Dorothy Stratten
 |
| Dorothy Stratten | |
|---|---|
| Playboy centerfold appearance | |
| August 1979 | |
| Preceded by | Dorothy Mays |
| Succeeded by | Vicki McCarty |
| Playboy Playmate of the Year | |
| 1980 | |
| Preceded by | Monique St. Pierre |
| Succeeded by | Terri Welles |
| Personal details | |
| Height | 5 ft 9 in (1.75 m) |
Dorothy Stratten (born Dorothy Ruth Hoogstraten) (February 28, 1960 – August 14, 1980) was a Canadian model and actress.
She found fame as the Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Month for August 1979 and Playmate of the Year for 1980. She's the second Playmate (after Lee Ann Michelle) who was born in the 1960s. Stratten afterwards began a modestly successful acting career.
She was murdered at age 20 by her estranged husband, an act that was the basis of two motion pictures. Stratten and Carol Willis are the only two Playmates who died within a year and a half after their Playboy appearance, both aged 20, the youngest a Playmate died.
Biography
Stratten was born in a Salvation Army hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia, to Simon and Nelly Hoogstraten, Dutch immigrants. Her parents had married in Holland in 1954. In 1961 her brother John Arthur was born, and sister Louise Beatrice Stratten was born in May 1968.
She grew up and attended Centennial High School in Coquitlam. In 1977, while working part-time in a local Dairy Queen, she met a Vancouver-area promoter named Paul Snider (then 26), who coaxed her into sending photos to Playboy. Stratten forged her mother's signature on the model release form.
In 1979, after changing her surname to Stratten, she became Playboy's Miss August. She also found work as a Bunny at the Los Angeles Playboy Club. In 1980, she became Playboy's Playmate of the Year. Her original pictorial was photographed by Mario Casilli.
In June, 1979, she married Snider in Las Vegas, Nevada. The couple's relationship quickly deteriorated, as Snider became prone to fits of jealousy and bizarre, controlling behavior; he constantly took credit for Stratten's fame, stating that he was the reason for her success, and repeatedly attempted to usurp her fame when in the presence of celebrities.
Hugh Hefner reportedly encouraged Stratten to sever ties with Snider, calling him a "hustler and a pimp." Rosanne Katon and other friends warned Stratten about Snider's behavior. By August of 1980, Snider's personality had turned obsessive. He hired a private detective to follow Stratten and report back to him everything she did. Stratten meanwhile developed a relationship with director Peter Bogdanovich, with whom she began having an affair. Snider and Stratten separated and Stratten moved in with Bogdanovich. Stratten had also made plans to file for divorce from Snider.
Murder
On August 14, 1980, Snider and Stratten met at Snider's duplex, in which the couple had once lived along with their friend, Dr. Stephen Cushner. Cushner still lived in the home with his girlfriend and his girlfriend's best friend, but Cushner and the women were all out for the day when Stratten showed up at the home. What exactly transpired is unknown; at noon, Snider's private investigator called the apartment. He was aware that Stratten and Snider were meeting, and wanted to make sure that everything was going smoothly. Snider told the detective "Everything is going fine" and hung up.
At 5:00 p.m., Cushner's girlfriend and her friend arrived home to find Stratten's car in the driveway. The door to Snider's room was closed and Stratten was nowhere to be seen; the women assumed that the two were in the bedroom and wanted privacy. They stayed until 6:00 p.m. to watch the news, then left at 6:30.
At 7:00 p.m., Cushner arrived home and found Stratten's car in the driveway. He assumed that Snider and Stratten wanted privacy. One hour later, at 8:00 p.m., Cushner's girlfriend and her friend arrived back home from dinner. At 11:00 p.m., the private investigator called Cushner. According to the investigator, Snider had given him instructions to periodically check in over the course of the day, but Snider hadn't answered his private line for some time. The investigator told Cushner that he believed something was wrong and that someone needed to check on Snider and Stratten.
Shortly after 11:00 p.m., Cushner entered Snider's room. There he discovered Stratten dead from a gunshot wound to the head and Snider from a self-inflicted gunshot. [1] Peter Bogdanovich's movie They All Laughed (in which he had cast Stratten) received such bad press surrounding her death that no studio wanted to release it. Bogdanovich financed the release personally, but the movie proved to be a box office failure.
Dorothy Stratten is buried at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles, California.
References to Stratten
Jamie Lee Curtis portrayed Stratten in the 1981 television film Death of a Centerfold: The Dorothy Stratten Story.
Stratten's tragic story was portrayed in Bob Fosse's 1983 film Star 80 starring Mariel Hemingway (Stratten) and Eric Roberts (Snider). The movie was filmed in the very same house where the actual murder/suicide occurred.
Peter Bogdanovich wrote a book about her titled The Killing of the Unicorn that was released in the Summer of 1984. He later married her sister, Louise. They divorced in 2001.
Fellow British Columbian Bryan Adams co-wrote two songs about Stratten. The first, titled "Cover Girl" became a hit for the band Prism in 1980 and the second titled "The Best Was Yet to Come," written with Jim Vallance, appeared on Adams' 1983 album Cuts Like a Knife and was later covered by Laura Branigan.
Filmography
Following her appearance in Playboy, Stratten launched a modest acting career, appearing in five movies before her death:
- Skatetown USA (1979)
- Americathon (1979)
- Autumn Born (1979)
- Galaxina (1980) - her only starring role
- They All Laughed (1981) - released posthumously
She also appeared on television in Fantasy Island, the "Cruise Ship to the Stars" episode of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
See also
References
- ^ Peter Biskind, Easy Riders Raging Bulls (Bloomsbury, 1998), pp 388-389.