Tom Neal: Killer Actor

 

A publicity photo of Tom Neal early in his career (photo source)

"Fate or some mysterious force can put the finger on you or me for no reason at all." - Tom Neal as Al Roberts in Detour (1945).

From the moment of his birth in January of 1914, Tom Neal seemed destined for the fame he craved most of his life; his great uncle was the noted actor and theater manager John Drew.  Neal was brought up in a spacious Chicago home and eventually attended Northwestern University, where he majored in mathematics.  Blessed with an athletic physique and good looks, he traded on them to compete in amateur boxing matches and participate in the school's drama club.  He moved to New York City in 1933, following some summer stock performances and debuted on Broadway in 1935.  In 1938, he not only made his first film appearance (Out West With the Hardys, part of Mickey Rooney's successful Hardy Family film series) but earned a law degree at Harvard.  Over the next handful of years, he appeared in many B-movies, including Republic Pictures' serial Jungle Girl and the classic film noir Detour, with Ann Savage, with whom he would make six films in total.  

While Neal was clearly intelligent and talented, his downfall appeared to be his temperament, his ego, and women, none of which were helped by his friendships with notorious Hollywood hellraisers Errol Flynn and Mickey Rooney.  While he was in New York City, he took up with Inez Norton, an ex-Follies dancer twice his age and who had been the girlfriend of Arnold Rothstein, the mobster who rigged the 1919 World Series.  Following his murder in 1928, Inez was left $150,000 by Rothstein (over $2.6 million in 2023 dollars) and Tom Neal was more than happy to help her spend it.  Neal and Norton were briefly engaged before she was followed by relationships with such Hollywood notables as Lana Turner, Joan Crawford, Ava Gardner, and Lorraine Cugat, the wife of Spanish bandleader Xavier Cugat.  He married actress Vicky Lane in 1944 and the marriage lasted five years before Lane filed for divorce, citing mental and physical cruelty.  And then Neal met Barbara Payton.

Barbara Payton and Tom Neal (photo source)

Barbara

Unlike Tom Neal,  Barbara Payton was not born into a wealthy, connected family but to two alcoholics who had no issue with their daughter trading her good looks for male attention and leaving school at sixteen to marry.  Starting as a print and catalog model, Barbara transitioned into the acting business solely based on her reputation as a party girl in the Hollywood club scene.  She received  good notices in 1949's film noir Trapped and seemed firmly on her way with the noir thriller Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950) alongside James Cagney.  Then along came Tom Neal.   

By the time she met Neal in 1950, Barbara had just divorced her second husband, who also took custody of their young son.  Like Neal, she was fiercely ambitious and in him, she saw the virility and good looks she craved.  She later claimed in an interview that within four minutes of meeting, she and Neal decided to marry.  Unfortunately, Tom Neal did not have the reputation and recognition Barbara also wanted.  But Franchot Tone did. 

Barbara Payton and Franchot Tone, 1951 (photo source)

 

In the 1930s and 1940s, Franchot Tone was suave and sophisticated, a debonair leading man of the screen and stage, twice nominated for an Academy Award.  His first wife had been Joan Crawford, married from 1935 until 1939, while both were under contract to MGM (although Crawford's star greatly eclipsed his).  Despite their divorce, the two remained friendly over the years.  

The connections Tone had, as well as his wealth, were attractive to Barbara when she met him in 1950.  Although reportedly engaged to Neal at the time, she neglected to inform Tone of this fact.  Nor did she tell Neal that she was simultaneously dating Tone, although Neal later claimed that she had told him she was engaged to Tone but stepping out on him because he was "boring" compared to the more exciting Neal. 

The triangle came to a head on the front lawn of Barbara's home on September 15, 1951, when the 45-year-old Tone ended up semi-conscious on the ground, courtesy of a beating by the 37-year-old Neal.  Neal claimed that Barbara had kissed Tone in front of him and "the sight of a girl I love kissing another man made me see red."  Perhaps notably, Neal and Payton were reportedly going to marry in San Francisco that same day.

The public's sympathy was with Tone, who had been taken to the hospital with a concussion, broken nose, and smashed cheekbone.  Wherever Barbara's sympathies may or may not have been, she married Tone on September 28.  The marriage lasted less than 60 days before Tone filed for divorce, claiming that Barbara was being unfaithful with none other than Tom Neal.  For her part, Barbara admitted that she had been living with Neal but only because she was afraid of Tone.

(photo source)

The resulting publicity from the attack, as well as Barbara's alleged infidelity, put the careers of both Barbara Payton and Ton Neal on the skids (although both of them would milk their notoriety as long as possible).  Unlike the Elizabeth Taylor-Eddie Fisher-Richard Burton scandal that would break a decade later, Hollywood was much more sensitive to the public's opinion and deferred to those who basically wanted the couple blacklisted.  Neal and Barbara became re-engaged and said they would marry in Paris but eventually broke up once again, this time for good.

Neal met a woman named Patricia Fenton and married her in 1956.  They had one child together before Fenton died of cancer in 1958.  With his Hollywood career effectively over (his last on-screen appearance was a part in the television series Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer), Neal sold everything he owned and left Los Angeles for Palm Springs, where he found work as a gardener.  He eventually built a solid and respectable business, saying that he had learned the trade from watching the Japanese gardeners who had tended to his two-acre Bel Air estate. 

In 1961, he married his third wife, a 25-year-old receptionist at the Palm Springs Tennis Club named Gail Kloke Bennett. 

Gail and Tom Neal (photo source)

 

April 1, 1965

Neal often frequented the Tyrol restaurant in Idyllwild, a mountain community about an hour from Palm Springs, so his appearance there on the evening of April 1, 1965 wasn't unusual.  What was, though, was the fact that he was alone and according to Robert Balzer, one of the owners and a friend of both Neal's and Gail's, that he seemed troubled.  Sitting down with Balzer and James Willet, the restaurant's other owner, Neal began talking about Gail, saying that she had become his entire life since his second wife had died, and that he couldn't live without her.  He then confessed that he had killed her.  Balzer and Willett thought Neal was kidding, as it was April Fool's Day, but Neal refuted that, saying he had shot Gail to death earlier that day while she was taking a nap.  

