At first it looked as though the death was a suicide and was listed that way by the authorities. However, this was soon changed by the Deputy Coroner Herbert McRoy, who declared, “We have no information that this individual planned to take his own life, so it will be listed as an accidental death.” But in spite of the ruling, everyone had to admit that the whole thing was bizarre: “This is certainly a strange death,” McRoy told reporters. “But just because there was a rope around his neck does not mean that he committed suicide.”
Still, an accidental death seemed a rather bizarre theory, given the way the man was found, and it was not long before rumours began to circulate that Albert Dekker had been murdered after a robbery gone wrong, as various items were discovered to be missing from his apartment. It could very well be the case that the man was killed after a bungled theft, but this would in no way explain the bizarre way Dekker was found. For a burglar to kill someone who has come home unexpectedly is not unheard of, but for him to then truss the victim up like a turkey and hang him from the shower rail calls for a little too much imagination.
Over the years it has become more and more likely that neither murder or suicide were the real reasons for the death of Albert Dekker, and instead it has been put forward that perhaps Dekker was a fan of autoerotic asphyxiation – cutting off the air supply to heighten orgasm. This would certainly account for the rope around his neck, but this theory has in turn presented further questions, such as was he alone when the deed happened?
It would seem possible that he was, given the fact that the bathroom was chained from the inside with no other way of gaining exit. However, it still doesn’t explain how he managed to cuff his hands, stick needles into his body and then finally place a noose around his neck and over the shower rail. Unless, of course, this was a well-practised event – a way of releasing tension that the actor had performed on many occasions over the years.
In spite of all the rumours, stories and hearsay, it seems as though we will never know the full story of how and why Albert Dekker passed away, and his death will always be something of a mystery. But one thing’s for sure – his bizarre and unexplained death has ensured he will be remembered for many years to come, though unfortunately, mainly for the wrong reasons.
36
The Death of Pete Duel
It has long been reported that the Christmas and New Year period sees a shockingly high rate of people falling into depression and even committing suicide. This is easy to believe, with the cheer and goodwill experienced by many manifesting itself as deep sadness in others, but in actual fact the idea that suicide rates go up around the holidays is false. There are exceptions, of course, and certainly in the case of actor Pete Duel, Christmas 1971 was neither merry nor bright, and the sadness he had felt for many years came to an abrupt and tragic conclusion.
Born on 24 February 1940, Peter Ellstrom Deuel grew up in Penfield, New York, where he paid no real attention to his studies, but had a very keen interest in performing in school plays and taking part in sports. He was a scout, enjoyed counselling others, loved aeroplanes, and had a great fascination with nature and the countryside. Summer vacations at a log cabin in Canada were something both Peter and his siblings greatly looked forward to, especially since it was one of the only times they could have the full attention of their busy doctor father.
When he turned seventeen, Peter tried to join the Air Force but was rejected due to vision impairment. He took the news badly as it had been his dream to join up, though he eventually pulled himself together and headed off to college to study liberal arts. Unfortunately, what should have been a carefree time as a student turned to tragedy when his life was almost ended in a horrific car crash, which broke his pelvis and almost severed his tongue. The crash shook his entire world, but luckily he made a complete recovery, and ultimately it changed his life by forcing him to realize that what he really wanted to do was move to New York and study to be an actor. He did well and it wasn’t long before his ambitions took him to Los Angeles to find fame and fortune under the name of Pete Duel.
Out in California, Duel managed to find regular work in television programmes such as Channing with Jason Evers and a comedy series entitled Gidget. Another sitcom followed in the shape of Love on a Rooftop, although when that was cancelled after just one series, Duel decided to expand his career by trying his hand at more serious roles and movies.
It was a good move and Duel became very successful in both television and movies, before also dabbling in politics in the late 1960s. However, his private life was not easy; he suffered from epilepsy which was made worse by drinking alcohol, and despite having various female admirers over the years, Duel never seemed to find the right person with whom to settle down. He once told a reporter, “Having a marriage when you’re in show business and making it work is damn hard. It’s damn hard for anybody. We weren’t built to be with just one person all the time.”
In spite of his pessimism in the area of love, Duel finally found love with Kim Darby, an actress he had met while working on the film Generation. However, despite introducing her to his parents and declaring that she was “the one”, his world came crashing down in early 1970 when she broke the news that she was to marry a man she had only just met. Duel was extremely distraught, particularly when reporters started knocking on his door for a statement and then describing the spurned lover’s failed relationship in all its glory in their newspapers.
For reasons known only to herself, Kim Darby had decided to marry the virtual stranger over Duel, but as one might expect, it did not work out the way she had thought. Just a short time after her wedding the relationship broke down and Darby immediately began contacting Pete Duel again. Her attempts at reconciliation were futile, however, as he had by now moved on to a relationship with a woman called Dianne Ray, and was said to be happily settled.
Around this time, Duel was offered the role of outlaw Hannibal Heyes, aka Joshua Smith, in Alias Smith and Jones. Unfortunately, the glow of winning another acting job quickly wore off when faced with the long and tiring hours involved in working on the series. Having no time for a social life was stifling and it wasn’t long before Duel was complaining that he had no time for anything outside of work. Inevitably this meant that there was virtually no time for his love life either, and his relationship with Dianne Ray slowly became increasingly strained.
