The success of a star parent may play some role in how his or her children turn out, but probably the most important factor is the care and nurturing the children receive from their parents as they grow. An unbalanced or eccentric star likely breeds unbalanced and eccentric children. One of the most capricious stars ever is Marlon Brando, and few families have experienced more pain and suffering than Brandos.
Suicide, homicide, addiction and violence have all touched the Brandos, and the actor himself took some of the blame for how his children turned out. Christian Brando, one of Brandos ten children, was born shortly before his parents divorced, and grew up shunting back and forth between his two parents, whose relationship was openly hostile and bilaterally abusive. Christian struggled with alcohol and drugs and had a nasty temper when under the influence.
Christian was often expected to be the parent for some of Brandos other children and he developed a special relationship with his half-sister Cheyenne, who was intelligent and beautiful. But no amount of Hollywood power or wealth could protect Cheyenne from her family history of alcoholism and mental illness. She became even more dependent on drugs after a serious automobile accident scarred her face and ended a promising modeling career.
She became pregnant by her longtime boyfriend, Dag Drollet, the son of a prominent Tahitian family. Drollet stood by her during her fights with depression, schizophrenia and chemical abuse, but eventually he separated from her. Angry with the man who dared break up with her, Cheyenne weaved a tale of domestic assault and mental cruelty and brother Christian believed her.
In the next bizarre turn of events, Christian fatally shoots Dag and provides Marlon Brando with a very big problem and an opportunity to try to save his children from themselves. The logo for Death Row Records is a blindfolded black man strapped into an electric chair at the moment of execution. Death Row is the label that made rappers such as Snoop Dog, Dr.
Dre, and Tupac Shakur famous, and its logo is emblematic of the violent posturing adopted by many gangsta rap artistsnot just Death Row artistsin their quest to sell their music. A rapper's public face is frequently a gangbanger's scar face, whether he has a genuine gang affiliation or not. But as rap's popularity grew in the 1990s, the violent posturing turned real.
Tales of beatings and public humiliations surfaced. Rappers slandered one another with increasing viciousness and frequency. An East Coast-West Coast feud developed, pitting Death Row Records, which is based in southern California, against New York's Bad Boy Entertainment.
The feud eventually escalated from a battle of words to a bloody war. Its two most prominent casualties were the rival rappers Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.
G. Who killed Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.
G and were they really the intended victims? Get the scoop on the suspects, motive and theories. Claudine Longet, the pretty French songbird, and handsome, virile ski star Spider Sabich were a beautiful couple.
That is, until he was at hot end of a smoking gun and she was at the other. During the funeral, she dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief, and now and then her shoulders convulsed. On one hand, she had a right to be there.
No one doubted that Spider had once been in love with Longet. On the other hand, she was utterly out of place. She was, after all, the woman who killed him.
She said it was an accident. His friends and family were not so sure. A search for the truth would play out over the ensuing year.
Before the last breathless gossip was whispered and the final expose written, the Sabich-Longet affair would develop into one of the decade's most riveting celebrity spectacles. Did this film legend die of an accidental overdose of sedatives? Did she commit suicide?
Or did she become such a liability to her lovers John and Robert Kennedy that she had to be murdered? Sometime after 10 p.m.
on August 4, 1962, Marilyn Monroe slipped into a coma caused by an overdose of sleeping pills. She would never regain consciousness. Shortly after she was discovered, a bizarre set of activities took place in her Brentwood home.
Some items were allegedly removed, including a diary and an incriminating note which could have far-reaching implications, if discovered. Exactly how and when Marilyn Monroe died sparked a debate that would last more than 40 years and generate many theories, including that of murder. Some of these theories even implicated John F.
Kennedy and his brother Robert in the mysterious death. While suicide is the official cause of death and probably the most widely believed, too many forensic facts are at odds with it. Although she experienced mood swings from time to time, she was in good spirits at the time of her death, planning to remarry Joe DiMaggio and making plans for future events and movies.
This may be considered the crime of the last century. t became the most publicized case in US history. It cost over $20 million to fight and defend, ran up 50,000 pages of trial transcript and called 150 witnesses.
No movie or television courtroom drama would have dared to unfold the way this one did, and it was not without coincidence that it evolved in Los Angeles, so often referred to by cynics as "La La Land." The rest of the country became obsessed with the empty, celebrity-dominated West Los Angeles backdrop to the crime. To many, particularly in minority communities, the trial of Orenthal James Simpson became not so much a determination of his guilt or innocence of murder in the first degree, beyond a reasonable doubt, but whether or not a black man could find justice in a legal system designed by and largely administered by whites.
To others, many of whom were white, the key question was whether a mostly minority jury would convict a black celebrity regardless of the weight of evidence against him. More than 10 years after the murder of his ex-wife and her friend, the former football star continues to stir controversy. Analysis of the murder and road rage trials, and forensics.
One of Hollywood's most successful directors is murdered. Before police arrive, a studio exec goes through his house searching for evidence of scandal, may have planted monogrammed underwear with a famous actress's initials. What is the studio trying to hide?
Who of the many suspects had a motive for murder? . popular director and the cast of characters.
Lana Turner was a true movie queen beautiful, glamorous, classy, and a damned good serious actress to boot. What she lacked was good judgment when it came to men. After her fourth unsuccessful marriage with only her daughter, Cheryl, to show for it, Lana was ready for something different.
His real name was Johnny Stompanato, but he called himself John Steele. He had the wavy hair and olive-skinned good looks of a movie star with a physique to match. When she found out that he was a gangster, bankrolled by the famous Mickey Cohen, she made the mistake of not ending the relationship right away.
He was at once appealing and very dangerous forbidden fruit, but poison fruit from the standpoint of publicity. Embarrassing publicity caused Lana to be seen in public less and less with him, particularly at the Oscar Awards ceremony when she had been nominated. Angry that he couldnt escort her on her night in the spotlight, Johnny left her bleeding and bruised in her bed.
Unable to get out of this messy and dangerous relationship without career-damaging publicity, Lana didnt take any legal action. But Cheryl, 14, emotionally torn apart by Johnnys brutality to her mother, took a knife and stabbed him to death. The coroner's inquest into Johnnys death was the most anticipated television event ever.
Depending on how Lana played this role of a lifetime, her daughter was either going to walk away a free woman or be charged with the death of her mother's boyfriend and spend the rest of her life in jail. Sid Vicious, born John Simon Richie, joined London's Sex Pistols band in 1977 and was still in his teens when they became one of the top bands in Britain. Ironically they were making money hand over fist as the icons of rebellion, the heart and soul of a generation alienated from rampant capitalism The femme fatale was Nancy Spungen, very troubled young woman from a well-off Philadelphia family, who was determined to bed this young Sex Pistols celebrity, and bed him she did with a vengeance.
Nobody could stand her as friends watched Sid become dominated by her. Ultimately he'd go cuckoo when he wasn't' with her. Finally, their lives became classic co-dependencies: heroin and each other, until one morning she was found stabbed to death and he was charged with her murder.
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