Following his confession at Tyrol, Neal contacted his Beverly Hills attorney, who called the Palm Springs police to inform them that Gail was at their home on Cardillo Road and had "expired or was seriously injured."  Upon finding that Gail was indeed "expired," her husband was arrested and booked into the Riverside County Jail.

The murder house in Palm Springs (photo source)

Gail had been found on the couch of the couple's living room, partially covered with a lightweight blanket.  She was wearing a green sweater and green capris.  The capris were ripped below the zipper, which was unzipped, and pulled low on her hips, along with her underpants.  She had a gaping wound roughly one inch above her right temple, where she had been struck by a .45 caliber bullet.  The bullet then exited through her neck and tore through three pillows underneath her head before coming to a rest in the couch's upholstery.  

An autopsy indicated that Gail had died somewhere between 2:30 p.m. on April 1 and 2:30 a.m. on April 2.  

The Lodi News Sentinel, April 2, 1965 (photo source)

On April 16, the Riverside County Grand Jury indicted Tom Neal for murder.  Public defender James Kellam was assigned to defend Neal.  He later said that he felt that Neal "needed a better defense than a public defender could provide" and so chose not to visit with his client at all from April through August, believing that his inaction would cause Neal's friends to rally around him financially and thus provide for a criminal practice attorney.  On August 20, Neal petitioned the court for a continuance on the basis of needing a change of counsel. 

Surprisingly, Kellam's action worked and Neal's friends rallied around him.  A Cathedral City auto dealer took out an ad in the local paper, requesting donations for Neal's defense.  Friends in Palm Springs sent in check, soon followed by friends in Hollywood that included Mickey Rooney, Dorothy Manners, Blake Edwards, Harrison Carroll and even Franchot Tone, the man he had beaten back in 1951.  The money allowed Neal to hire Palm Springs attorney Leon Rosenberg.  Neal thanked the Cathedral City auto dealer with a handwritten two-page note in which he claimed that "friends" were responsible for shooting Gail.  

The Trial

The trial began on October 19, 1965 with Deputy D.A. Roland Wilson asking for a first-degree murder conviction.  Local real estate broker Frank Seyferlich testified that he had been at the Neals' home the night before the murder.  Between 5:30 and 6:00 p.m. he had delivered letters of recommendation to Gail, who he said had been intending to divorce Neal and relocate to Los Angeles; she would have needed the letters as employment references.  According to Seyferlich, he was surprised to find Tom Neal at home as his understanding was the couple had been separated, with Neal living in Chicago since January of that year.  Gail had invited Seyferlich to stay for a drink but feeling uncomfortable, he left. 

Rosenberg managed to score points during his cross-examination of lab technician H. Carmon Bishop, when he got Bishop to admit that a man's wallet was found in the top drawer of the bureau in the master bedroom and a man's suitcoat was found in the master bedroom closet.  Wilson objected on the grounds of relevance, but the insinuation was that neither belonged to Tom Neal and that perhaps Gail had been seeing someone else.

The prosecution called only eight witnesses before resting their case on October 28.  Rosenberg began the defense's case on October 29.  Chief of Detectives Richard Harries testified that the wallet and suitcoat belonged to Steve Peck, a Palm Springs insurance man.  Peck rented a spare bedroom from Tom and Gail.  He had an alibi and witnesses who placed him in Phoenix at the time of Gail's murder.

Harries also admitted under oath that the murder weapon had never been located but a live .45 caliber bullet was found in Tom Neal's jacket pocket at the time he was arrested and that a similar box of ammunition was found in the Neal home.

Steve Peck took the stand the following day and recalled a domestic dispute between Tom and Gail that had occurred in November of 1964, only months before her murder.  According to Peck, Gail had pulled a .45 automatic on Neal screaming that she would kill him.  During cross-examination, however, Peck admitted that in his original statement to the police, it was Tom Neal that brandished the gun after slapping Gail several times. 

Tom Neal's Story

If the jury and the public had found Steve Peck interesting, they were absolutely riveted when Tom Neal took the stand.  According to Neal, Gail was lying on the couch and he was on one knee, caressing her.  She had questioned whether they "should be doing this," and Neal had accused her of "fooling around with all these guys" since he had left.  After he had accused her of having sexual relations with his friends, she had said she would kill him and had the .45 automatic in her hand.  Neal said he had pushed the gun away with both hands and it went off, striking Gail in the head.  He then prayed and claimed to recite aloud a tenant of Chrisian Science: "There is no life, truth, intelligence or substance in mind, all in infinity and its manifestation, for God is all in all.  Spirit is immortal truth, matter is mortal error.  Spirit is the real and eternal, matter is the unreal and temporal."  

Under cross-examination, Neal admitted that he and Gail had been estranged for some time, and that he had returned home from Chicago to attempt a reconciliation.  He said he did speak to his restaurant friends and told them that he "felt responsible for her death," but insisted that he never at any time said that he had fired the shot.  His friends had been the prosecution's first witnesses and had testified that he did say he had shot Gail.  Neal's cross ended with Wilson producing a copy of Gail's petition for divorce, lodged just before her death, in which she accused her husband of threatening her with a .45 revolver the previous November. 

On November 9, under rebuttal, Wilson called Dr. Armand Dollinger, who had performed the autopsy on Gail.  According to Dollinger, Neal's recounting of events was "unlikely;" the direction of the wound did not correspond with Neal's assertion that he had pushed the gun away. 

Rosenberg did his best to discredit Dollinger, asking whether the doctor had measured Gail's arm or had any idea of her muscle structure, to which Dollinger replied in the negative. 

