It is Halloween, and I had every intention this month of doing another mini-series devoted to something spooky (and film-connected), but alas time got away from me and I will probably pocket the idea until next year. But I don't want to leave you hanging, so I'm going to be talking about something else sinister, and conclude a trilogy of articles we started way back in April: our look at some of the most famous of unsolved Hollywood murders.
If you're behind please check out the first two installments in this series
here and
here, as they're definitely up your alley if you're interested in either Hollywood or true crime (or both!). I could arguably continue this series indefinitely, as there's countless crimes in the Los Angeles area that would have connections to the movies, but I feel a trilogy is the best way to sum this up. Starting to look at whom or what I might include in a fourth article, I realized we were getting more just into local crimes, rather than finding a proper Hollywood connection, and as this is a film blog rather than one associated with crime articles exclusively, I figured it would be appropriate to finish this series in three acts.
Since this is our finale on Hollywood homicides, we're going to get to eight crimes that I think are lesser-known, but fascinating. They involve an Oscar-winning actress who (might) have had some connection with her husband's death, an Oscar-winning actor who (might) have killed a comedy pioneer, and the strange death of an Oscar-winning actor who (might) have been killed on the orders of a dictator; we'll also look at a death of a famous adult film star who almost certainly wasn't murdered, but whose whereabouts (and questions around whether she's alive or dead) are too bizarre not to discuss. And since this is the final installment in our series, I'm going to acquiesce and include in the article four of Hollywood's most famous deaths, all of whom have inspired conspiracy theories for years, and we'll discuss why I don't entirely buy them (even if the deaths might have some intriguing unanswered questions). As I mentioned in our past installments, this obviously involves some heavy subject matter, so if you're light-of-heart I suggest you read at your own risk.
Nick Adams
The Hollywood Connection: Adams was a bit player in Hollywood that stayed on the periphery of fame while never become as iconic as some of his costars. Among his best-known work is
The Rebel, an ABC western that ran for two seasons &
Twilight of Honor, where he plays an alleged killer obsessed with Joey Heatherton.
Twilight won him an Oscar nomination, but Adams is best remembered today for his friendships with (and rumored romances with) two 1950's superstars: James Dean & Elvis Presley.
The Murder(?): On February 7, 1968, Adams was found dead by his attorney Ervin Roeder at his home in Beverly Hills. Well-known coroner Thomas Noguchi (he'd also perform the autopsies on Marilyn Monroe, Sharon Tate, & Natalie Wood) performed the autopsy, and said Adams died of "accident/suicide/unknown" due to excessive amounts of sedatives and drugs in Adams's system.
Why It's Unsolved: Occam's razor dictates that Adams killed himself or accidentally overdosed on drugs. This seems to be what Noguchi discovered in his medical reports, and is backed up by actress Susan Strasberg (who saw Adams the night he died) who said he was despondent over his failing career and marriage. However, rumors persist to this day that Adams death was more nefarious. There was gossip at the time that Adams was going to write a tell-all (his career was going nowhere, so a tell-all would have been a source of cash for a work-strapped actor), and considering his potential romantic entanglements with people like Presley & Dean (never mind any other better-kept secrets), there would have been a considerable amount of sway to keep his knowledge of Hollywood's closeted community a secret...potentially at all costs.
Arthur Farnsworth
The Hollywood Connection: Farnsworth himself had no connection to Hollywood-he had been just a normal New Hampshire innkeeper before his death. However his wife happened to be one of the most famous women in the world when they married: screen legend & two-time Oscar winner Bette Davis. Farnsworth was Davis's second husband, and her only marriage that didn't end in divorce, though it may have ended in something more nefarious: murder.
The Murder(?): Farnsworth died on August 25, 1943. Initial reports at the time were that he had died of a brain hemorrhage, possibly as a result of falling on the sidewalk on Hollywood Boulevard. However, after Farnsworth died, Davis was questioned by police about whether or not an accident had occurred earlier involving Farnsworth.
Why It's Unsolved: Despite initial media accounts at the time (including in the
LA Times), stating that Farnsworth died as a result of falling on the sidewalk on Hollywood Boulevard, it's probable that Farnsworth died as a result of an accident he'd sustained a few weeks earlier, when he had fallen down a flight of stairs in the couple's New Hampshire home. Davis at the time claimed that Farnsworth had fallen when he rushed too quickly to answer the phone, but there are some who believe that Davis and Farnsworth had been fighting at the time, and that Davis during the fight had pushed Farnsworth down the stairs, ultimately leading to his death. It does seem odd, especially considering initial reports about the Hollywood Boulevard incident (where Davis was not in attendance) that Davis was questioned by police investigators at all in the inquest of Farnsworth's death if they had assumed it was simply a brain hemorrhage caused by an accident. It's worth noting that 16 years later Joan Crawford, Davis's longtime rival,
also had a husband (Alfred Steele) who may have died as a result of being pushed down a flight of stairs, though those allegations from from her daughter Christina Crawford, whose stories about her mother have varied through the years, and as a result have a question of credibility.
