{"id":2391958,"date":"2026-04-27T21:14:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T21:14:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2391958"},"modified":"2026-04-27T21:14:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T21:14:22","slug":"david-fantle-dead-hollywood-historian-was-66","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/david-fantle-dead-hollywood-historian-was-66\/","title":{"rendered":"David Fantle Dead: Hollywood Historian Was 66"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\tWhen Hollywood historian David Fantle and his friend and writing partner Tom Johnson walked into Vincente Minnelli\u2019s house in 1980, it looked to them like \u201csilent screen siren Norma Desmond\u2019s decaying brick pile from Billy Wilder\u2019s Sunset Boulevard,\u201d Fantle recalled.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Oscar-winning director told them that his not-yet-wife Judy Garland<\/a> didn\u2019t want to star for him in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944); she was after \u201cmore sophisticated parts\u201d and feared it would \u201cset her career back 20 years.\u201d The film, of course, would become a classic musical and one of Garland\u2019s most beloved movies.<\/p>\n

\n\tFantle, who spent a lifetime interviewing Golden Age celebrities to preserve their stories for posterity, died unexpectedly Tuesday at his home in Milwaukee following a cardiovascular emergency. He was 66.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn addition to his role as a Hollywood historian, the St. Paul, Minnesota native had a 40-year career in public relations, serving in top positions at Visit Milwaukee, the Wisconsin Department of Tourism and the United Performing Arts Fund. He also sat on the board of the Holocaust Education Resource Center and taught film and PR classes at Marquette University.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat makes Fantle\u2019s story worth highlighting is his determination and ability to get access to the stars of yesteryear \u2014 starting when he was just out of high school.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat tenacity,\u201d Robert Wagner wrote in the foreword to Fantle and Johnson\u2019s 2018 book, Hollywood Heyday: 75 Candid Interviews With Golden Age Legends. \u201cThese are interviews with stars who rarely, if ever, opened up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEarlier, Fantle and Johnson teamed on 2009\u2019s Reel to Real: 25 Years of Celebrity Interviews From Vaudeville to Movies to TV.<\/p>\n

\n\tStarting when he was 18, Fantle used the skills that would build a four-decade PR career by getting these stars to talk about what people wanted to know.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen he and Johnson were in high school in Minneapolis in the \u201970s, they would send out 60 or so letters to stars and get maybe 30 in return. They\u2019d also call agents or caretakers, whoever was running the show. They traveled to Los Angeles for three weeks at a time, with three-piece suits and $50 in dimes for pay phones, and did their interviews all over Beverly Hills.<\/p>\n

\n\tJohnson described Fantle as an \u201cextremely loyal friend, he was like a brother, and he was like a pit bull when it came to seeking out stars to interview. They would try to brush off these kids, and Dave would just give them a reason to see us.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tDavid Fantle with producer Arthur Freed\u2019s best picture Oscar for \u2018An American in Paris.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Fantle Family<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tLucille Ball<\/a> nearly kicked them out (but didn\u2019t), James Cagney took them to dinner after they were sized up by his caretaker, Fred Astaire<\/a> did a dance for them, and Mel Brooks kept them laughing.<\/p>\n

\n\tThey sat down with wife and husband Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, who said about his success in Hollywood, \u201cI feel like I snuck in.\u201d Casablanca co-screenwriter Julius Epstein opined about inaccuracies in film history books. The often-cranky Jerry Lewis<\/a> opened up to them multiple times. They spoke with Charlton Heston on his tennis court and met Gregory Peck at his Bel-Air estate. Bob Hope<\/a> refused to be called a \u201clegend,\u201d saying, \u201cif you start believing this legend stuff, you\u2019re in trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGene Kelly told them about working with Garland in Summer Stock (1950). \u201cShe wasn\u2019t a trained dancer,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I never worked with a trained dancer who was so quick to learn steps as Judy was.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAbout Singin\u2019 in the Rain (1952), Kelly spoke of his \u201cMoses Supposes\u201d number with Donald O\u2019Connor. \u201cDonald and I rehearsed that dance for days, but most critics dismiss it as a zany Marx Brothers romp.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Kelly family sent Christmas cards to Fantle and Johnson every year and even invited them back for another visit.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFilm editors have become the choreographers today,\u201d said Kelly, who bemoaned the lack of ingenuity in contemporary musicals,all shot in medium and close-up. \u201cA whole musical can fail or succeed based on the editing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDebbie Reynolds<\/a> discussed her dedication to preserving MGM history after Kirk Kerkorian<\/a> started to strip the studio for parts, selling the backlot and props. \u201cThe MGM auction absolutely broke my heart,\u201d Reynolds told them in 1994, \u201cthat\u2019s why I went to the bank, borrowed money and attended the auction every day. I think it\u2019s our fault that we don\u2019t protect our own culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSaid Johnson: \u201cWe always showed [the legends] respect, and they would quickly brighten up upon our arrival.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile working for Visit Milwaukee, Fantle had the idea to immortalize Henry Winkler, who of course played \u201cThe Fonz\u201d on ABC\u2019s Happy Days, which took place in the Cream City. Other cities had their unique Hollywood connection, so why couldn\u2019t Milwaukee celebrate one of theirs?<\/p>\n