Wilson then called three of Gail's coworkers from the Palm Springs Tennis Club.  All three testified that Gail had planned to leave town when she heard that Neal was returning from Chicago because she was afraid he would kill her once he learned she had filed for divorce. 

The Verdict

The jury of ten women and two men was out for ten hours.  Although the prosecution was seeking the death penalty, to the utter amazement of all present, on November 18, 1965, the jury found Tom Neal guilty of involuntary manslaughter, believing his story of the firearm accidentally discharging.  Wilson was stunned and Rosenberg elated, telling the press that with time served, Neal could be out by Christmas.  

At the sentencing hearing on December 10, Judge Hilton McCabe listened to Rosenberg plead for probation for his client, citing Tom Neal's "clean record" and saying the shooting was an accident that culminated from a marital discord.  Wilson said the prosecution would not consider probation and that the jury's verdict was the only break Tom Neal deserved.  Judge McCabe agreed, sentencing Neal to up to 15 years in prison.

Neal showed no emotion during the sentencing other than biting his lip but told the press outside that his sentence was "a railroad job."  

Tom Neal in a scene from his most famous film, Detour (1945) (photo source)

Afterwards

Tom Neal served six years of his one-to-15-year sentence.  He was paroled on December 6, 1971.  He returned to Hollywood, the scene of both success and downfall.  Instead of appearing on the big or small screen, however, he went back to his landscaping and gardening business.  His son found Neal dead in his bed on August 7, 1972, felled by heart failure.  He was 58 years old.   His body was cremated, with the eventual disposition of his cremains unknown.  

Barbara Payton at the beginning of her career (photo source)

Barbara Payton had no easier of a road than Tom Neal following their aborted engagement.  Suffering with alcoholism and drug addiction, between 1955 and 1963, she had multiple run-ins with the law, including arrests for passing bad checks and prostitution.  Offered the option of being admitted to rehab, Barbara said she would rather drink and die.  She ended up living with her parents in San Diego, where the trio spent their days binging on alcohol.  By the time she was 34 years old, the former slim and sexy blonde weighted 200 pounds, was unkempt, and suffering with broken blood vessels in her face from her constant drinking.

In 1963, she was paid $1,000 (just over $9,600 in 2023 dollars) for her autobiography, called I Am Not Ashamed, in which she recounted sleeping on bus benches and being regularly beaten while she was prostituting herself.  The book led to her last acting role, 4 for Texas, a Western comedy film. 

Her final marriage, her fifth, was in 1962, to a man named Jess Rawley.  She as still married to Rawley but living with her parents in San Diego when she died on May 8, 1967 of liver and heart failure.  She was 39 years old. 

During Tom Neal's trial in Indio, Barbara attended daily.  It was reportedly the last time the two saw each other.  

Franchot Tone in the 1930s (photo source)

Franchot Tone, who had been beaten at Neal's hands in 1951, married once more following his brief marriage to Barbara - to actress Dolores Dorn.  The marriage lasted only three years and the couple divorced in 1959. 

During the 1950s, Tone relocated from Hollywood to New York, where he appeared on stage and television.  His career continued into the 1960s, both on television and in film, until lung cancer, caused by his chain smoking, forced him to retire.  His first wife, Joan Crawford, who had also relocated to New York, cared for him until his death on September 18, 1968 at the age of 63.    

Sources:

Crockett, Art.  Celebrity Murders.  Pinnacle Books, 1990.

Historian Alan Royle (March 24, 2016).  Tom Neal - Getting Away With Murder.

Murderpedia (2022).  Thomas Neal.

Palm Springs Life (2022).  Killer Career - Actor Tom Neal.

Wikipedia (2022).  Tom Neal.

Wikipedia (2022).  Barbara Payton.

Wikipedia (2022).  Franchot Tone.

Gail's final resting place at Inglewood Park Cemetery (photo source)

 

  

The Short Life and Tragic Death of Steven Parent

(photo source: Find A Grave) 

Other than Sharon Tate's unborn child, Steven Parent was the youngest victim of the Manson Family's August 8-9, 1969 slaughter and undisputedly the least known.  Up until his connection with the notorious crimes, he had a very ordinary, middle class upbringing. 

Steven Earl Parent was born on February 12, 1951, the firstborn child of Wilfred and Juanita Parent.  The Parent family moved to the Los Angeles suburb of El Monte - known as "Friendly El Monte" and "The End of the Santa Fe Trail" - roughly thirty miles from Beverly Hills but a world away around 1958.  Their three bedroom, two bath rambler on East Bryant Street, built in 1956, was soon bursting as Steven was joined by a sister, Janet, and two brothers, Greg and Dale.  

Steven attended high school at Arroyo High, beginning in 1965.  It was in 1966, halfway through his freshman year, that he was arrested for petty theft.  It's generally accepted that he stole several radios  - he was known to be a hi-fi bug and enthusiast and reportedly took those items apart to see how they operated.  There is, however, a February 2, 1966 Los Angeles Times article that mentions a 14-year-old El Monte teen who was arrested for committing one to six burglaries at area schools.  As the offender was a juvenile, no name was given.  Whether the teen mentioned in the Times article was Steven or not, he spent the next two years in juvenile detention.  While there, he was reportedly tested at near-genius level for electronics.  

(photo source: charlesmanson.com)

By the time he graduated from Arroyo in June of 1969, Steven stood just a whisper over six feet tall, with red hair that earned him the nickname "Carrot Top."  According to Vincent Bugliosi, the author of Helter Skelter and prosecutor of Steven's killer(s), Steven had dated a few girls in school but no one in particular.   He enjoyed listening to folk music and playing the guitar but his main passion continued to be electronics.  Planning to attend Citrus Junior College in Azusa, to the north of El Monte, in September, he was holding down two jobs to save up money for his tuition.    During the day he worked as a delivery boy for Valley Cities Plumbing Company on Rush Street in South El Monte.  In the evenings, he was a salesman at Jonas Miller Stereo on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. 

