Historia de Sal Mineo
Historia de Sal Mineo
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00:00You can't tell me nothin' no more.
00:10Sal Mineo.
00:11In 1958, Sal Mineo was one of the most popular teen film stars in Hollywood.
00:1818 years later, the 37-year-old actor, practically forgotten and desperate for a comeback, was
00:25murdered just off the Sunset Strip.
00:27Tragically, Sal's career was truncated by violence.
00:33On this episode of Mysteries and Scandals, we'll piece together the bloody events on
00:36the night of February 12th, 1976.
00:40I got a call around 10, that something had happened.
00:44We heard these horrible screams, and he was saying, help me, help me, please help me.
00:50It was such a desperate plea.
00:53A phone call came in from West Hollywood station, that there had been a murder, a body found
00:57in an alley, of Sal Mineo.
00:59We'll hear from the district attorney who tried the Mineo murder case.
01:02I was put in the unusual position of arguing against eyewitness testimony.
01:09And we'll have an exclusive interview with the man the DA fingered as the murderer.
01:12No, I did not kill Sal Mineo.
01:16Plus, for the first time since Sal's death, members of the Mineo family speak out.
01:20When this happened, we were just devastated.
01:24I had buried Sal in that grave right alongside my father's.
01:29I'm A.J. Benzner.
01:30Join me as we take a look back at Sal Mineo.
01:33Sudden fame, sudden death.
01:50In interviews, Sal Mineo portrayed himself as a street-tough delinquent, similar to the
02:00characters he often played on film.
02:03But nothing could be farther from the truth, according to Sal's sister Serena and brother
02:07Victor.
02:08My brother Sal was never in trouble with the law.
02:11If I had to find one word to describe him, it was this very gentle person.
02:20Little Sal's rags-to-riches-to-rags story began in 1931, when his father, Salvatore
02:25Sr., immigrated from Italy to America.
02:28He came as a young man, about 17 years old, and started his quest for becoming a citizen,
02:40and met my mother, Josephine Alvisi.
02:43Salvatore and Josephine were both 19 when they were married on February 12, 1933.
02:49Mrs. Mineo was the dominating force of the household, and the perfect stage mother for
02:53her star-struck, spotlight-loving son, Sal.
02:56I know it's corny, but we were actually outside in front of our home, and a talent scout came
03:03up to Sal and myself.
03:06He said, how would you like to learn how to sing and dance?
03:12I would sit in the living room and listen to him practicing for hours.
03:21It was just amazing how he was so devoted to it.
03:25Sal's devotion paid off.
03:26In 1951, by age 11, Salvatore Jr. was performing on Broadway in Tennessee Williams' drama,
03:32The Rose Tattoo.
03:34Laurie Jacobson is the author of Hollywood Heartbreak.
03:37Sal, from the very beginning, was such a comer, and on Broadway, and many people don't
03:44know that he was Ewell Brenner's son in The King and I.
03:47He was the crown prince.
03:49I had no idea how special that was, to be doing a show on Broadway with such wonderful
03:56actors and Ewell Brenner and Gertrude Lawrence.
04:00Sal's success on stage led to work in television.
04:03Jose, venga tu madre pronto.
04:06Come on, speak English, you're embarrassing me.
04:09You ever been here before?
04:11I get told all the time.
04:13Nothing's wrong with yours truly.
04:15I'm strong.
04:16Yes.
04:17Jose, come here please.
04:22What's wrong with you?
04:24Nothing's wrong with me.
04:25Jose Garcia is strong like a bull.
04:28Look.
04:31You big bazooka.
04:33Hollywood soon took notice of the talented youngster, and in 1955, 15-year-old Sal was
04:38cast in a trio of films, including Mineo's most celebrated role.
04:42Plato in Rebel Without a Cause earned Sal his first Academy Award nomination as best
04:46supporting actor at the age of 16.
04:49Peter Bogdanovich.
04:51Well, I think Rebel Without a Cause was certainly a seminal film in the, what you could call
04:59intellectual and child revolution of the 50s and 60s, and it was made to seem more important
05:06because of Jimmy Dean's accidental death.
05:10A lot of the popularity that Jimmy would have enjoyed, I think, moved over to Sal.
05:14Sal Mineo's longtime agent, Tom Corman.
05:17I guess Sal in 57 must have been, what, 16?
05:2117, something like that.
05:23And he was just emerging, and he was very special, and he was very hot.
05:28And for a while, the hits continued.
05:30The 1956 Reform School melodrama Dino earned Sal an Emmy nomination and was released as
05:36a feature film in 1957.
05:38At 16, Sal made another splash with the TV musical special Aladdin.
05:43Couldn't physically cast it better, and he was wonderful.
05:46He had the sparkle, he had the twinkle.
05:48Yeah, who wouldn't twinkle for the piece of change Sal took home?
05:51$100,000, which was outrageous.
05:54They just screamed and yelled like stuffed pigs, but it didn't matter.
05:58We had the goods.
06:00In 1958, Sal had a brief fling with musical stardom.
06:04He released a solo album and a hit single.
