Hal LeSueur

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Hal LeSueur (September 3, 1903 – May 3, 1963) was an American actor.

He was born Hal Hays LeSueur in San Antonio, Texas, the second child of Thomas E. LeSueur (1868-1938) and Anna Bell Johnson (1884-1958). His older sister was Daisy LeSueur, who died as a very young child, and his younger sister was Lucille Fay LeSueur (actress/star Joan Crawford).

His mother later married Henry J. Cassin (1867-after 1919). The family lived in Lawton, Oklahoma, then moved to Kansas City, Missouri, around 1916. LeSueur and his first wife moved from Kansas City around 1928 to Los Angeles. He found work in the stock department at MGM, where his sister had become a star.

He had two wives, Jessie Beryl Burress (married 1928-divorced 1930); and Kasha Haroldi (married 1931-divorced 1935). He and Kasha had one daughter, Joan Crawford LeSueur (born December 2, 1933), who became a dancer on Broadway known professionally as Joan Lowe.

LeSueur and his first wife, Jessie, separated May 15, 1929. He filed for divorce in Los Angeles on August 21 of that year because, he said in his complaint, "She insisted on going to parties at all times, and when I wouldn't take her, she went alone. She told me a career was the biggest thing in life and marriage was only a stumbling block." He and his second wife, Kasha, who was a stand-in for his sister, Crawford, and for Peggy Shannon, were married in Santa Ana. She divorced him because she said he was indifferent and not interested in being married. She gained custody of their daughter. Apparently, Kasha later married a man named Lowe, hence their daughter's professional surname.

On November 9, 1935, LeSueur was in a head-on collision at the top of Cahuenga Pass. The other car caught fire and the three people inside, Earl Gose, who was driving, his wife, Golda, and his unmarried sister, Grace, were pulled from the blaze. Their car burned to a charred hulk. LeSueur suffered severe cuts and bruises on his hands, face, arms and legs. The other people were also seriously injured. All were taken to a hospital in Hollywood. The injuries of Grace Gose proved fatal three days later.

LeSueur's mother, Anna, and his ex-wife, Kasha, accompanied him to the Coroner's inquest on November 15. Earl and Golda Gose were unable to appear. LeSueur testified that he was driving near the center of the highway when the other car suddenly pulled out from behind another car into his lane and he was unable to avoid the collision. The Coroner's jury exonerated him of blame for the crash, returning a verdict of accidental death.

In February 1936, Earl and Golda Gose sued him, seeking $86,400 in damages. Golda, who was taken into court on a hospital stretcher, which was placed before the jury box, testified that LeSueur was driving on the wrong side of Cahuenga Boulevard when his car collided with theirs. LeSueur not only denied responsibility for the accident, but in his cross-complaint for $10,000 charged that the crash came about through Gose's negligent driving. The suit was then abruptly dropped, however, when a settlement was reached. LeSueur agreed to pay them $8,500, one tenth of what they had originally sought.

Besides working in the studio behind the scenes, LeSueur appeared in a number of small parts in MGM movies, which all received no screen credit. He decided he really did not like acting, so he did make-up work at MGM for a while. When he left that job, he worked as a sporting goods salesman.

While sport fishing on the banks of Malibu in July 1949, LeSueur racked up a full count of bass. That same month, he nabbed a 10-pounder. In August 1950, he caught a 32-pound albacore spotty at Malibu. While harbor fishing on a craft out of Wilmington in May 1952, he rang up a 43-pound bass. The following month, he caught a 9 1/2-pound bull bass at Malibu.

In 1954, evidently estranged from Crawford, he told an interviewer, "For personal reasons I must refrain from saying why I never see my sister. I don't feel it is the proper time to talk."

After 15 years, LeSueur made one final movie appearance, playing a reporter in Jeanne Eagels (1957) starring Kim Novak for Columbia Pictures, in which he received a screen credit.

He made one TV appearance in an episode of the series State Trooper, titled No Fancy Cowboys, which aired on March 13, 1957.

When he left the sporting good business, LeSueur began working as a desk clerk at a Los Angeles hotel, and supplemented his income working as a switchboard operator at the motel where he lived.

Hal LeSueur died at age 59 of a ruptured appendix in Los Angeles. He is interred in Forest Lawn Cemetery, Glendale.

The female manager of the motel where he lived said, "He kept to himself, dressed well, talked quietly, was a fine man."