In late July, Steven picked up a hitchhiker named William Garretson.  This seemingly innocuous act would set the wheels in motion to alter the course of his life.  Garretson, an Ohio native, was the summer caretaker for the property located at 10050 Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon.  The home, owned by Rudi Altobelli, a manager and producer, was being rented out to director Roman Polanski and his wife, actress Sharon Tate.  Altobelli normally resided in the guesthouse but had hired Garretson on during the months he was in Europe.   After dropping Garretson off at the property, the caretaker told Steven to feel free to drop by anytime he should be in the area.

On Friday, August 8, 1969, Steven left home around 7:50 in the morning to begin work at Valley City Plumbing.  He came home for lunch and asked his mother Juanita to iron and lay out clothing for him so when he returned home after finishing his day at Valley City, he could quickly change and be on the way to Jonas Miller Stereo.  The day progressed normally, with Steven working his shift at Valley City, followed by Jonas Miller.  After clocking out at the stereo store, he stopped by Dales (a service station) in El Monte around 11 p.m. to chat with the brother of a girl he dated.  He asked the boy if he wanted to go for a ride; the boy declined.  From there, he made an innocent decision that would result in tragic consequences for him - he headed to 10050 Cielo Drive.  

Steve had a Sony AM-FM Digimatic clock radio he wanted to try to sell to William Garretson.  He arrived on the property around 11:45 p.m., noticing Abigail Folger and Sharon Tate in the main house as he made his way to the guesthouse.  Upon arrival, he asked Garretson who the pretty ladies were in the house and then showed Garretson the radio.  Garretson passed on the purchase but offered his guest a can of beer, which Steven accepted.  Steven also used the guesthouse phone to call a UCLA student by the name of John Friedman - he was building Friedman a stereo.  It was roughly around 12:15 a.m. when Steven bid Garretson farewell and left the guesthouse, headed for his car, his father's white 1966 Nash Ambassador, in the driveway.

Just over eight hours later, his body was found behind the steering wheel, slumped over toward the front passenger side, the clock radio beside him.  

The official story was that as Steven was leaving the property and had rolled his window down to access the button to open the gate, he was accosted by Charles "Tex" Watson, who, with Patricia "Katie" Krenwinkel, Susan "Sadie" Atkins, and Linda Kasabian, were entering the property to slaughter everyone present as part of Charles Manson's ludicrous Helter Skelter motive.  As Tex ordered the boy to stop, Steven pleaded with him, "Please don't hurt me.  I won't say anything."  Armed with a bayonet and a gun, Watson at first slashed at Steven, who instinctively held up his left hand to protect himself, causing a gash on his wrist that severed his wristband and caused it to fly into the backseat, where it was found later that morning by police.  Watson then took out his gun and fired three times, hitting Steven in the left cheek and twice in the chest, the latter two wounds of which were fatal.  Watson then pushed the car back up the drive, away from the gate.  This recounting has Steven Parent being the first victim of the Manson Family that night.

Recently, however, there have been theories that Steven was not the first victim and may have been the last, or nearly so.  In these theories, Steven was walking back to his car from the guesthouse and came upon the horrific slaughter going down at the main house.  Panicked, he literally ran for his life, with a hopped up Tex Watson in pursuit, reaching his car and attempting to tear out of the property.  In his desperation, Steve backed into the split rail fence and Watson caught up to him.  It was then that Steven pleaded for his life and that Watson went after him with the knife.  Finding that it was difficult to achieve his goal with the knife while his victim was seated behind the wheel, Tex unloaded his gun three times into the boy.  

Whichever version is the correct one, the split rail fence was broken with chips of paint from the Parent car found on the fence and pieces of the wood found under the back bumper of the car.  It was agreed by the Manson Family members present that Steven did plead for his life with those exact words, leading anyone to wonder what he meant when he said "I won't say anything" if he didn't see anything, as he wouldn't if he had been the first victim. 

For Wilfred and Juanita Parent, that Friday night was long and unnerving for them.  Steven had never stayed out all night and not come home.  The police, upon finding Steven on Saturday morning, did not locate his wallet or driver's license and so he was dubbed John Doe.  A reporter on the scene managed to make out the license plate of the car and had it run, finding out it belonged to a Wilfred Parent in Elm Monte.  That reporter managed to track down the Parents' parish priest and notify him that the dead John Doe might be Steven Parent.  While the priest was headed to the morgue on Saturday evening to possibly make an identification that would spare Wilfred and Juanita, the Parent family headed out to dinner, hoping that Steven would be home when they returned.  Instead, an El Monte police officer appeared and handed Wilfred a business card with a phone number on it and instructed him to call.  Wilfred called the unidentified number and was stunned when he was connected to the L.A. County Morgue.  He was told the morgue had a body they believed was Wilfred's son.  The physical characters and clothing matched; the priest was also able to positively identify the Parents' oldest son.  That night, the Parent family, minus Steven, crawled into one bed and cried until the early hours.

Steven's funeral (photo source: RXSTR) 

Steven Parent was buried at the Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Rowland Heights on Wednesday, August 13.  

Arroyo High School dedicated its 1970 yearbook to four students and a teacher, with Steven being one of the students.  Part of the memorial stated: "Life goes on with all its joy, sorrow, love, pain, and laughter . . . yet death continues."  

His family eventually left California, finding the memories and publicity of the notorious killings too painful.  They relocated in Texas, where Juanita had lived during her later childhood and before her marriage to Wilfred.  

In 1972, the UCLA student Steven had spoken to before leaving the Cielo guesthouse published a sci-fi book under the name David Gerrold.  He dedicated the book to Steven.    

