by The Killing of the Unicorn- Dorothy Stratten, 1960-1980 (epub)
Snider was probably informed of Dorothy’s trip to the airport. That same morning, Wayne Alexander had called my house to get a final answer on the Snider-sponsored roller-skate poster; Dorothy had left word, with my encouragement, to pass on the deal. Later, of course, I would desperately wish that I had told her to let Snider have his damned poster; perhaps the gesture would have somewhat abated his mounting fury. Alexander called Mike Kelly and said Dorothy did not want to go forward; he would be sending a letter to that effect along with the poster, but wanted Kelly to know immediately where they stood. Kelly called Snider, who phoned Alexander sounding angry and sullen: Where was his wife? Alexander said he could not give out that information. He never spoke with Snider again.
Later in the day, the phone rang and when Snider answered, it was Dorothy calling him long-distance. She was in Houston, she said, and she hoped he was all right. Snider was so surprised by the call, he wasn’t sure how to play it. He asked when she would be back, when he could see her. D.R. told the truth. She wouldn’t be back until late Thursday, or Friday morning. Why didn’t they have lunch together on Friday, August 8? She would come by around two. Snider said he loved her and Dorothy said she loved him, but that he had to understand she had not changed her mind about wanting her freedom. Snider must have hung up the phone feeling elated. She was coming back after all.
Earlier that afternoon, I had placed a call to Hugh Hefner. When he was told I was calling, Hefner barely hesitated before he told his secretary to say that he was in a meeting. It was five days since we had returned from London, and Dorothy was off in Houston. Hefner did not return the call.
Also, Hefner was hearing reports about Dorothy in Texas. She had changed her hair to a simpler style and was wearing almost no makeup. Once the Playboy models had lost their 'innocence,' their image changed: the Sunday School girl-next-door became the Vegas showgirl-in-the-next-motel. It was part of a standard male fantasy: the innocent Madonna turned into the wanton harlot. These were the only two sides of a woman worth mentioning. Of course, sex was more fun with the prostitute because she knew what to do. But the special thrill was in the memory of her innocence: That defiled Virginity could sustain many an erection. D.R. was not behaving in the approved Playboy tradition. After all, she was Playmate of the Year.
On Wednesday, August 6, D.R. and Elizabeth flew to Dallas. Dorothy had talked as much as possible about They All Laughed, without a hint of our involvement, and she gave the usual party line about Playboy whenever necessary. There was nothing wrong with posing nude, and Hefner really did love and respect women. He was 'nothing like his reputation,' it amused her to say because it wasn’t a lie. Elizabeth told Dorothy she ought to talk more about Playboy and put on more makeup. Dorothy didn’t want to look like an albino, did she?
That night, Dorothy called me from Dallas in tears. At a banquet for Playboy distributors who had flown in from all over the country, one of them had come up and grabbed her right breast in his hand, and turned to one of his pals to take a photograph. I had never heard her so upset: She felt humiliated and dirtied; raped. She couldn’t wait to come home. She had arranged to take the evening flight Thursday rather than stay overnight again in Dallas.
After I had phoned Hefner for three days in a row, with no success, on August 7, he finally returned my calls, apologizing for the delay. I asked if I could drop by for a chat the following week. Anytime, Hefner said coolly. I felt the iciness in his tone, and tried to warm things up by telling him how well the movie had gone and how good Dorothy was in it. The part had been greatly enlarged, I said, and I felt confident that it would have a tremendous impact on her career. Hefner said he had heard some rumors that Dorothy and I were . . . Yes, I said, it was true. We were in love.
There was a brief pause, followed by a sort of hollow chuckle, and then Hefner said: 'Well, heh-heh, you always did have a weakness for blondes.' I laughed much too loudly, and felt more and more uneasy: I had been hoping to put off the facts until I could see Hefner next week, but clearly he did not care to wait. I said that no matter what he might have heard, it was serious between Dorothy and me, that we loved each other, that she was the first woman who had ever really made me want to settle down. He said he was glad to hear it.
