Hollywood's Unsolved Mysteries

This is Los Angeles. Begin at 39th Street and Norton Avenue. Houses now occupy the once-vacant lot where the body of Elizabeth Short was dumped in 1947. She wanted to be a star, ended up a corpse. The Black Dahlia, they called her.

Head toward downtown to Westlake. What's now a parking lot is where movie director William Desmond Taylor was shot. Don't ask who was holding the gun-maybe the mom of ingenue Mary Miles Minter. Too bad the studio got to the scene before the cops.

In Hollywood is the former home of veteran character actor Victor Kilian. In March 1979 Kilian filmed a guest shot on the TV series "All in the Family"; shortly thereafter he was beaten to death in his apartment. The police never found the killer. Another character actor who guested on the same sitcom episode, Charles Wagenheim, was beaten to death in a separate incident. That murder is unsolved.

Not far away, just off the Hollywood Freeway, is a Scientology building that used to belong to Eleanor Ince, the widow of pioneering movie producer Thomas Ince. He died shortly after a weekend cruise on William Randolph Hearst's yacht. Rumors say Hearst shot Ince and then gave that building to Mrs. Ince to keep her quiet. This is Hollywood, so you never know.

The Los Angeles Police Department calls them cold cases, but unsolved murders are still hot properties in Hollywood—and so are other cases whose official solutions leave tantalizing unanswered questions. The death of Hogan's Heroes star Bob Crane (officially unsolved) is the subject of the new movie Auto Focus; the death of silent movie producer Thomas Ince was the subject of the movie The Cat's Meow last spring. New books emerge every few months, while television shows such as E True Hollywood Story tap into the rich currents of sin, violence and skulduggery that course through Tinseltown.

Make no mistake, you keep hearing about the ones in Hollywood—sometimes with curious echoes sounding through the years, tying old scandals to newer ones. Case in point: In 1981 Natalie Wood drowned mysteriously, apparently after trying to board a small dinghy late one alcohol-soaked night off Catalina Island. One of Wood's friends and co-stars said of her death, "The Natalie that I knew, there was not enough alcohol on this planet to get her drunk enough to have anything to do with a rubber dinghy, in the dark, in the ocean." Twenty years later, that same co-star found himself cooking up an equally improbable scenario on his own behalf: Robert Blake had to go back into the restaurant where he'd just eaten dinner with his wife, he explained, because he'd left his gun at the table. But when he got back to the car, he found his wife in the front seat dying of a gunshot wound.

When you're dealing with deaths from the earlier days of Hollywood, it can be virtually impossible to ferret out the truth from the morass of corruption and cover-up that used to occur in Los Angeles. Politicians were routinely on the take, racketeers had free-reign and motion picture studio executives controlled the press and routinely covered up the dalliances and excesses of their biggest stars.

"In the Twenties and Thirties, the LAPD was definitely corrupt," says Kalk. "I'm willing to bet that if somebody from Paramount went up to an officer on the scene and said, 'Here's $50, kid, let me look at the body, he's my best friend,' it was done."

In no particular order, and with the caveat that facts can be elusive things, here are eight Hollywood deaths that continue to be big box office:

Black Death

Leading lady: Aspiring actress Elizabeth Short, a.k.a. the Black Dahlia.

Untimely death: Tortured and cut in half around January 14, 1947.

Usual suspects: Everyone from Orson Welles to anonymous drifters.

Back story: Elizabeth Short was a 22-year-old brunette who came to Los Angeles from Medford, Massachusetts to be an actress. She usually dressed in black, and friends began to call her the Black Dahlia, in a nod to the 1946 film The Blue Dahlia. She was last seen at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles on January 9.

Gory details: Six days later—days that remain largely unaccounted for—her nude body was discovered in a vacant lot near 39th Street and Norton Avenue. Short's arms, legs and breasts bore deep cuts and other signs of torture. Abrasions around the wrists and ankles showed that she had been tied up; a razor had been used to cut Short's face nearly from ear to ear into a gruesome, mocking smile. After the killing, the body had been meticulously cleaned and drained of blood.