In 2009, Linda Kasabian participated in a documentary where she admitted for the first time that, on Tex Watson's orders, she crawled over Steven's dead body, searching for a wallet and/or money.  This explains why no wallet or identification was found on him (and also further supports a burglary angle or motive.)  

In the decades since his untimely and terrifying death, people who once knew Steven leave memorials for him on the Find a Grave website.  They mention summers past, of swimming together, of playing in fields behind homes, and pretending to be radio announcers and that Steven was always thrilled to share a birthday with Abraham Lincoln.  The girl named Tina - now a woman in her sixties - who had Steven as her prom date only months before he was killed still muses on whether they would have eventually married, had children and grandchildren together.  It can never be known.  

 

Steven's final resting place (photo source: Find a Grave) 

    

 

The Death of Rising Star Dorothy Stratten

Vancouver native Dorothy Stratten very nearly had it all - - small town girl makes good in Hollywood - - living the dream before her estranged husband took it all away.

Dorothy was discovered at the age of eighteen by Playboy, who had received nude photos of the beauty sent by her then-boyfriend Paul Snider.  Snider had found the blonde Dorothy working at a Dairy Queen and, always looking for an angle, the former pimp decided her star potential would allow him to ride her coattails to success.

Playboy liked what it saw and Dorothy headed to L.A., with Snider following her a month or so later.  By August of 1979, she was Playmate of the Month, two months after marrying Snider in a quickie Las Vegas ceremony.  While Dorothy's motivation seemed to be obligation and a sense of gratitude for her "manager," Snider's intent was to keep her from slipping away from him.  Her friends and those acquaintances connected with Playboy were none too happy that she had married the slimy Snider, who began driving around town in a Mercedes with vanity plates - - STAR80- - to indicate where he felt he and his wife were going.

Dorothy and Snider

Dorothy worked as a Bunny at the Playboy Club and acting seemed a natural transition for her.  Hefner believed she could be one of the then few who could move from Playmate to actress.  She got roles, albeit small ones, in tv shows like Fantasy Island and Buck Rogers and the 25th Century and her first film role as a skater in Skatetown, U.S.A.  All of these roles showcased her girl-next-door type of beauty but did little to demonstrate any talent.   Her first starring role was as and in Galaxina, a science fiction parody, released in 1980.    

Her career was gaining momentum but the more success she seemed to gain professionally, the more stress her marriage was put under.  Snider was jealous, not just of Dorothy potentially looking at other men but of her career.  He had wanted to make her a star but now that she was solidly on the way, he began turning on her.

Hugh Hefner encouraged her to leave Snider, calling him a hustler and a pimp but Dorothy felt responsible for her husband and refused.  Friends began to warn her about Snider and his increasingly unstable behavior but again, Dorothy felt responsible.

Dorothy and Bogdanovich

In January 1980, Dorothy received the holy grail of Playboy stardom - - she was crowned the 1980 Playmate of the Year.  She also landed a small role that could have turned the tables completely for her, a mainstream part in the studio film They All Laughed, alongside Audrey Hepburn and Ben Gazarra.    Leaving to shoot in New York must have been a wonderful reprieve for Dorothy; director Peter Bogdanovich kept a tight set and Snider was not allowed to be present.  This breather allowed Dorothy to think about her future . . . and fall in love with Bogdanovich,

Snider, always teeming with jealousy, must have known the end was near when Dorothy left to shoot the movie.  There was no doubt in his mind when he hired a private investigator who gave him details of the director and his star's relationship on set that spring of 1980.

Dorothy told her husband she was leaving him.  Snider had always had other women on the side and in fact was living with one by the time Dorothy was filming in New York but such hypocrisy mattered little to him; he wanted Dorothy if for no other reason than so no one else could have her.

Once filming on They All Laughed wrapped, Dorothy returned to L.A. with Bogdanovich and moved into his home.  Bogdanovich was head over heels for her and believed they had a future together, especially once her divorce from Snider was final.

Snider asked his estranged wife to meet him at their former marital home on August 14, 1980.  Against Bogdanovich's concern and wishes, she went.  She thought she and Snider were going to work out details of their split; she didn't know that Snider had acquired a Mossberg 12 gauge shotgun.

Shortly after noon, Dorothy arrived at the residence with $1,000 to give Snider in hopes of an amicable divorce.

The house where Dorothy died; a news crew is by her car

At 11 p.m., Snider's private investigator called the owner of the home and Snider's current roommate on his private line to say that he had been attempting to reach Snider for hours without luck.  The roommate noted that there was nothing but silence coming from Snider's room; he knocked and called himself without answer before breaking in and discovering the gruesome sight of two dead bodies.

Both had died of shotgun blasts.  Police theorized that at some point that afternoon Snider had raped his wife before shooting her in the face; Dorothy had held her hand up in front of her as evidenced by a wound to her finger.  After that, based on bloody hand prints found on her, it seems likely that he violated her body on a bondage machine he designed and built before turning the gun on himself.

The tragedy shocked and saddened Hollywood.  Dorothy was known to be a sweet and somewhat naive girl; that she could have met such a brutal end and at the hands of a man she had supported and defended was doubly tragic.  Surprisingly, the media did not make mincemeat of her, instead going after Snider and the bitchy industry itself.  Quite a change from the Cielo Drive victim blaming of a decade earlier, where Sharon Tate's slaughter was laid down at her own doorstep.

Peter Bogdanovich, particularly grief stricken, claimed himself to be a widower and doubting that he would ever find such love again.  (He did; he married Dorothy's younger sister Louise in 1988 when she was 20 and he was 50. They would divorce after 13 years of marriage.)   He also went bankrupt in order to finish They All Laughed, which tanked at the box office and wrote a beautiful tome to Dorothy titled The Killing of the Unicorn.  