I said I did not want anyone but him and some other dose friends to know the truth because it could only hurt Dorothy and me and our relationship. 'That’s going to be a pretty difficult thing to keep quiet,' Hefner said. Not necessarily, I said, if none of us confirmed it for a while. But Heftier told me he had already heard rumors.
Then he said: 'Look, if you’re worried about that husband, I’ll just make sure he’s not allowed in here without Dorothy.' He had taken care of that last week for the Dream Party, Hefner said, but we hadn’t come by. He was going to make certain that creep never got in there again, and then Dorothy and I could feel free to drop by any time of the day or night. I tried to make him understand that her husband was by no means the only issue. Hefner repeated that keeping it a secret was going to be impossible.
Soon after he put down the phone, Hefner told one of his assistants to make certain that Paul Snider did not get into the mansion anymore unless he was accompanied by Dorothy Stratten.
***
Less than two hours later, at 4:48 p.m., the Delta flight from Dallas touched down at LAX, and the limousine brought Dorothy to the apartment on Spalding, where she got into her own car and quickly drove the few minutes to Copa de Oro. She was in my arms by 6:30.
Snider had told Goldstein of their impending rendezvous the next day for lunch, sounding optimistic about a reconciliation.
While unpacking her bags, D.R. casually showed me a Playboy test slide of herself made up to look like Brigitte Bardot. It was part of Hefner’s marathon Screen Goddess pictorial for Playboy’s cable, videocassette, and stag-movie plans. The whole thing was a modem version of the old Hollywood whorehouses that used to feature look-alikes for the most popular current screen actresses. For a price, you could fuck your favorite movie star. The best of both worlds for the Playboy readers and the magazine which had made everybody’s girl-next-door into a hooker, and was now preparing to do the same with the great women of the screen.
I held the slide up to the light. It was a head shot of D.R. in a red wig, with several thick and shiny coats of pancake on her face, heavy on the lipstick, rouge, mascara, and eye shadow. The photo looked about as appetizing as one of the figures in the Hollywood Wax Museum. From the center, Dorothy’s eyes looked out sadly, like those of someone trapped in a cave. The picture depressed me, but I didn’t want to make her feel worse: She had to do the job.
I told Dorothy I had spoken with Hefner, but didn’t mention the threatened barring of Snider, feeling vaguely guilty. She was having lunch with Paul tomorrow, which was going to be difficult enough. I didn’t want to worry her about Hefner’s manner on the phone.
During dinner that night, I suggested that Blaine and Doug follow Dorothy over to Snider’s the next day. He would recognize me. They agreed, and Novak said they could follow at a discreet distance, go into the restaurant, and sit several tables away to keep an eye on things. But D.R. said no, she really didn’t need anyone to follow her over, and she thanked the fellows for offering. Blaine asked if she was sure of that, and Dorothy nodded: Yes, it was all right, there was nothing to worry about. She had spoken with Paul and he had sounded fine. She would make sure they went to a restaurant.
Playboy was talking about sending D.R. to New York to do the Merv Griffin show. The Krofft brothers wanted her to costar in a Western with Bruce Dern (eventually released as Harry Tracy). They were offering $100,000 and the script wasn’t bad. If anything could bring Westerns back, I thought, Dorothy could. She had the wit and elegance of a nineteenth-century aristocrat, as well as the innocence of a country girl in chaps, wrestling the cattle as well as any man. One way or the other, it looked as if Dorothy was going to do a lot of traveling, and she and I would often be separated. We fell asleep in ea
ch other’s arms early on the morning of Friday, August 8.
That day was the first time Dorothy and Paul saw each other since the beginning of May. She had written the legal statement of separation in June. Now, a month and a half later, Dorothy was driving over to the house on Clarkson. She was not looking forward to the meeting, and the closer she got, the more she wanted to turn around and run. But it had to be gotten over with, she thought—there was nothing else to do.
Snider, dressed in a suit, welcomed her warmly. There were roses and champagne set out, but she didn’t even take a sip. Nor did she pay much attention to the flowers or the note he had written. She wanted to go to a restaurant. They did, and then came back and had a loud argument. It was the first time Dorothy admitted to Snider her love for me.
