from his second marriage,
Justin Whitman; a brother, actor
Kipp Whitman; seven grandchil-
dren; and four great-grandchil-
dren.
mr. Whitman played a tempes-
tuous college student in “Johnny
Trouble” (1957), actress Ethel
Barrymore’s last movie; had a
recurring role as Broderick
Crawford’s sidekick on the 1950s
crime drama “Highway Patrol”;
and starred as Boaz, an ancestor
of King David, in the biblical
drama “The Story of ruth”
(1960).
on television, he played Su-
perman’s adoptive father on “Su-
perboy” and had guest spots on
shows including “ fantasy Is-
land,” “The A-Te am,” “Knots
Landing” and “murder, She
Wrote.”
But h is film c areer suffered, h e
said, after the release of “Night of
the Lepus,” which New York
Times movie critic roger Green-
spun described as a rabbit-based
thriller about “big-eared mon-
sters who neigh like horses,
stampede like cattle, roar like
lions and breathe very heavily —
especially when they are going to
do something awful, like c hew up
the keeper of the general store,
so as to get at the lettuce in the
back room.”
“Several friends have asked
how you can make a rabbit seem
scary,” Greenspun continued,
“and I must confess that ‘Night of
the Lepus’ in no way answers
their question. It doesn’t even
reasonably try.”
mr. Whitman soldiered on,
playing Cloris Leachman’s for-
mer lover in “Crazy mama”
(1975), the second feature by
director Jonathan Demme; a
sheriff in horror master Tobe
Hooper’s “Eaten Alive” (1976);
and a Jim Jones-like priest in
“Guyana: Cult of the Damned”
(1979), a docudrama inspired by
the Jonestown massacre.
“I was bankable for a while,”
mr. Whitman told the Los Ange-
les Times in 1991, “then I did a
couple of shows that didn’t make
any money. Then I wasn’t bank-
able.” He added: “A s an actor
you’ve got to keep working.
You’ve got to do something to
feed the family, put the kids
through school.”
[email protected]
STUArT WHITmAN, 92Craggy actor thrived on
playing heels, vagabonds
AssocIAted Press
stuart Whitman portrayed
Marshal Jim Crown on
“Cimarron strip.”stePHen m. KAtz/AssocIAted Pressencing symptoms of covid-19, she
said.
Virtual medicine allows doc-
tors to work even when in quaran-
tine themselves, and slows the
spread of covid-19 by reducing the
number of patients seeking in-
person treatment.
Ye t there are substantial chal-
lenges to transitioning doctors to
telework, including counseling
patients through phone and video
calls, because so few have previ-
ously done it.
“We are going from zero to 50 in
a short amount of time,” said
ransom, of the medical society,
which is fielding up to 30 calls a
day from doctors with questions.
for health-care workers pro-
viding in-person care, one of the
biggest issues is the limited sup-
plies of personal protective equip-
ment — especially masks. ran-
som said many physicians de-
scribed a “major shortage” o f gear
on a call Saturday, saying their
vendors had run out of supplies.
Costi Sifri, the director of hos-
pital epidemiology at University
of Virginia medical Center, a 600-
bed hospital in Charlottesville,
said supply chains for this equip-
ment are “very very thin and lim-
ited” across the United States.
There is high demand for the
gear and many products are pro-
duced in countries that have lim-
ited export abilities due to the
virus, such as China, Sifri said.
Sentara put together high-risk
respiratory carts for each hospi-
tal, including personal protective
equipment, to ensure providers
are prepared and can treat coro-
navirus-positive patients in the
same unit.
In r esponse, UVA professionals
are bundling their care efforts,
doing as much as they can for a
patient in isolation all at once
before having to discard masks
and gowns, for example, and lim-
iting the number of medical pro-
viders who enter a room at once.
Sifri of UVA said all of these
efforts will be put to the test as the
number of cases — especially
those of no known origin — con-
tinues to rise.
“That is what we are racing to
be able to confront adequately,”
he said.
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]Fenit nirappil and rebecca tan
contributed to this report.the emergency room doors,” she
said.
many area residents are still
reporting difficulty getting tested.
one woman from Northern Vir-
ginia, who spoke on the condition
of anonymity because of privacy
concerns, said her 20-year-old
son has been sick with a fever and
respiratory issues since this week-
end. But he has been turned down
for testing online, at the doctor’s
and at u rgent care because he had
not traveled abroad or been ex-
posed to someone known to have
the virus.
“It’s just really frustrating,” the
woman said. “He’s sitting there
and nobody is listening to him.”
Her son, who attends George
mason University, had a chest
X-ray monday night that showed
his lungs were clear. He’s feeling
better, and he is now on antibiot-
ics and cough syrup.
Hospital networks such as
Johns Hopkins are prioritizing
testing for patients who have
been hospitalized, Hopkins epi-
demiologist Aaron milstone said.