Whodunit: Some observers believe Short simply angered a man who had never murdered before. Other theories abound, speculating that the killer was Short's father or a deranged Hollywood abortionist. In one particularly far-fetched scenario, Mary Pacios, an old friend of Short's, accused Orson Welles of the crime, claiming the actor-director was mentally unstable. She also claimed that he liked to saw women in half during his magic act and before the murder had designed a set for The Lady From Shanghai featuring mutilated corpses that resembled Short's dead body. Screenwriter Ben Hecht suggested that the murderer was a woman, a theory prompted by police leaks suggesting that Short may have had an abnormally small vagina that prevented her from having sex with men. In 1995 Janice Knowlton published a book claiming that her father—a foundry worker who lived in Westminster—had killed Short in her family's garage and that she had "repressed" the memory for years. Police dismissed her theory.

Perhaps the strongest suspect turned out to be a drifter who went by a variety of aliases but whose real name was Jack Anderson Wilson. In the early Eighties Wilson described the killing in detail to writer John Gilmore (saying he was only repeating what he had been told by an acquaintance), but before he could be questioned by the police, Wilson died in his downtown Los Angeles hotel room, burning to death in a fire of unknown origin. The DA's office concluded, "that were this suspect alive, an intensive inquiry would be recommended."

A Great Injustice

Leading lady: Actress Virginia Rappe.

Untimely death: Peritonitis, which was brought about by a ruptured bladder, in San Francisco, September 1921.

Usual suspects: The comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, a botched abortion.

Back story: A huge man with huge appetites, Fatty Arbuckle invited some friends to San Francisco's St. Francis Hotel on Labor Day weekend to celebrate his new three-year, $3 million contract with Paramount Pictures.

The party reportedly turned into three days of debauchery, including plenty of bootleg liquor, nude dancing and sexual activity.

Gory details: Virginia Rappe reportedly fell to the bathroom floor and at some point began screaming during Arbuckle's party. She was taken to the hospital and died four days later. A friend at the party, Maude Delmont, claimed that Rappe had blamed Arbuckle for her condition, and the San Francisco district attorney charged Arbuckle with murder.

Whodunit: According to one theory in Kenneth Anger's seamy Hollywood Babylon, Arbuckle took Rappe into a bedroom, unsuccessfully attempted to have sex with her and then caused her injuries by ravishing her with either a Coca-Cola or champagne bottle. More credible reports suggest Arbuckle tried to help the actress and simply became a useful target for Delmont, a woman with a history of extortion attempts. Suspicion turned instead to an illegal abortion that Rappe had undergone shortly before the party.

Arbuckle endured three trials, by most accounts rife with confusing testimony and cover-ups. Cut loose by Paramount and virtually blacklisted by Hollywood moral czar Will Hays, Arbuckle was eventually cleared of all charges. "Acquittal is not enough for Roscoe Arbuckle," the jury said. "We feel that a great injustice has been done him."

Abject Humiliation

Leading man: Paul Bern, assistant to producer Irving Thalberg and husband of Jean Harlow.

Untimely death: Gunshot to the head on September 5, 1932.

Usual suspects: Suicide, Bern's common-law wife Dorothy Millette (with or without the aid of Mobster Abner "Longy" Zwillman).

Back Story: Mild-mannered, quiet and more than 20 years older than his wife, Paul Bern seemed to be an unlikely husband for sexpot Jean Harlow, who usually preferred more volatile, macho men. Bern already had a common-law wife in New York, a mentally unstable woman named Dorothy Millette, who showed up unexpectedly at Bern's house on September 4.

Gory details: The police, who arrived after executives from MGM had been at the scene for hours, found Bern dead in Harlow's bedroom, nude, with a gun in his hand and a suicide note that included the line "This is the only way to make good the frightful wrong I have done you and wipe out my abject humiliation." Police labeled it a suicide, but far-fetched and unsavory scenarios soon began to fly.