Then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, devastation came when Duel crashed his car into another vehicle while intoxicated. Fortunately he had not been physically injured in the crash, but the people in the other car were hurt, and this knowledge played on his conscience for the rest of his days. He felt so bad, in fact, that during his subsequent trial, the actor sat down to write a long, heartfelt letter about his feelings regarding the tragedy, and presented it to the judge. The actor was then placed on two years’ probation and his licence was understandably revoked.
Professionally things were becoming a nuisance for Pete Duel, and the long hours spent on the set of Alias Smith and Jones were increasingly getting him down. It wasn’t so much the nature of the show that bothered him, but the regimented system of working on one programme one day, then another the day after. Duel wished he could have more time to prepare, but the schedule just would not allow it and the frustration took its toll. Added to his frustration was the fact that he now had to be driven to and from work, which made him feel as though he had no freedom in his life whatsoever; every day seemed to be controlled from morning until night by the studio.
In December 1971, he spoke to columnist Cecil Smith, and expressed his dislike for working on television: “Any series is a big fat drag to an actor who has any interest in his work,” he said. “You slowly lose any artistic thing you may have. It’s utterly destructive.” When asked if he would be happier working on another series, he shrugged. “Exchange one kind of trash for another,” he replied and complained that the whole thing made him weary.
Then as the year started to draw to a close, t
he actor became more and more tired and depressed over what he saw as the lack of fulfilment in his career. He had applied to become a member of the board of directors at the Screen Actors Guild, but shortly before Christmas received a telegram breaking the news that he had been unsuccessful. Distraught, he pulled out his .38 calibre revolver and took a shot at the unwelcome telegram.
The Christmas season was depressing; his health had been failing during the last year; and he had become despondent due to heavy drinking and flashbacks of the car accident earlier in the year. He expressed his concerns to both his brother, Geoffrey, and girlfriend, Dianne, both of whom were particularly concerned by his state of mind.
On 31 December 1971, Pete Duel spent the evening at his home, watching television with Dianne Ray. Both the day and the year came to an end, and Duel’s girlfriend retired to the bedroom for what she hoped would be a good night’s sleep. However, this was not to be, when Duel later entered the room himself. According to police reports, he walked over to some drawers and took out his pistol. “I’ll see you later,” he told Ray, before quietly leaving the room.
Not long after, Dianne Ray heard a gunshot coming from the living room, rushed in and found her boyfriend lying next to the Christmas tree, with the gun at his feet. He was dead.
The sudden death of Pete Duel was ruled a probable suicide, with the coroner concluding that the single gunshot wound to the head was consistent with a self-inflicted wound. Unbelievably, just twelve hours later the cast and crew were back on the lot of Alias Smith and Jones at the instructions of ABC. The script was rewritten and a hurried announcement came that the actor would be replaced by Roger Davis for the remainder of the series.
The fact that the series was hurried back into production so soon after his death seems to prove that Duel was correct in his feelings about working on the television show, expressed just months before. “It’s the ultimate trap,” he said. It is unfortunate that, in the end, he felt that his only means of escape was by taking his own life.
37
The Dreadful Murder of Sal Mineo
At the end of the movie Rebel Without a Cause, Sal Mineo’s troubled character Plato is fatally injured. Just over twenty years later the actor himself would sadly suffer the same fate, though in a very different way to the death he had acted out in Rebel.
Born on 10 January 1939 in New York City, Salvatore Mineo was the son of Italian parents, Josephine and Salvatore. From a very early age he developed an interest in the arts, after a talent scout came up to him on the street as he was playing with his sister, Sarina. After that he began taking part in dance lessons and drama, and learning his craft as a child actor while his siblings would watch him practise in the living room of their house. Once he had got a taste for acting, it wasn’t long before he appeared on Broadway in the 1951 production of The Rose Tattoo, and he then achieved a great deal of recognition when he acted as the prince opposite Yul Brynner in the stage version of The King and I.
Sal dabbled with television as a teenager, before scoring his first film role in Six Bridges to Cross, a vehicle for Tony Curtis, which gave him the chance to play the younger version of Tony’s character, Jerry Florea. It was a good role and a great opportunity for the young man, but it was his portrayal of Plato in the 1955 movie Rebel Without a Cause which really put him on the map as an actor. His performance was so deep and profound, in fact, that he was nominated for an Academy Award for his role, though he ultimately lost out on the award to Jack Lemmon for his film Mister Roberts.
Still, this disappointment did not deter Sal for long, and he was inundated with fan mail from that moment on. He ventured into the music business for a while, which earned him more attention and fans, particularly when one of his songs, “Start Movin’ (In My Direction)” reached number nine in the Billboard Hot 100. He also received another Academy Award nomination for his role in Exodus in 1960, and on this occasion he lost out to Peter Ustinov for his part in Spartacus. But despite his success on the screen, Mineo was still truly dedicated to his family, who remained in New York State. He bought his mother a home in Westchester County, which apparently cost the almost unheard-of amount of $200,000, and kept in close contact with his siblings and their families. He was very definitely a family man and while his film career was important to him, he always remained true to his roots.
