Personal Life
After a six-month marriage to actress Eleanor Shaw (née Eleanor Scherr, died 2004), he married RKO contract player Frances Neal. They had two daughters, actresses Vana O'Brien and Cathleen (Kate) Heflin, and a son, Tracy. Heflin was the grandfather of actor Ben O'Brien and actress Eleanor O'Brien. Heflin was the uncle of Marta Heflin and Mady Kaplan, both actresses, and director Jonathan Kaplan.
During World War II, Heflin served as a combat cameraman in the Ninth Air Force in Europe.
On July 6, 1971, Heflin had a heart attack while swimming in his pool. He reached the ladder where he managed to hang on unconscious for hours until he was found. He then lay unconscious for days, apparently never regaining consciousness. Van Heflin died at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital on July 23, 1971, aged 60. He had left instructions forbidding a public funeral. Instead, his cremated remains were scattered in the ocean.
Read more about this topic: Van Heflin
Famous quotes containing the words personal and/or life:
“The personal touch between the people and the man to whom they temporarily delegated power of course conduces to a better understanding between them. Moreover, I ought not to omit to mention as a useful result of my journeying that I am to visit a great many expositions and fairs, and that the curiosity to see the President will certainly increase the box receipts and tend to rescue many commendable enterprises from financial disaster.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“There are three times in a man’s life when he has the right to yell at the moon—when he marries; when his children come; and when he finishes a job he had to be crazy to start.”
—Borden Chase [Frank Fowler] (1900–1971)