Whodunit: One widely held theory, advanced by Irving Shulman's 1964 book Harlow, says that Bern regularly abused Harlow and had underdeveloped genitals that prevented him from consummating the marriage. According to Shulman, Harlow had laughed at Bern when he tried to please her by outfitting himself with a "large artificial penis and testicles," whereupon a humiliated Bern shot himself. But most historians disagree. Screenwriter Samuel Marx concluded that Bern had been shot by Millette**who could not be questioned, because that same week her body was found in the Sacramento River. Another theory suggests that Millette was used by an East Coast gangster who'd had a relationship with Harlow before she married Bern.

More recently, the David Stenn book Bombshell: The Life and Death of Jean Harlow offers a less sensational scenario. According to Stenn, Bern was a troubled man who'd tried to kill himself on a previous occasion. After a stormy encounter between Bern, Harlow and Millette, Stenn suggests, the despondent Bern took his own life.

A Speeding Bullet

Leading man: TV's Superman, George Reeves.

Untimely death: Shot in the head in the bedroom of his Beverly Hills home on June 16, 1959.

Usual suspects: Suicide, MGM studio exec Eddie Mannix, Mannix' wife, Toni.

Back story: George Reeves became a star playing the Man of Steel on television from 1952 to 1957, but by the time of his death the 45-year-old had been depressed at his inability to win movie roles. In 1959 Reeves began receiving death threats; he suspected his former lover Toni Mannix, the wife of a combative Hollywood executive, until she told him that she, too, had been receiving threats.

Gory details: On June 15 Reeves celebrated his pending marriage with his fiancée, Lenore Lemmon, and a houseguest. At one A.M. they were joined by a couple of neighbors for more drinking. Reeves, who had gone to bed, yelled at the new guests for arriving at such a late hour, then went back upstairs in a bad mood. "He'll probably go up to his room and shoot himself," joked Lemmon. A few minutes later, they heard a gunshot, went upstairs and found Reeves lying dead on his bed.

Whodunit: No suicide note was found, and doubt was cast by bruises on Reeves' body, by two bullet holes in the floor, by his lack of powder burns and the location of the entry and exit wounds. But police investigators were stymied by the fact that all the houseguests were too drunk to be reliable witnesses and concluded that the circumstances of Reeves' death "indicated suicide." While the police stuck with the suicide theory, Reeves' mother hired private detectives, who concluded that he had been murdered. In 1996 Sam Kahsner and Nancy Schoenberger published the book Hollywood Kryptonite: The Bulldog, the Lady and the Death of Superman, blaming a hit man hired by Toni Mannix.

Sex and Videotape

Leading man: Actor Bob Crane.

Untimely death: Beaten to death in his bed in Scottsdale, Arizona, June 29, 1978.

Usual suspects: Friend John Carpenter, ex-wife Patricia Olson, any number of angry husbands.

Back story: A radio personality who broke into acting in the Sixties, Bob Crane became well known for Hogan's Heroes. While starring in this family comedy, Crane kept quiet about his secret life as a dedicated swinger who kept photographs and videotapes of his sexual conquests. By the late Seventies Crane was embroiled in a messy divorce with his second wife, Patricia Olson (Hilda on Hogan's Heroes). In June 1978 he was starring at a dinner theater in Scottsdale. On the 28th Crane returned to his cluttered, furnished two-bedroom apartment with a friend, video-equipment salesman John Carpenter. According to Carpenter, Crane argued with Olson over the telephone that night; other sources say Crane told hanger-on Carpenter that their friendship was over.

Gory details: The next afternoon Crane was found beaten to death in his blood-soaked bed with an electrical cord wrapped around his neck in a bow. The actor had been murdered in his sleep, most likely by someone who either had a key to the room or had been there earlier and had left a door or window unlocked.

Whodunit: In the aftermath of the murder, Crane's lifestyle, and his extensive collection of videos and photos, came to light. Although the tapes and photos made suspects of a score of disgruntled husbands and boyfriends, and although both Carpenter and Olson came under suspicion, the Arizona police investigation was at best haphazard.