Sean Flynn
The Hollywood Connection: Flynn briefly worked as an actor and singer in the early 1960's. He had a small role in
Where the Boys Are opposite George Hamilton, and made a number of films in Europe, most notably
The Son of Captain Blood, a sequel to a film his father, actor Errol Flynn, made into a smash hit for Warner Brothers in the mid-1930's.
The Murder(?): By the late 1960's, Flynn's acting career was going nowhere, and it seemed like his passion was more for photojournalism than entertainment anyway. He was gaining fame as a war correspondent in both Vietnam and Israel. On April 6, 1970, Flynn and CBS News photojournalist Dana Stone were headed out on intel that the Viet Cong were manning a checkpoint on Highway 1. The two were never seen again.
Why It's Unsolved: Flynn and Stone were likely two of 25 journalists that were captured during the initial invasion of Cambodia by Richard Nixon in 1970; but according to people who were there that day like AP correspondent Jeff Williams, there's even some speculation over whether or not they were even captured. Several of the 25 journalists were executed by the Khmer Rouge, but there has never been any evidence as to whether or not Flynn & Stone were killed, arguably the most well-known figures to disappear at the time (but by no means the only ones). Journalist Tim Page, who was Flynn's roommate (and the inspiration for Dennis Hopper's character in
Apocalypse Now!) is still searching for Flynn's remains, with frequent and constant trips to Cambodia. In 2010, a body was found, but members of the Flynn family (including Sean's sister Rory) were tested and the DNA was not a match, so it's still not known what happened to Sean Flynn, how he was killed, or even if he's dead at all.
Ted Healy
The Hollywood Connection: Healy enjoyed a long career as a comedian and vaudeville performer, but he is best remembered for creating the Three Stooges. He starred with them in the film
Soup to Nuts, but after a contract dispute, Healy abandoned the comedy group, and signed a contract for MGM, where he worked alongside Spencer Tracy, Robert Young, and Peter Lorre before his death.
The Murder: On December 21, 1937, Healy died while out celebrating the birth of his son, the only child he'd ever have. Official reports at the time were that he died of acute nephritis, triggered by his chronic alcoholism, but a lot of questions surround Healy's death and the events that happened immediately before he died, enough so that over 70 years after his passing, some still wonder if he was the victim of something more sinister.
Why It's Unsolved: According to reports at the time, Healy had been in a fight the night of his death, and had injuries on his face, including a cut near his right eye. Reports were that Healy had been in a fight with some men at the Trocadero, then a well-known Los Angeles night club. These reports were initially that Healy had fought with three anonymous younger men, but later reports indicated far more famous individuals had fought with Healy: Oscar-winning actor Wallace Beery, producer Albert Broccoli, and Broccoli's cousin, another film producer Pat DiCicco (whom you may remember for his connection to
another well-known unsolved Hollywood crime,
the death of actress Thelma Todd). Enough questions surrounded Healy's death that his personal physician refused to sign the death certificate, and if you believe Hollywood lore, MGM fixer Eddie Mannix covered up the incident (Beery was under a star contract to the studio at the time) to save face for one of their leading men. While Beery & DiCicco have never confessed to seeing Healy that evening, Broccoli has-he admitted to being at the Trocadero, and that he fought with Healy but denied it being particularly aggressive. If Healy's death was in fact triggered by the fight, rather than his chronic alcoholism, it's entirely possible one of these three men were responsible for his death.
Christa Helm
The Hollywood Connection: Helm was a bit player in Hollywood, making guest spots on shows like
Starsky & Hutch and
Wonder Woman. However, her offscreen life reads like a who's who of Hollywood elite; among her paramours were Mick Jagger and Warren Beatty, as well as famous (non-movie star figures) like the Shah of Iran.
The Murder: Helm died on February 12, 1977 at the age of just 27. She had been stabbed and bludgeoned to death outside of her agent's home in West Hollywood. Actor Jon Gries, then just 19, lived nearby, and later described hearing a noise coming from near where Helm was being murdered similar to "a screaming baby or a cat being killed," but frightened, he didn't call the police or go to investigate.