The network has tripled its test-
ing capacity in the last two days
and is hoping to double or triple it
again by the end of the week.
People experiencing symp-
toms, he said, need to call their
doctors before going to the emer-
gency room. “If our Ers get flood-
ed, then we can’t safely manage
the patients that are truly in
need.”
most hospitals are also delay-
ing elective surgeries, and limit-
ing visiting hours and guests tem-
porarily.
United medical Center, the Dis-
trict’s public hospital in South-
east Washington where a doctor
recently tested positive for the
virus, has added a separate emer-
gency department waiting room
and isolated spaces for patients
who report to the hospital with
flu-like symptoms, UmC spokes-
woman To ya S. Carmichael said.
Health-care systems such as
Kaiser are encouraging people to
use virtual medicine when possi-
ble, logging onto the Kaiser web-
site, entering their symptoms and
then awaiting guidance from a
physician.
Gahunia, the Kaiser doctor,
said there has been an eightfold
increase in e-visits in recent days.
Kaiser physicians in the Washing-
ton region saw about 750 patients
via video per day on Thursday and
friday, including many experi-George Washington University
Hospital, medStar Georgetown
and medStar Washington Hospi-
tal Center, and Inova fairfax.
But Kaiser Permanente said it
had set up drive-through testing
locations in maryland and Virgin-
ia, by prescription only, in Gaith-
ersburg, Largo, Woodbridge, Ty -
sons and South Baltimore. Since
friday, about 200 people have
been tested and swabbed.
“our goal is to keep as many
patients out of the Er as possible,”
said Kaiser infectious disease spe-
cialist mona Gahunia.
Virginia Hospital Center is
partnering with local government
agencies to open a drive-through
site in Arlington starting Wednes-
day to collect samples from peo-
ple who have written orders for
testing and meet other criteria,
according to a news release from
Arlington County officials.
After D.C. officials floated the
idea of reopening the shuttered
Providence Hospital in Northeast
Washington for a surge of covid-
19 patients, Ta marah Duperval-
Brownlee, president and CEo of
Providence Health System, said
the facility is not suitable for inpa-
tient or residential care.
The Norfolk-based Sentara
Healthcare system launched
three drive-through screening
and testing sites monday outside
their facilities in Hampton roads,
not far from the part of the state
where two men in their 70s died
after testing positive for the coro-
navirus. They are the only two
coronavirus fatalities reported so
far in Virginia; no deaths have
been reported yet in the District
or maryland.
The health-care system said it
was adapting a drive-through
model it has used to administer
the flu vaccine.
All Sentara facilities have the
ability to expand by adding tents
and overhangs. many h ospitals in
the region are setting up tents
outside their facilities to prevent
emergency rooms from being
overwhelmed with covid-19 pa-
tients.
“We are looking at this from a
pacing perspective,” said Jordan
Asher, Sentara’s chief physician
executive. “Hopefully we are
wrong, but we are preparing for
the next three to six months.”
Shady Grove Adventist Hospi-
tal set up tents monday where
they plan to eventually treat pa-
tients, and medStar montgomery
plan to do so later this week, said
montgomery County health offi-
cer Travis Gayles.
“Let me be clear that none of
these tents are being used or oper-
ationalized at this point,” he said.
“It is again a standard part of
preparedness in the event that we
need to move quickly” to screen
more potential patients.
Holy Cross Hospitals in Silver
Spring and Germantown expect
to be treating patients in tents by
the end of the week, spokeswom-
an Kristin feliciano said.
In the first tent, patients will
give their names and vital infor-
mation. If they are showing signs
of the illness, they will report to a
second tent for further assess-
ment, care and possible testing.
While awaiting results, pa-
tients will be quarantined at
home , or admitted if their symp-
toms are severe or if they have
preexisting conditions. The regu-
lar hospital triage space will be
used for non-virus patients.
“If you have a broken leg, we
want you to be able to go through
HospItals from B1
Doctors encouraging ‘virtual visits,’ too
KIm HAIrston/BALtImore sUn/AssocIAted Presstop: staff at sentara
princess anne
Hospital’s ambulatory
screening area waits to
examine people
concerned that they may
have contracted the
coronavirus in Virginia
Beach.
aBoVE: University of
Maryland Upper
Chesapeake Health set
up their Healthlink
Medical Mobile van
parking lot near the
emergency department
in Bel air, Md., to
collect specimens from
people who are a t higher
risk to contract covid-19.“Our goal is to
keep as many
patients out of the
ER as possible.”
mona Gahunia, infectious
disease specialist at Kaiser
Permanente. the health-care
group said it had set up
drive-through testing
locations in maryland and
Virginia, by prescription only,
in Gaithersburg, Largo,
Woodbridge, tysons and
south Baltimore. since
Friday, about 200 people
have been swabbed and
tested.