Joe Hyams, 85; chronicled movie stars in Hollywood
LOS ANGELES - Joe Hyams, a former Hollywood columnist and best-selling author of books ranging from biographies of Humphrey Bogart and James Dean to a popular tome on Eastern philosophy, has died. He was 85.
Mr. Hyams, a native of Cambridge, was a longtime Los Angeles resident and moved to Penrose, Colo., three years ago. He died of coronary artery disease Nov. 8 at a Denver hospital, said his wife of 14 years, Melissa.
A former West Coast bureau chief for the New York Herald Tribune who married actress Elke Sommer, Mr. Hyams covered Hollywood as a syndicated columnist from 1951 to 1964. He continued chronicling Hollywood for the Saturday Evening Post, Ladies' Home Journal, Redbook and other magazines.
"He was a Hollywood insider," movie producer David Permut, a longtime friend, said. "Everybody knew Joe, and he knew everybody. He was a great wit, a great guy."
The author of more than 25 books, Mr. Hyams tapped his insider status in many of them, including the biographies "Bogie" (1966), "Bogart & Bacall: A Love Story" (1975), and "James Dean: Little Boy Lost" (1992), written with his son Jay.
He also wrote the Hollywood-set novels "The Pool" and "Murder at the Academy Awards."
Among his other books are "Flight of the Avenger: George Bush at War" (1991) and, with Tom Murton, the 1969 nonfiction book "Accomplices to the Crime: The Arkansas Prison Scandal," on which "Brubaker," a 1980 movie starring Robert Redford, was based.
As an author, Mr. Hyams also worked in the 1980s with Chuck Norris on Norris's "The Secret of Inner Strength: My Story" and with President Reagan's son Michael on his "Michael Reagan: On the Outside Looking In."
Besides his reputation as a Hollywood chronicler, Mr. Hyams was also known as an icon in the martial arts community. He studied martial arts for more than 50 years and was the author of the 1979 book "Zen In the Martial Arts." Melissa Hyams said the slim book "isn't really about martial arts."
"It's about life and philosophy and how to turn a negative into a positive, how to defuse a situation by the way you handle it," she said. "That's what he'll most be remembered for."
Mr. Hyams was born in Cambridge. Reared in Brookline, he was attending Harvard University when he enlisted in the US Army in 1942. While serving in the South Pacific, he received a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star.
As Mr. Hyams wrote in his 1973 autobiography, "Mislaid in Hollywood," his career covering the movie capital began in 1951 when the New York Herald Tribune sent him west to do an article on illegal immigrants.
As recounted by his wife, Mr. Hyams was dropped off in Mexico by the pilot of a small airplane and made the border crossing himself with a group of illegal immigrants.
After he completed the report, his editor in New York told him that a room had been reserved for him at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
"Take a break," he was told, "and if you get a chance to interview any movie stars, go for it."
Mr. Hyams was sitting by the hotel pool smoking his pipe when he began chatting with a gentleman who asked him what he was doing in Los Angeles.
After explaining that his editor wanted him to interview movie stars, the man said, "How would you like to interview Humphrey Bogart?"
The man was Bogart's press agent, and the next day he took Mr. Hyams to Bogart's home.
The tough-guy actor was behind the bar when Mr. Hyams walked in.
"What'll you have to drink?" Bogart asked him.
"I'll have a Coke," Hyams said.
"The bar's open," Bogart said. "What will you have to drink?"
Mr. Hyams repeated that he would have a Coke.
Leveling his gaze on Mr. Hyams, Bogart said, "I don't trust a journalist who doesn't drink or a man who has more hair on his head than I do."
At that, Mr. Hyams pocketed his notepad and started walking toward the door. "Where are you going?" Bogart said.
"Mr. Bogart, I have two things to tell you," Mr. Hyams said. "I don't drink, and a newborn baby has more hair on his head than you do."
To which Bogart said: "Get back here, kid. I like you."
By the end of the week, Melissa Hyams said, "Joe had interviewed Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, and Frank Sinatra. And the newspaper [editor] said, 'I don't know what you're doing, but you're moving out there.' " 