Fourteen years after Crane's murder, a new county attorney charged Carpenter with the crime. Carpenter was acquitted and died four years after the trial, maintaining his innocence. "I have mixed feelings," says Robert Crane, Bob Crane's oldest son from his first marriage (and a frequent Playboy contributor). "I keep going back and forth between Carpenter and my former stepmother, Patti**Patti being the one with the motive, as far as I'm concerned." In the movie Auto Focus, director Paul Schrader's big-screen treatment of Crane's split personality and untimely end, the relationship between Crane and Carpenter (played by Greg Kinnear and Willem Dafoe, respectively) is the central theme.

Goodbye, Norma Jean

Leading lady: Marilyn Monroe.

Untimely death: An overdose of Nembutal and chloral hydrate, August 5, 1962.

Usual suspects: Suicide, accidental overdose, psychiatrist Dr. Ralph Greenson, housekeeper Eunice Murray, the Mafia, John and/or Robert Kennedy.

Back story: "I always felt insecure and in the way, but most of all I felt scared," Marilyn Monroe once said. "I guess I wanted love more than anything else in the world." By her mid-30s, Marilyn's search for love had led her through three failed marriages and, reportedly, into the arms of both John and Robert Kennedy, though some reports say she was planning to blow the whistle on those relationships. On August 4 Marilyn was reportedly upbeat during an early-evening phone conversation with the son of former husband Joe DiMaggio, but she seemed despondent in a subsequent call to actor Peter Lawford.

Gory details: The police were summoned to Marilyn's Brentwood home about 4:30 A.M. on August 5. Although the police were initially told that her body hadn't been discovered until after three A.M., later evidence would suggest that the occupants of the house may have known Marilyn had died as early as midnight and that work was done to clean up the scene. Monroe was lying facedown on her bed, naked, next to an empty bottle of Nembutal, which had reportedly been prescribed for her on August 3. But exactly how she ingested the drugs was never clear: According to LA county coroner Thomas Noguchi, there was no trace of pills in her stomach and no marks of injection. The death was ruled an "apparent suicide."

Whodunit: In 1993 author Donald Spoto suggested that the death was accidental, occurring after Marilyn took the Nembutal over a 24-hour period and then had a chloral hydrate enema, probably administered by Eunice Murray at the behest of the actress' (concluded on page 176)Mysteries(continued from page 108) psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph Greenson. But others have insisted that the Kennedys were somehow involved and that Robert had been seen at the house the day of Marilyn's death. Other theories say the Mafia killed her to punish the Kennedys for Bobby's crusade against organized crime. In 1985 a grand jury reexamined the available evidence and recommended against reopening the case.

Too Big to Touch

Leading man: Producer Thomas Ince.

Untimely death: Indigestion or a heart attack, or a gunshot wound, November 1924.

Usual suspects: Either rich food or a rich man.

Back story: Silent-film pioneer Thomas Ince was the guest of honor during a weekend cruise on the Oneida, the yacht belonging to media mogul William Randolph Hearst. Most accounts place the producer on the boat, along with notorious womanizer Charlie Chaplin and Hearst's mistress, Marion Davies, whom gossip columns had linked romantically with Chaplin. Though Prohibition was in effect and Hearst frowned on drinking, there is little question that the Oneida was liberally stocked with bootleg liquor. At some point during the weekend, Ince took ill and left the yacht in San Diego.

Gory details: Ince may have overindulged in rich food and illegal alcohol, aggravating an ulcer and leading to a fatal heart attack a couple of days after he left the boat. No autopsy was performed, and the body was quickly cremated.

Whodunit: In The Cat's Meow an insanely jealous Hearst, convinced that Chaplin and Davies are having an affair, shoots Ince after aiming for the comedian. This story, and variations on it, has been a Hollywood rumor for decades, fueled by Ince's cremation and by a perfunctory district attorney's investigation that involved only one of the ship's guests, a physician who worked for Hearst. Suspicion intensified when Chaplin denied being on the boat and when Hearst's newspapers initially claimed that Ince had taken ill while at Hearst's estate in central California.