Why It's Unsolved: At the time, the press were more enamored with the connections between Helm and another Hollywood murder, that of Sal Mineo exactly one year prior to Helm's (at the time, Mineo's murder was still unsolved). However, the press soon lost interest in the Mineo angle, and focus then turned onto the most salacious & mysterious aspect of Christa Helm's death: her sex diary. Helm, who as we already stated had a number of famous lovers, had kept a sex diary and a collection of sex tapes that were not found after her death. Police have alleged that Tony Sirico (the actor who played Paulie Walnuts on
The Sopranos), then a small-time criminal, was hired by someone to remove the tapes, either to protect Helm or to protect someone who would be implicated in the diaries/videos. Suspects in the killing range from Sirico to Helm's agent Sandy Smith to drug dealer Rudy Mazella (with whom Helm was allegedly involved romantically) to another lover, backup singer Patti Collins (DNA evidence under Helm's fingernails from the night of the murder came from a woman) to even Lionel Williams, the man who murdered Sal Mineo (it seems that initial rumors that Williams was arrested at the time of Helm's murder were inaccurate, and so the alibi that is allotted to him on some articles about Helm's death isn't real), but no one has ever conclusively proven who killed Christa Helm, despite decades of investigation.
Bruce Lee
The Hollywood Connection: Lee is noted as a major star of martial arts films of the 1970's, including the landmark
Enter the Dragon. In Hollywood, he didn't make his mark before his death, though he did have a role on the ABC comic book series
The Green Hornet as Kato.
The Murder(?): Lee died on July 20, 1973, officially of a cerebral edema at the age of only 32. He had had dinner earlier that evening with actor George Lazenby, and after dinner Lee had complained of a headache. He was given a painkiller (Equagesic), and according to doctor's later, had something of an allergic reaction to the drug, causing the cerebral edema, which killed him.
Why It's Unsolved: On the facts, this is how Lee died. Just a few months earlier he'd suffered another cerebral edema while on the set of
Enter the Dragon, and so there was clearly a medical history here that would indicate this was an unfortunate accident involving a man who already had health problems. But in the decades since, rumors have persisted that Lee was murdered, though the culprit depends on whom you ask. Some think that his business partner Raymond Chow did it (Chow did see Lee the day he died, for what it's worth), while other think it was actress Betty Ging Pei, with many positing that Lee was having an affair with her. Others have blamed gangs like the Chinese Triads, upset that Lee was sharing long-held martial arts secrets. These all seem fanciful to me, particularly since Lee clearly had a medical history that would support his tragic death at such a young age. But it's impossible to read about Lee, particularly after the equally tragic death of his son Brandon on the film set of
The Crow, without someone bringing up his death as "mysterious," so I include this because no list of "unusual" Hollywood deaths would be complete without Bruce Lee.
Jenny Maxwell
The Hollywood Connection: Maxwell is best-remembered today for her small but memorable role in the Elvis Presley musical
Blue Hawaii. She also starred with Jimmy Stewart in
Take Her, She's Mine, and had guest appearances on
Father Knows Best, The Twilight Zone, and
The Joey Bishop Show. Maxwell's celebrity never took off, and she retired from the movies in 1963, essentially become a "trophy wife" to the much older Ervin Roeder, a wealthy attorney.
The Murder: On the afternoon of June 10, 1981, Maxwell and Roeder were shot in their Beverly Hills condo. Police at the time assumed it was a botched robbery, with the young actress dead at the age of only 39.
Why It's Unsolved: Little is known about the crime, probably because there's not much evidence to indicate that Maxwell or Roeder were specifically targeted by someone they know. Most people assumed that the murders were part of an apparent robbery, but that's speculation-based on newspaper reports of the time and according to articles afterward, there doesn't appear to be any indication that anything was actually taken from the home. What is worth noting, in the confines of this article, is that Roeder also had another very famous client at one point, Nick Adams, so both men ended up dying in unusual circumstances.
Marilyn Monroe
The Hollywood Connection: Forgetting the fact that she starred in films like
All About Eve, Bus Stop, Some Like It Hot, and
The Misfits, Monroe essentially
is Hollywood at this point, her visage being on everything from slot machines to doormats. More than pretty much any other star, she encompasses a type of glamour that is synonymous with the Golden Era.
The Murder(?): Monroe died on August 4, 1962, at her Brentwood mansion. She was found dead by her housekeeper Eunice Murray and psychiatrist Ralph Greenson the following die, and the coroner's report eventually stated that she had died of acute barbiturate poisoning, with the coroner ruling her death a suicide.