Two movies were made about Dorothy's life and death; the first with Jamie Lee Curtis and the second, and better known, with Mariel Hemingway and a frightening Eric Roberts as Snider.  The second was very aptly titled Star 80.  Star 80 had scenes filmed at the actual property Dorothy and Snider lived and died at - - even the murder/suicide scenes were shot in the very room that Dorothy was killed.  Bogdanovich dismissed Star 80 as "shit," although he admitted that he had never met Snider.

Why did Snider do it?  Jealousy was a part, although he himself was living with a blonde teenager that he hoped to turn into another Dorothy Stratten.  I don't think it was jealousy based on love he may or may not have had for her; I think it was jealousy based on Dorothy being his property.  In his mind, he had found and made Dorothy.  Based on that alone, he earned the right to be a star himself, he deserved it.  Nobody, and that included Dorothy, was going to take that away from him.

More importantly though, I think fear motivated Paul Snider.  Fear of losing Dorothy.  Fear of losing his golden ticket, his entry into the entertainment world where everybody was somebody.  Paul Snider knew he was nobody without Dorothy Stratten.  Without her, he would be exposed for the fraud and fake he was.  A failed pimp.  A failed nightclub promoter. A failed husband, whose gorgeous young wife had left their marriage for a man twice her age.  He couldn't return to Vancouver having come so close to the top.

I think once he decided to murder Dorothy he elected to do it in a way that would kill her beauty too.  He would destroy that which had initially attracted him, which had opened doors for her.  Why else would he choose a shotgun?  Why else would he aim it at her face and pull the trigger?  I think he felt power by doing so, I think he probably liked seeing the fear in Dorothy's eyes and knowing that he would be the last thing she ever saw on this earth.

I think he was punishing everyone else as well.  Hollywood and the rest of the world had effectively dropped him.  He would show them.  He would take what they loved most, this thing of beauty, and absolutely destroy it.  

Dorothy's story is especially sad as she felt she knew the man who would ultimately kill her. This man who at one time praised her beauty, gave assurances of love had intentionally pointed a gun at her face and pulled the trigger.  Her friends saw the signs; they noticed Snider's eroding behavior.  How had she not seen it?  Was it her youth?  Did she only see what she wanted to?  Was she so naive that she believed in the general good of everyone?

Dorothy

When I think about this case, my mind races with "what if"s.  What if Dorothy had listened to her friends?  What if she had listened to Hugh Hefner?  What if she had listened to Peter Bogdanovich?  What if she had met Snider in a public place or taken a friend?  What if she had never married Snider?  What if Snider had not come into the Dairy Queen in Vancouver on that particular day?  There are so many "what if"s, my brain hurts with them.

This case too reminds me of one that would follow nearly fourteen years later, also in Los Angeles, when O.J. Simpson would decide that his ex-wife should not live and butcher her, along with the innocent Ron Goldman.  I think the emotions were similar - - jealousy and fear.  Simpson was notoriously jealous of any attention being paid to his ex-wife and I think he was fearful that Nicole had moved on from him, once and for all.  Like Snider, if he couldn't have her, no one could.  The difference, of course, is that Simpson was a far greater narcissist than Snider could ever hope to be and played the murders into himself being victimized and persecuted by the corrupt LAPD.  Snider at least saved us all that.

It's been thirty-six years since Dorothy was brutally taken from this life.  Had she been allowed to live, she would be fifty-six years old.  What she might have become, who she might have become, we will never know.  She was in Hollywood only two years, from 1978 until 1980, and yet had managed to accomplish more in that short period than many artists do in their career lifetimes.  More importantly, she did not allow the seamy underside of the business to change her.  She was still the sweet, kind girl from Canada who wrote poetry.

Dorothy was buried in Westwood Memorial Park, the same location where Natalie Wood would be forever placed to rest a year later.

Paul Snider's body was returned to Canada, where he was laid to rest.  Since he and Dorothy both died without wills, he as her legal husband inherited her estate upon her death which was then reverted to his family upon his death.

The Halloween Murder of Ramon Novarro

It was Wednesday, October 30, 1968.  In Los Angeles the temperature had peaked around 75 degrees - - a wonderful autumn day - - dropping to 59 degrees once the sun set.  The American Basketball Association, famous for Dr. J and the L.A. Stars, were in town for a brief stop.  "Hey Jude" by the Beatles sat atop the records charts and dominated the radio airwaves while Airport by Arthur Hailey was the current New York Times fiction bestseller.

At 3110 Laurel Canyon Drive was a Spanish Colonial designed by Lloyd Wright, son of Frank Lloyd Wright.  Nestled in the Hollywood Hills, it had been owned since 1927 by former stage, screen and television star Ramon Novarro.  Novarro was now 69 and frail, many days away from his life as a sex symbol of MGM following in Rudolph Valentino's vaulted footsteps after the infamous Valentino had died unexpectedly.  Despite being retired from acting for many years, Novarro had made wise real estate investments with his movie earnings and this allowed him to live very comfortably.

Navarro with the great Garbo

That evening Novarro, in a red and blue robe, welcomed brothers Paul and Tom Ferguson into his home.  The brothers Ferguson had gotten Novarro's phone number from a previous guest; both hustlers, they knew that Novarro was known to use agencies for sexual escorts.

Novarro, ever the gentleman and always gracious, served beverages - - liquor - - and read older brother Paul's palm, ironically predicting a bright future.  He played his piano, sharing with the brothers a tune he had composed and written.  He showed them promotional photos of himself as a young and virile MGM star.  It's likely that the former actor engaged in sexual activity with the older brother and then at some point the elder Ferguson demanded that Novarro hand over the $5,000 he was rumored to keep hidden in his home.