Snider had done a lot of checking and collected a considerable storehouse about me to tell Dorothy, strewn across a litter of fifteen years in the public and private wars of Hollywood. I had destroyed Cybill Shepherd’s career—was that how Dorothy wanted to end up? Bogdanovich had paid a girl five thousand dollars to sleep with himself and another man—what did she have to say about that? It had happened at the mansion, he said, and a lot of people knew about the incident. Dorothy didn’t believe it, and said she didn’t want to hear about it. In the Jacuzzi, Snider went on, Bogdanovich had paid this girl, Lee, five grand to fuck him and his friend Bob. That was the kind of guy she was in love with, he said. But maybe she hadn’t minded that night with Hefner in the Jacuzzi. Maybe that was the kind of stuff she really liked. Dorothy got angry. She had only done the Playboy stuff for Snider in the first place! Hadn’t he told her that she might have to sleep with Hefner? He hadn’t even cared. He had been using her from the beginning. Snider began to scream at her and Cuslvner’s dog began to bark. Soon after, Dr. Cushner had come in on them, and they quieted down. He had stopped by to get his German shepherd who was locked up outside, barking and crying because of the shouting. The neighbors could hear nothing beyond the constant roar of the freeway. After the doctor went upstairs, there was no further shouting.
The interruption turned Snider around. He realized his ace had been played and she hadn’t batted an eyelash. Brainwashed, she definitely had been brainwashed. He realized that he had lost Dorothy, and he began to cry. He sang her a song and became more depressed. Did she really mean it when she told him she wanted to be friends even though she was in love with someone else? Dorothy seemed to be sincere as she spoke, and he cried even harder. What a fool he had been!
Eventually Dorothy was able to cheer him up, and by the time Patti Laurman arrived, the two of them seemed quite friendly. Was she staying? Patti asked since both of them were smiling when she walked in. No, damn it, Paul said lightly, she’s got to leave. Dorothy looked over a closetful of her remaining clothes, took one or two items, and told Patti she could have everything else. Dorothy and Paul seemed to have reached an understanding. Patti left them alone again.
The phone rang. It was Linda MacEwen, Snider said, and he tried not to sound too hostile. D.R. took the call and said she would be leaving soon for their meeting at the apartment. It was the story Linda and I had cooked up as an excuse for her to call. I had been worried and asked Linda to see if everything was OK. Of course Dorothy couldn’t talk, Linda would tell me, but her voice sounded all right. She would be coming back shortly. Dorothy left Clarkson soon after the call. Everything would be OK, she told Paul. She would call him on Sunday just to see how he was.
Dorothy felt sorry for Paul, she told me. He had cried, and at one point he tried to kiss her and take her in his arms. His touch had made her skin crawl. His eyes looked so sad, Dorothy said, making no mention of the seedy accusations. Two years later, John Riley would tell me that during the summer of 1980, Snider had learned his version of the Lee/Bob story from Lee’s former husband and that the two men had cursed me and agreed that I deserved to be punished severely, maybe even shot. Certainly Snider would have used the story on D.R. as an example of my true nature. But Dorothy said only that Snider had delivered a diatribe against me, quoting the usual inaccurate Cybill Shepherd stories. If she had brought up the Lee/Bob incident, I would have told her its true origin: how Bob had lured me into a compromising position with Lee at the mansion’s Jacuzzi. Six months afterward, I had tried to help Lee, who had had a haunted childhood compounded by humiliating experiences in the men’s magazine business. She stayed at my house a few days. I had then given her a cashmere sweater and five thousand dollars to rent an apartment and have her car fixed. Though D.R. said nothing of this story, it must have given her pause. Could she trust me fully?
Late that afternoon, Dorothy and my sister Anna met for the first and only time. Anna had come over to bring me a belated birthday present—a bow and arrow. The gift puzzled me, but she gave me no reason for selecting it, and so I was not alarmed.
That same evening, while D.R. and the kids and I made dinner in the kitchen, Prince the dog suddenly returned. We couldn’t figure out how he had gotten in, since the front door was closed. He again went immediately over to Dorothy, barking and yelping, and seemed even more insistent than ever on telling her something. We thought perhaps he was simply overjoyed to see her, but Prince acted as though he had run away only to be with Dorothy. His paws were on her shoulders and he was licking her face, his tail wagging furiously.