Why It's Unsolved: Marilyn Monroe probably committed suicide. It's the most likely scenario, and considering the troubled life the starlet had led, one with a good deal of credibility. But Monroe was
SO famous, it's hard for anyone to imagine her taking her own life, and so it's worth noting that conspiracy theories abound about her death, so since we're closing out this series about Hollywood True Crime, I couldn't ignore the most famous "what happened?" death in Hollywood history. The most common conspiracies center around Monroe's relationships with John & Robert Kennedy, who were President and Attorney General, respectively, when Monroe died, and legend has it that both had a sexual relationship with Monroe at some point. Allegations that Bobby Kennedy in particular either used his connections at the CIA/FBI to have Monroe assassinated, or that someone murdered Monroe to get to the Kennedy Brothers have been rumored for decades, being shared by everyone from Norman Mailer to British journalist Anthony Summers. While there is enough smoke there to assume that an affair with at least one Kennedy brother probably occurred, the legend of Monroe potentially being murdered (a fate that would eventually befall both brothers) continues to persist nearly sixty years after her death.
Haing Ngor
The Hollywood Connection: A former doctor who survived for years in Cambodian prison camps, Ngor made his film debut portraying journalist Dith Pran in 1984's
The Killing Fields, which won him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, with him beating longtime thespians like John Malkovich and Ralph Richardson for the trophy.
The Murder: Ngor was shot to death on February 25, 1996, in Los Angeles near his home in Chinatown. According to prosecutors, three men held him at gunpoint and after he gave them his gold Rolex, they murdered him because he wouldn't give them a locket which held a photo of his deceased wife.
Why It's Unsolved: In some ways, it's not-unlike every other crime on this list, we actually have a conviction and know who killed Haing Ngor, as the three men who shot him (Tak Sun Tan, Jason Chan, & Indra Lim) were convicted and are currently serving their sentences for his murder.
However, there are enough strange questions around Ngor's death to include him on an "unsolved" list, namely as to why he might have been murdered seemingly at random. For starters, Ngor still had nearly $3000 on him after his death, making a robbery by the three men seem at the very least very poorly executed. Ngor also didn't typically have the locket visible (he usually wore it under his clothes), so how did the men, who claimed they didn't know who he was, know that he would be wearing it & demand he give it to them? Some have speculated that Ngor was killed on Pol Pot's orders for his involvement in the film
The Killing Fields, a theory posited by former Khmer Rouge leader (and, it should be remembered, war criminal) Kang Kek Iew. It seems a stretch that Pol Pot, who was still alive when Ngor died and was still ordering executions (in 1997 he ordered the murders of his associate and his entire family), might want to kill a man who had been in a movie critical of him twelve years prior, but considering the questions surrounding Ngor's death, it's worth wondering.
Nicole Brown Simpson & Ronald Goldman
The Hollywood Connection: As if I need to tell you this, but it's not Nicole Brown Simpson or Ronald Goldman who had the connection to Hollywood, but instead Brown Simpson's ex-husband OJ, who would go from being a Heisman Trophy winner to star Buffalo Bills running-back to one of the more successful athlete-actor crossover stars, appearing in movies/television as varied as
The Towering Inferno, Roots, Capricorn One, and
The Naked Gun franchise.
The Murder: On June 12, 1994, Brown Simpson and Goldman were stabbed to death outside of her home in Brentwood. Both individuals had been stabbed repeatedly, with Brown Simpson nearly decapitated from the homicide, and Goldman's cut shoes indicating he had tried (but failed) to overcome his assailant. Over 25 years later, no one has ever been convicted of their deaths, and the case remains officially unsolved.
Why It's Unsolved: I avoided talking about Marilyn Monroe, Bruce Lee, and Johnny Stompanato because I feel that the most-likely answer to these questions is that they're solved, with the former two having died tragically but not as the result of homicide, and the latter dying in an act of self-defense. Nicole Brown Simpson & Ron Goldman, though, were
definitely murdered, but I have kept their murders out of previous installments because this is a case (if you lived through it) you know by heart. In many ways this was the birth-place of the 24-hour news cycle as something to be mocked, constant discussions of the crimes dominating cable news in a harbinger of things to come. For those who have lived under a rock or are under thirty, the question of what happened to these two boils down to if you believe OJ Simpson murdered his ex-wife and her friend (and potential lover). Simpson was headed to Chicago the night of the crime, but his limousine driver claimed that he couldn't get ahold of Simpson right away, and that while he was waiting for the football player Simpson's Ford Bronco had moved (thus affording Simpson opportunity to commit the crimes). Simpson had a history of abuse toward his ex-wife, and had claimed that he'd "thought about killing her" in the past, but he was not convicted after an extensive trial (I could devote an article this length just to the Simpson case, but you can find a hundred books on it if you wish to learn more). Jurors on the trial claimed afterward that they thought Simpson had been involved in the murders, but that the prosecution had failed in making their case. Public perception in the years since has favored the idea that Simpson got away with his wife's murder, particularly after the release of the book
If I Did It, where Simpson posited how he might have killed his ex-wife, but double jeopardy is in place even if he did kill the two individuals. Simpson would go on to be charged with armed robbery, serving a ten-year sentence, and would continue to maintain his innocence, as would a number of others (the most common alternate theory being that Brown Simpson & Goldman were connected to a drug trafficking crime that also was connected to the death of Michael Nigg, whose murder we looked at in Part 2 of this series). Whatever your beliefs, the deaths of Brown Simpson & Goldman stand as one of the most discussed crimes in Hollywood history, and remain (officially) unsolved.