The young and beautiful Novarro

Novarro truthfully stated there was no such amount in his home; he never kept such large sums at his residence.  Tom Ferguson, having been speaking to a Chicago girl from Novarro's phone, joined his older brother in jostling, shaking and shoving the older man.  When that didn't net them the anticipated sum of cash, they began to pummel him violently; to keep him from losing consciousness, they dragged him into the bathroom where he was splashed with cold water.  One of the brothers, upon finding a cane, twirled it around and danced with it as their victim was tortured and bleeding.  While the Catholic Novarro began praying "Hail Mary, full of grace," the brothers bound him with an electrical cord and took turns striking him in the head and genitals with the cane.  Tom Ferguson, while carrying the bludgeoned and dying Novarro to his bed, scratched the older man's face in anger.  The two left the man to choke to death on his own blood.

The murderers decided to ransack the house, dumping Novarro's professional stills and photos on the floor, attempting to create a scene of a burglary gone wrong.  Complicating the matters, they also thought it would help to make the crime seem as though a vengeful woman had committed it, and so wrote on the bathroom mirror "Us girls are better than fagits (sic)."  They left the house with the cash they had netted from their torture and murder - - $20, taken from the pocket of Novarro's robe.

Novarro with a young Joan Crawford

While the Fergusons were caught and convicted quickly, it was Ramon Novarro who was put on trial.  The soft spoken and gentle star, who had for years struggled with the inner conflict of being Catholic and homosexual, who had stood up to Louis B. Mayer and refused a "lavender" marriage, and who had for years kept this part of his life from the world, now had his private affairs become posthumous fodder for gossips and entertainment hacks.  His killers' criminal trial saw him labeled "an old queer" by the defense attorney, the person defending two killers who were themselves homosexual hustlers, as if Novarro was less than human and somehow deserved or brought on what happened to him.

The Fergusons were found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison after each brother testified that it was the other that had killed their innocent victim.  The judge presiding over their criminal trial stated they should never be released; they both were.  The younger Tom was released after only six years; the elder Paul was out in nine years.

Nine years total for the brutal murder of a defenseless man.  It boggles the mind.  I believe the brothers were paroled for one reason only - - homophobia.  Novarro and his lifestyle were made out to be the guilty party.   If you solicit gay sex, look what happens.  It's a sad injustice, most especially for Ramon Novarro.

The Hollywood Hills home where Novarro died

Once the Fergusons were released, both quickly reoffended over the years,both separately committed rape.  Shocker.  In 1998 Paul Ferguson assumed the blame for Novarro's death; he claimed that neither he nor Tom went to the star's home to rob him and the murder happened out of a homosexual panic.  This, despite the fact that both brothers knew about the supposed cash stash and Paul at least had turned gay tricks for cash before.  In 2012, he would claim that he had come to peace with what happened to Novarro and stated that Novarro would not have died if he had not been so drunk.  Victim blaming at its finest and more than 40 years after his death, still putting Ramon Novarro on trial.  For the record, Paul Ferguson is currently serving a 60 year sentence for a rape and sodomy charge; not that rape and/or sodomy is not a grievous crime but telling that his current sentence is much longer than that sentence he served for beating to death Ramon Novarro.

In 2005, Tom Ferguson committed suicide at a Motel 6 by slitting his own throat.  He left no note nor commented on his part in the murder.

Ramon Novarro, toward the end of his life

Ramon Novarro's name would come up occasionally through the years, most notably when Kenneth Anger published one of his Hollywood Babylon books and claimed that Novarro had in his possession a black dildo made to the specifications of Rudolph Valentino's genitalia.  In 2012, Scotty Bowers released his juicy autobiography titled Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars and described gruesome details of Novarro's last moments, including the claim that he had been suffocated with a lead dildo given to him by Valentino.  However, I tend to side with writer William van Meter, who says the dildo is an urban legend that has been repeated often but with no proof.  Surely if such an item existed and was used in the assault, the ever resourceful Paul Ferguson would have mentioned it as yet another piece of evidentiary proof that Novarro brought his death on himself.

The October 30, 1968 homicide was a sad end to the life of a man often described as giving, kind, gentle and unassuming.  A man who not only managed to make a success for himself in silent films but rather easily transitioned into "talkies," a feat that was accomplished by very few, to become our first Latin American star.  It's tragic that his personal life was put on trial and that he is more recalled today for his gruesome end and an urban legend than for the happiness he provided many silent film and Depression-era audiences.

Ramon Novarro should be remembered as a kind, gentle soul who after achieving film success supported his large and extended Mexican family; a devout Catholic who more than once considered the priesthood or monastery, so ardent was his religious devotion; a well liked professional of whom nobody appeared to have anything bad to say; a talented actor who also had a glorious singing voice and a talent for dance; and, as his gravestone memorializes for all time, a beloved brother.

 

Photo taken in September 2015 during my visit to Calvary Cemetery in L.A.

The Murder of Rebecca Schaeffer

I am so wise, to think love will prevail.  I am so wise. 

                      - Rebecca Schaeffer, 1989


In July of 1989, a month before the killings of Jose and Kitty Menendez shocked L.A. and took over the airwaves and newspapers, a young actress named Rebecca Schaeffer was stalked and killed by an overzealous fan.

Rebecca was a lovely girl who had started her career modeling for local department store catalogs and commercials and then wholesome outlets like Seventeen magazine, the Bible for adolescent girls in the 70s and 80s.  In an era and an industry that worshipped blue eyed blondes, her curly auburn hair and brown eyes made her a standout.  Also a standout was her sweet demeanor, kind nature and intelligence.

Roles on the ABC daytime soap One Life to Live and the Woody Allen film Radio Days followed (although her Radio Days role would end up on the cutting room floor.)  Rebecca was bitten by the acting bug and Hollywood came calling, with a role on a new sitcom called My Sister Sam.  Her role as Patti gave her greater exposure and a fan base.  She was known for personally responding to all her fan mail herself.  One of those fans who wrote her was Robert John Bardo.

Bardo was a high school dropout working as a fast food restaurant janitor from Tucson, Arizona who had been institutionalized at fifteen for emotional problems, following a childhood of abuse and problems including at least one threat of suicide.    Too bad for Rebecca that he didn't follow through on the threat.