\n\tFantle led a campaign to fund the bronze statue, known warmly as the \u201cBronze Fonz,\u201d and the mini monument on the riverwalk has become a selfie hotspot for tourists. (After Fantle\u2019s death, Winkler called his family with condolences and a jovial comment that without the Bronze Fonz, he\u2019d have nothing to talk about.)<\/p>\n

\n\tDavid Zucker, who co-directed and co-wrote Airplane! (1980) with brother Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams<\/a>, met Fantle through his role at Wisconsin Tourism, and he \u201cgot the whole ZAZ gang together for these tourism ads,\u201d he recalled. Fantle was often on the set making suggestions.<\/p>\n

\n\tZucker was a big Steve Allen fan and was delighted to hear Fantle share that Allen loved Airplane!<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDavid Fantle was the guy who thought outside of the box. He had an imagination,\u201d said Zucker. \u201c[He thought], why are we doing these dull vacation ads? Why don\u2019t we shake things up with ZAZ humor! That\u2019s what we did, and they were very successful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRegarding Fantle\u2019s work with the Bronze Fonz, Zucker joked that \u201cI think they should pick a bridge [in Milwaukee] and do a ZAZ statue!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn a personal note, I first met Fantle when I was beginning research for my 2023 book, The Warner Brothers. He told me that he had met Warners house director Mervyn LeRoy [Little Caesar, I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang] not long before he died in 1987 and that he \u201clooked like a mob boss.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWith decades of experience and lifetimes worth of wisdom, Fantle encouraged my work, shared sources, taught me to watch for (but never fear) family members protecting legacies, began networking for me as soon as it looked like tenure was about to be destroyed at UW-Milwaukee, connected me with Marquette, spoke to my entertainment journalism class at the school and kept a coffee date for years, always making sure things were going well.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou always left a conversation with him feeling like anything was possible. He was a true friend and a genuine gentleman and will be deeply missed.<\/p>\n

\n\tFuneral services were held Thursday at Congregation Sinai in Fox Point, Wisconsin. Survivors include his wife, Cathy; his children, Grace, Madeline and Max; his older brother, Phillip; his mother, Betty; his grandchildren, Rena, Romi, Lang and Hannah; and his best friend, Johnson.<\/p>\n

\n\tDonations in his memory can be made to the Nathan and Esther Pelz Holocaust Education Resource Center<\/a> or the Diederich College of Communication <\/a>at Marquette.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.hollywoodreporter.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Hollywood historian David Fantle and his friend and writing partner Tom Johnson walked into Vincente Minnelli\u2019s house in 1980, it looked to them like \u201csilent screen siren Norma Desmond\u2019s decaying brick pile from Billy Wilder\u2019s Sunset Boulevard,\u201d Fantle recalled. The Oscar-winning director told them that his not-yet-wife Judy Garland didn\u2019t want to star for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2391959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[451304,413404,321264,362863,22064],"class_list":["post-2391958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-bob-hope","tag-fred-astaire","tag-judy-garland","tag-lucille-ball","tag-obituaries"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/David-Fantle-Dead-Hollywood-Historian-Was-66.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2391958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2391958"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2391958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2391960,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2391958\/revisions\/2391960"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2391959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2391958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2391958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2391958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}