Others insisted that while a cover-up did take place, it was instigated to hide illegal boozing, not murder. Hollywood historian Marc Wanamaker, who was incensed by The Cat's Meow, says that Chaplin remained a popular guest onboard the Oneida and at Hearst's and Davies' gatherings. Still, the whispers were irresistible. "All you have to do to make Hearst turn white as a ghost is mention Ince's name," director D.W. Griffith was later quoted as saying. "There's plenty wrong there, but Hearst is too big to touch."

The One-Dollar Knockout

Leading lady: Actress Thelma Todd.

Untimely death: Carbon monoxide poisoning in her garage, on or about December 15, 1935.

Usual suspects: Suicide, director Roland West, Charles "Lucky" Luciano.

Back story: The spirited star of numerous comedies, Thelma Todd loved expensive jewelry, fast cars and strong drink. She opened a popular beach cafe with one of her former lovers, director Roland West, and reportedly resisted the entreaties of another, Lucky Luciano, to use part of the establishment for illegal gambling. West and Todd lived in adjoining ocean-view apartments over the cafe, though their relationship grew strained over Todd's frequent absences.

On Saturday, December 14, Todd attended a party at the Trocadero. She and West argued before she left, and he reportedly said that if she wasn't back by two A.M., he'd lock her out. She returned home about four A.M.

Gory details: On Monday morning Todd's housekeeper found her body in the front seat of her Lincoln convertible in the garage attached to her apartment. Some reports suggest that Todd was bloody, but photos of the scene do not reveal a significant amount of blood.

Whodunit: After what Hollywood's Greatest Mysteries author John Austin termed "the most intentionally inept probe of a suspected murder in the history of Los Angeles," police deemed the death "accidental death from carbon monoxide poisoning." Members of a grand jury convened to look into the death were openly frustrated with witnesses connected to the film industry, many of whom they suspected of participating in a cover-up.

In her book Hot Toddy: The True Story of Hollywood's Most Sensational Murder, Andy Edmonds suggests that the death was a Mob hit ordered by Luciano. But that scenario has been dismissed as tabloid fiction by most observers. In Fallen Angels, Marvin Wolf and Katherine Mader advance the more accepted scenario that a jealous and possessive West locked Todd out of her apartment—and then inadvertently locked her in the garage, where she had started her car, either to keep herself warm or to drive somewhere else.

For years, a company that made religious TV shows owned Todd's old building and kept an original menu on the wall. One of the more expensive drinks on the menu (it cost a dollar) was the Thelma Todd Knockout.

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There are, of course, lots of other curious Hollywood deaths and questions that have yet to receive satisfactory answers. If actor Nick Adams truly died of an overdose of a drug powerful enough to kill him instantly, why was no means of ingesting the drug found near his body? Did career criminal Lionel Williams kill Sal Mineo in a botched robbery, as he bragged to his Michigan cellmates but later recanted? What about a witness' description of a long-haired blond Caucasian male fleeing the scene? Did Lana Turner's 14-year-old daughter Cheryl Crane really stab her mother's abusive gangster boyfriend, or could Turner herself have been wielding the knife that killed Johnny Stompanato?

"Everybody has theories," says historian Wanamaker. "Everybody has new evidence of who killed who, everybody offers hearsay." Asked why, Wanamaker laughs. "Because it's fun," he says. "Simple as that: It's fun."

Who really killed Superman? Marilyn Monroe? Here are the celebrity murder cases that won't die

"Cases can get bizarre in Hollywood," says Richard Kalk, a 30-year LAPD detective who now heads the LA Police Historical Society. "They also get bizarre in Rampart, but you don't keep hearing about those."

"Rappe fell to the floor and began screaming during Arbuckle's party. She was taken to the hospital and died four days later."

"Investigators were stymied by the fact that the houseguests were too drunk to be reliable witnesses."

"I always felt insecure and in the way, but most of all I felt scared," said Monroe. "I guess I wanted love more than anything else in the world."