Johnny Stompanato
The Hollywood Connection: Stompanato had very little himself to do with Hollywood, as he was a former Marine who was part of Mickey Cohen's crime syndicate when he died. However, in 1957, Stompanato began a relationship with one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, Lana Turner. Turner, at this point in her career, had been a major player in Hollywood for 15 years, having starred in movies such as
The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Bad and the Beautiful, and
Peyton Place.
The Murder: Leading up to the night of the Academy Awards in 1958, Stompanato's behavior toward Turner had turned extremely violent, with him choking her. At the Oscar ceremony (where Turner was nominated for Best Actress for her work in
Peyton Place), Turner decided to take her daughter Cheryl Crane instead of Stompanato, which caused him to be angry when she returned, and he beat her again. Eight days later, on April 4, 1958, according to reports at the time, Stompanato was again violently attacking Turner, even threatening to slice up the beautiful actress's face with a razor (which would have ended her career), when Crane stabbed Stompanato through the stomach while he was attacking her mother.
Why It's Unsolved: Here's the thing-it's not. I wrote up-top that four of these stories I wanted to discuss because they were too big to leave out before we concluded our look at unsolved Hollywood crimes, but the Stompanato case came back with Crane being exonerated, a case of justifiable homicide. This is the most likely scenario, considering Stompanato's history of abusing Turner, and threatening both she and her daughter with violence. However, there are those who believe that the crime was premeditated, a way for Turner to get Stompanato out of the picture without having him (who was reportedly blackmailing her with nude photos he'd taken without her consent) expose intimate secrets about her life, thus ruining her career. There are also those who believe that Crane took the fall for her mother, believing that a teenage girl would be more easily exonerated. If this is indeed the case, the only person who would know is Cheryl Crane, still alive at 76 and recently married to her longtime partner Joyce. Despite the bad press at the time (with the skeptics claiming Turner "acted" on the stand), her stardom was back at a high point a year later, when the actress would act in the biggest hit of her career,
Imitation of Life.
Bambi Woods
The Hollywood Connection: Woods's connection to Hollywood is not because she was a star or even bit player at a Hollywood studio, but because she came to fame during the 1970's heyday of pornography playing in mainstream cinemas. Woods starred in one of the era's best-remembered films,
Debbie Does Dallas, which would go on to become the best-selling pornographic film of all-time.
The Death(?): As stated above, I wanted to profile one Hollywood disappearance/death that has a lot of questions behind it, but almost certainly didn't end in murder-that would be what happened to Bambi Woods. Woods completely disappeared from the public eye in the mid-1980's, and her fate has never been revealed.
Why It's Unsolved: It's not entirely clear at this point if Woods (who would be 64) is still alive or not. According to an Australian newspaper entitled
The Age Woods died in 1986 from a drug overdose (they did the article to mark a musical version of the movie
Debbie Does Dallas being released). A later documentary from the British Channel 4 claimed that a private investigator had found the actual Woods, and that she was living an ordinary life in Des Moines, Iowa, under a different name where people didn't know her connections to the porn industry, but this was rebutted by internet site
Yes But No But Yes that interviewed a woman claiming to be Woods who was not from Iowa, but said the rest of the story was largely true-that she was living under an assumed name. Suffice it to say, no one has ever come up with conclusive proof of what happened to Woods or if she's even still alive, and the film's director has never revealed what her real name was. The mystery surrounding her death is amplified by other nefarious aspects of the film (one of Woods's costars, Arcadia Lake, died of a drug overdose, and the film was produced by mob boss Michael Zaffarano), but even by itself-the fate of Bambi Woods is a really odd mystery that has persisted for over thirty years.