He had become obsessed with peace activist and actress Samantha Smith, all of thirteen years old, stalking her in earnest before she was killed in a plane crash in 1985.   Her death left an opening in Bardo's fevered mind, one that he was able to replace with Rebecca when My Sister Sam premiered in 1986. 

The sitcom was nothing groundbreaking and very 80s.  Rebecca, however, shined.  Her Patti was representative of what every teen girl was or wanted to be in the mid to late 1980s.  She had a wonderful chemistry with costar Pam Dawber (late of Mork & Mindy fame); so much so that Rebecca would live with Dawber and her soon to be husband Mark Harmon before moving into her own apartment in West Hollywood, on Sweetzer Avenue.

The show ran for only two full seasons but during that time, Bardo travelled to L.A. and attempted to get on to the Warner Brothers set with gifts to meet Rebecca.  He was motivated in part by a response that she had sent him after receiving a fan letter.  He was denied access to her and returned home where he wrote her more fan letters.  He also went to see her in her latest film and was left irate after a scene that depicted her in bed with a man.  Bardo likely saw her as virginal and innocent; that image was shattered after watching her on a theater screen with another man.  Not one to be rational, he decided then that Rebecca had to die to pay for her immoral behavior.

In the year or so prior to the murder, Bardo was arrested three times for domestic violence and disorderly conduct.    He began exhibiting strange and threatening behavior toward his neighbors and hired a private detective to find out where Rebecca lived. 

Back in 1989, anyone with a couple of bucks could fill out a form at the DMV and get anyone's address.  That's right, anyone.  You had to give your name and the reason why you needed this other person's address but even if your reason was complete bullshit, the information was turned over to you on the spot.  Frankly it's amazing more celebrities weren't stalked with horrifying outcomes.

While Bardo's private detective was getting Rebecca's home address, Bardo himself was attempting to obtain a handgun.  He was denied after admitting on his paperwork that he had been institutionalized.  Not one to be deterred, he returned with his brother who bought the gun in his name and then promptly turned it over to Bardo upon leaving the store. 

The scene was now set for tragedy.  Bardo wrote his sister, living in Tennessee, a letter that if he couldn't have Rebecca, no one could and then packed his illegally acquired gun and hopped a bus for L.A.    He arrived in town on July 17, 1989. 

On July 18, Rebecca was due to audition for The Godfather III.  She was home, dressed casually in a black robe, and waiting for the script to be delivered to her.  Bardo, armed with the address the private detective had acquired from the DMV, rang her bell that morning.  As the intercom to her apartment was broken, she came downstairs.  It must have shocked Bardo.  He had spent three years devoted to Rebecca and countless attempts to see her in person without success.  Now she was in front of him.  He told her he was a fan and she graciously gave him an autograph.  He left to go to a restaurant down the street, dining on onion rings and cheesecake and reading through The Catcher in the Rye.  An hour later, he was back at Sweetzer Avenue.

When the bell rang again, Rebecca must have thought it was the script being delivered to her for the audition that afternoon.  She must have been surprised to see Robert John Bardo once again at her door.  He claimed later that she accused him of wasting her time although it's unknown exactly what conversation transpired, if any.  What is known is that Bardo fired a shot into Rebecca's chest and ran off as she fell, screaming.  A neighbor overheard the gunshot and Rebecca's screams and called 9-1-1.  She was rushed to Cedars Sinai where she died thirty minutes later from the bullet to her heart. 

Bardo had been spotted running from the scene.  Witnesses later recalled him walking the neighborhood the day before the murder, with Rebecca's photo, asking persons if they knew where she lived.  He had tossed his copy of The Catcher in the Rye in an alley down the street from Rebecca's home.  He would be arrested the following day in Tucson, where he was wandering aimlessly in traffic.  He immediately confessed to the murder. 

As expected, Bardo's attorneys argued that the murder was a result of his unstable mental condition (duh) because of childhood abuse.  Cry me a river, seriously.   Thank God that excuse went over like a lead balloon.  Marcia Clark, who would become famous in 1994 thanks to her connection with the O.J. Simpson case, prosecuted Bardo in a non-jury trial, resulting in him getting life without parole. 

One of the more frustrating aspects of this case is that he told his sister what he was going to do - - maybe not in so many words but given his history and unstable behavior, one or twelve red flags should have been flying.  But nothing, it seems.  And worse, no charges were brought against his brother, who committed a federal violation by lying on his firearms application by being a "straw man" for Bardo.  Without the brother's intervention, Rebecca Schaeffer likely would not have died on July 18, 1989. 

The system failed Bardo but more importantly, failed Rebecca.  Bardo had many issues that were apparently ignored, bypassed, swept under the rug.  He had an unhealthy fascination with Samantha Smith, a child, before Rebecca and was reportedly following the movements of singers Debbie Gibson and Tiffany simultaneously with Rebecca. 

Bardo remains incarcerated in California.  He was stabbed eleven times by a fellow prisoner in 2007 but managed to survive and remain to be a drain on state taxpayers. 

The one positive thing that came out of Rebecca's tragic death, along with the frightening attack on actress Theresa Saldana, was recognition of stalking and an anti-stalking law that went into effect on January 1, 1991.  This law prohibits the DMV from releasing addresses of residents.  By 1993, all states, along with Canada, would have active anti-stalking laws.  The LAPD also instituted a Threat Management Team. 

Rebecca died at only twenty-one, with a lifetime of promise ahead of her, but she left behind a legacy of love and caring.  In 1989 she was a spokesperson for Thursday's Child, a charity for at-risk teens.  She made a personal appearance at a girls' shelter, signing autographs and graciously agreeing to return for their Renaissance Fair.  She loved nature and wrote poetry.  As her grave marker says, she was a courageous spirit.