By the early 1960s it was becoming apparent to everyone that Sal Mineo was being typecast in roles that always seemed to be some version of a troubled teenager. This was a problem by now as Sal was no longer a teenager himself, and he knew that it would not be long before acting those kinds of parts would be impossible. His popularity began to wane and soon nobody seemed to want him in their productions any more, which was a decision that baffled and troubled Sal Mineo. He still had his talent; he still had the ability to play roles; but sadly he became stuck in the rut frequented by so many former child actors – that of being too old to play a kid, and too young to play an adult.
It was a frustrating and difficult time for the man who had been acting his entire life, and when new parts began to open up, once again he would be typecast, only this time as a psychopathic bad guy. His personal life too was somewhat frustrating, as in spite of falling in love with his Exodus co-star, Jill Haworth, Sal was gay, something he fought against accepting for some years. This was a confusing time for the actor but in the end he decided publicly to admit his sexuality. He directed and starred in a somewhat controversial play entitled Of Fortune and Men’s Eyes; the part included nudity and homosexuality, and from then on Sal became something of a trail-blazer, pioneer and hero for others struggling to be accepted as homosexual, particularly in the film business.
In the early 1970s, Sal worked on television in such programmes as Columbo and Hawaii Five-O, but his film career was practically over, his last appearance being in Escape from the Planet of the Apes in 1971, as Dr Milo the chimpanzee. In spite of the decline in film roles, by the mid-1970s his career was on the up when he appeared in the theatre production PS Your Cat is Dead. It received good notices in San Francisco, and when it transferred to Los Angeles, so did Sal, moving into an apartment he had used frequently in the past three years: 8563 Holloway Drive.
On the evening of 12 February 1976 Sal was heading home after attending rehearsals for the play, and drove into the garage space of the apartment building. Once he had exited the car, however, he was set upon by an assailant; a confrontation took place and the man knifed the actor in what was an apparently unmotivated and meaningless attack. As Sal lay bleeding on the road, the shady figure then fled quickly from the scene.
Inside the apartment building, a woman by the name of Mrs Mitchelson was going about her business when at approximately 9.15 p.m. she heard an almighty scream and a voice shouting, “My God! My God! Help me!” There then followed another scream before finally silence descended on the area and several neighbours came running out to see what was going on. One resident, Ray Evans, saw the actor lying on his side and noted that blood appeared to be coming from his head. It was not until he turned him over that he realized the blood was actually gushing from his chest and running towards the top of his body due to an incline on the ground where he lay.
As Sal gasped, Evans tried desperately to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while others talked to him, telling him he’d be okay and that help was on its way. “I saw he was going into an ashen colour,” Evans told reporters who arrived at the scene, “and I immediately started to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Everyone was yelling, ‘Get the police. Get an ambulance.’”
Evans worked quickly and solidly on his neighbour and thought he was beginning to get a response, but it was not to be. Just as the police arrived, the actor gave his last breath at the age of thirty-seven, and was gone. The police at first decided it must have been a robbery gone wrong, but the discovery of Sal’s personal belongings, including a small amount of cash in his clothing and his house keys lying beside him, dispelled that theory.
&nb
sp; More confusion came when detectives interviewed nearby residents who all seemed to give differing accounts of what they had and hadn’t seen during the course of the evening. Some said that there was no sign of the attacker at all, while others were adamant that he had been seen quite clearly running away from the building. His description, according to those who had seen him, was of a tall, white male with blond hair. This was a good lead until police interviewed other potential witnesses who gave their own descriptions; this time it was a five-foot seven-inch attacker, white with dark brown or black hair. Police were confused and after talking to as many people as possible, they were simply stumped as to who the attacker was and what could possibly be his motivation behind such a senseless assault.
Then several days after the murder, more intrigue came when mob boss Mickey Cohen stepped forward to claim Sal Mineo as a friend who had once frequented an ice-cream shop owned by Cohen’s sister. “I don’t think he was a close friend,” Cohen told reporters, “but I just spoke to him seven or eight days ago.” Describing the actor as a “fine young man”, he then expressed his shock at the death and added that he doubted very much if Sal was having trouble with anyone in Hollywood. “I think he’d have called me if there was any trouble,” he said.
It seems that the mobster was correct, because Sal Mineo appears to have lived a very quiet and discreet private life, though his agent, Tom Korman, later explained to the makers of Mysteries and Scandals that he felt the actor let too many people into his life who shouldn’t have been there. Rumours would surface that the murder was because of his lifestyle, and some thought it to be a crime of passion – a disgruntled lover who had come back for revenge. Others hinted at bizarre sexual practices and drug-taking, but this was incorrect; various attempts by the police to determine if these stories were true came to absolutely nothing. Instead, it would appear that the tales were an attempt by some to smear Sal Mineo’s name for reasons known only to themselves.
The Mammoth Book of Hollywood Scandals Page 33