Saturday didn’t go well for Snider. He phoned the mansion to get his name and Patti’s cleared for the next night, and was told he was barred. He was livid; it was the worst day of his life. He had lost his wife and his second father. Well, he would show them! He would show all of them! They would be very sorry for excluding him from their happy threesome, the starmakers and their star. The world had not heard the last of Paul Leslie Snider!
Soon after, his actor-friend Chip came by and took back the gun he had lent Snider. He was leaving town and needed to have it with him. Coming from the house, with the giant curve of the freeway behind, Snider pointed the .38 up toward the sky and fired. Goldstein was there and noticed how the sound was washed out by the noise of the freeway, but Cushner’s dog started to bark. Chip saw that his gun had been fired before, but didn’t mention it. They all shook hands and Chip drove off feeling relieved. He had never felt quite right at the idea of Paul having his gun.
Snider then put the heat on Goldstein to help him get a weapon, 'for protection,' Goldstein later would recount: Snider said that maybe Hefner or Bogdanovich was going to try to have him deported or killed. They were shutting him out of everything— maybe they would try to finish him off for good.
Goldstein went with Snider to a gun shop. Snider wanted a small machine gun, and the shop had just what he wanted. Goldstein refused to buy it in his name. Snider had the money to pay, but was not a U.S. citizen and his visa had expired. He could probably pick up something through the personal ads in the Recycler, a weekly paper that featured personal ads of all sorts, including weapons. Owner sales required no registrations or paperwork.
Before long, Snider had found the item that appealed to him. It was an eight-shot shotgun. He called the owner, a man named Tuck, who agreed to come over and show him the weapon the next morning. In the meantime, Snider didn’t need the Playboy mansion. He would have his own goddamn parties. He got Lynn, his main girlfriend at the time, and Patti together and invited everybody they could think of to a barbecue. He didn’t want anyone to think he was depressed. And he would tell Dorothy what he was going to do when she called tomorrow. He would scare the bitch to death.
Dorothy’s sister, Louise, had arrived from Vancouver that morning at ten, and Dorothy met her at the airport gate. On the way home from the airport, Dorothy told Louise that they wouldn’t be staying at Paul’s anymore. Dorothy was getting an apartment with Linda, Peter’s secretary, she said, but it wasn’t quite ready yet, so they would be staying at Peter’s house in the meantime. She had not yet told Louise that we were lovers. Louise was a sweet, shy girl with a wild sense of humor when her introspective n
ature let it out. She had a critical, watchful eye, and looked out for her big sister’s welfare.
When they got to the house, and after everyone had been introduced, the two sisters called to tell their mother that Louise had arrived safely. D.R. had warned her not to say where they were staying, not to mention Peter’s place at all, or to give out any numbers. She didn’t want to worry their mother. Nelly was happy speaking to her daughters together, and she was especially relieved to hear Dorothy’s voice. She had been terribly worried about her. Had Dorothy received her letter? Nelly had sent a letter to New York early in July. No, Dorothy said, it must have missed her, but the hotel would forward it. She had left her business manager’s address. Nelly asked about Paul, and Dorothy said everything was all right, she had seen him yesterday and they had agreed to be friends. 'But he was very sad, Mum,' Dorothy said. 'He cried.' Nelly told her not to see Paul again. She knew what men were like. Dorothy should try to get out of the city for six to eight months, to let things cool down.
Playboy wanted to send her to Chile, Dorothy said, but there was 'unrest' there. Nelly told her to go anyway. It would be safer than being anywhere near Paul. She would get her new husband to call Immigration again about that rat Snider, get him out of the United States and away from Dorothy. When Louise was finished, Dorothy grabbed the phone to say good-bye again. It would be the last time that Nelly would hear the voice of her first child. Good-bye again, Mum, she had said, don’t worry, see you soon.
Later, Louise asked which house was better, this one or Hefner’s? 'This one,' D.R. said. 'This one is much better.'