The David Janssen Archive

1980

feb 17	memorial service at Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City. Eulogized by Richard Lang, Suzanne Pleshette, Paul Ziffrin, and Quinn Martin. Widow Dani attends an Irish-style wake at the home of Stan Herman and Linda Evans after the service.
mar 3	"Father Damien" resumes filming with Ken Howard replacing Janssen in the role less that 3 weeks after his death.
mar 30	Janssen's TV movie "City In Fear' is broadcast on NBC. John O'Connor of "The New York Times" reviews: "Mr. Janssen, looking tired, a bit bloated and bleary-eyed, turns in another of his typiclal performances, always commanding attention and frequently admiration....His final scene is unexpectedly touching. Threatening to buck (his publisher/boss) he is told, ‘You do and you’re finished’. ‘I’m already finished’, he says. The sympathetic wife of the publisher assures him, ‘Something else will come along’. “Yeah”, he growls, “it always does, doesn’t it?”. And Mr. Janssen, exceptional in many ways, walks off into the television night. One can almost hear the typewriters clicking away on the first drafts for a television movie called “The David Janssen Story”.
apr	mother Berniece Janssen wishes to launch a case contesting her son's will which she's convinced is phony and tries to get a groundswell of support for this over the next few months. Lawyer Marvin Mitchelson will in early June decline to handle the matter citing not sufficient basis.
may 22	Dani sells the mobile Janssen motor home, the Silver Bullet, for $2500. It's sold to Janssen's Army buddy Pete Wilson.
jun 1	Dani begins to rent the Malibu beach house for $3500 monthy.

1981

may	"Inchon!", Janssen's last feature film has its first U.S. screening, over a year and a half after he does the role. Already drowning in the controversy of its reputed 'Moonies' funding source, the movie's D.C. Kennedy Center screening goes poorly. The "Variety" critic calls Janssen 'simply ludicrious'. This 140-minute version is never released and is sent back to the editing room. When the film does has a very limited theatrical run late the following year, Janssen is completely edited out of the film.
jun 28	Dani marries stuntman Hal Needham on the backlot Western Street of Universal Studios. They met late February at a screening of “Cannonball Run” which Needman directed.

may

"Inchon!", Janssen's last feature film has its first U.S. screening, over a year and a half after he does the role. Already drowning in the controversy of its reputed 'Moonies' funding source, the movie's D.C. Kennedy Center screening goes poorly. The "Variety" critic calls Janssen 'simply ludicrious'. This 140-minute version is never released and is sent back to the editing room. When the film does has a very limited theatrical run late the following year, Janssen is completely edited out of the film.

jun 28

Dani marries stuntman Hal Needham on the backlot Western Street of Universal Studios. They met late February at a screening of “Cannonball Run” which Needman directed.

1989

may 11	receives a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The 5pm ceremony is hosted by Johhny Grant and attended by mother Berniece and ex-wife Ellie, who flies in from Florida where she is living. Dani does not attend. The star exists today in front of 7011 Hollywood Boulevard. The campaign to get the Chamber of Congress to approve the star is spearheaded by Ken Custer and by a Janssen fan David Brown of Richardson, TX.

may 11

receives a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The 5pm ceremony is hosted by Johhny Grant and attended by mother Berniece and ex-wife Ellie, who flies in from Florida where she is living. Dani does not attend. The star exists today in front of 7011 Hollywood Boulevard. The campaign to get the Chamber of Congress to approve the star is spearheaded by Ken Custer and by a Janssen fan David Brown of Richardson, TX.

1990

nov 5	natural father Harold Edward Meyer dies in Arizona at the age of 84. It may be that he and David never saw each other again after his visit to the Chicago theater where David was appearing in the play "The Gazebo" in June 1960.

1992

sep 19	Berniece returns to Naponee, NE and to the house that David Janssen was born in. The occasion is the David Janssen Fan Club convention organized by Texas Bob Reinhardt.

1993

feb	The movie version of Janssen's hit TV series THE FUGITIVE has finally begun production after delays, script re-writes and casting changes. Harrison Ford has taken the Dr. Richard Kimble part and Tommy Lee Jones the Lt. Gerard duties. In a kind homage, Berniece Janssen is flown from her California home to the film's shooting location of Chicago for a bit part. It is originally intended that she plays a landlady who rents a room to Kimble, but when that scene is omitted, she finds herself as a spectator in the courtroom.

feb

The movie version of Janssen's hit TV series THE FUGITIVE has finally begun production after delays, script re-writes and casting changes.

Harrison Ford has taken the Dr. Richard Kimble part and Tommy Lee Jones the Lt. Gerard duties.

In a kind homage, Berniece Janssen is flown from her California home to the film's shooting location of Chicago for a bit part.

It is originally intended that she plays a landlady who rents a room to Kimble, but when that scene is omitted, she finds herself as a spectator in the courtroom.

1995

nov 26	mother Berniece dies in the Motion Picture Country Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA at the age of 85.

1996

mar 30	stepfather Eugene Janssen, who had remarried and was living in Inglewood, CA dies.

1999

jul 9	ex-wife Ellie Janssen, who never remarried, dies in Portland, OR. She was 78.
	MORE TO COME - CHECK BACK AGAIN!

Chapter 18	-	EPILOG (after Feb 1980)
		"the postscript"