06:06Mineo also landed the starring role in the bio flick about legendary jazz drummer Gene Krupa.
06:19You hear that, Papa?
06:20You boys caught the train again.
06:22Go, Gene, go!
06:23Just to show you how popular Sal Mineo was at the peak of his career,
06:29Bob Hope once joked that all the schools in the Bronx will be closed today
06:33because it's Sal Mineo's birthday.
06:35He was huge.
06:37Well, you know what they say, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.
06:40And today, most people think Sal Mineo is what you get from eating bad chicken.
06:44Just ahead, the dawning of the age of Aquarius and the beginning of the end
06:47for the teen sensation, the press nicknamed the Switchblade Kid.
06:51In the 1950s, Bronx-born actor Sal Mineo had more fan clubs than Elvis Presley.
06:56He'd been nominated for both an Oscar and an Emmy.
06:59And in January of 1960, Mineo was also featured on the cover of Life magazine.
07:031960 also marked the year of Sal's last major movie, Exodus.
07:08He was nominated for an Oscar for his role in Exodus as a young Israeli soldier.
07:17The film Exodus is a real turning point for Sal.
07:21It was the peak of his career and really signaled the end of his career.
07:27Four years and several box office bombs later,
07:30Mineo signed on for a supporting role in the John Ford Western Cheyenne Auto.
07:35On location, Sal met visiting journalist Peter Bogdanovich.
07:38I had no idea what Sal Mineo was like.
07:41At the time, I had probably a kind of prejudice against Sal
07:46because a lot of him was a teenage star.
07:48He only did teenage pictures.
07:50And that hurt Sal in his career at that time,
07:53that he was a passe teenage idol.
07:56Mineo suffered another setback when he starred in the 1965 psychosexual thriller,
08:01Who Killed Teddy Bear?
08:03This was his first foray into independent movies.
08:06It was a provocative movie.
08:08I remember we put Elaine Stritch into the movie.
08:11I was a lesbian owner of a disco
08:17who fell in love with Juliet Prouse
08:20and got strangled on 93rd and East End Avenue
08:25with a silk stocking by Sal Mineo.
08:27Now, who's not going to play that part?
08:29That's a great part.
08:31In 1969, 30-year-old Sal Mineo made the bold decision
08:34to direct and star in the homoerotic stage production of Fortune in Men's Eyes.
08:39It was very controversial.
08:41It involved nudity. It involved homosexuality.
08:44Sal loved to shock people and make people gasp.
08:49Audiences were certainly gasping over Sal's 18-year-old co-star.
08:53Found a young boy who was from Kansas
08:56who had a great look named Don Johnson.
08:59Since his teen years, there had been a lot of whispering
09:02that Sal was gay or bisexual.
09:04Once he did Fortune, no one was whispering anymore.
09:07Sal was not ashamed that he was gay.
09:10It was within the industry known, and it was fine.
09:13It didn't affect anybody.
09:15When I heard that Sal Mineo was gay,
09:17I said, oh, what a shame for all the young women in the whole wide world.
09:21He was very attractive.
09:23For the next few years, Sal struggled to find work,
09:26but in February of 1976, he was on the verge of a comeback.
09:29He triumphed in a play in San Francisco
09:31and was in final rehearsals for the Los Angeles engagement.
09:34Sal was a player once again, or so he thought.
09:37Fate had other plans for Mr. Mineo.
09:39Michael Genelin was the prosecuting attorney in the Sal Mineo murder case.
09:43He was rehearsing for this play on the night that he was killed,
09:47a play called P.S. Your Cat Is Dead.
09:50Ironic, the title.
09:52But he drove into his carport behind his apartment building,
09:58got out of the car, and we know he was confronted by someone.
10:02Mineo's neighbor in 1976, P.K. Strong.
10:06Suddenly we heard these blood-curdling screams.
10:10He was saying, help me, help me, please help me.
10:14We both ran out there, and here is Sal just lying on the ground.
10:20So I put Sal's head in my lap.
10:23He was just as pale as the concrete.
10:26He was moaning and kind of tossing his head back and forth,
10:30and I kept saying, please, Sal, it's okay. You're going to be okay.
10:34Sal's agent got a frantic call from Mineo's building manager.
10:38I got a call around 10 that something serious had happened.
10:41He said that Sal had been stabbed, and he didn't know if he was alive.
10:46Or could I come over right away?
10:48I just really felt him relax in my lap.
10:52He died before the paramedics ever got there.
10:55I just felt him die right there.
10:57Dan Tankersley was the homicide investigator assigned to the Sal Mineo case.
11:02The phone call came in from West Hollywood Station
11:05that there had been a murder body found in an alley.
11:08Mineo had been stabbed once in the chest, penetrating the heart.
11:13He was killed.
11:14We got there, and we told them who we were,
11:17and they showed us the body, identified it, and that was it.
11:21Actually, it was the beginning of a long and troubled investigation.
11:24Just ahead, what role did Mineo's sexuality play in his death?
11:28Were drugs involved?
11:30And was the wrong man arrested in the stabbing death of Sal Mineo?
11:34In sensation, Sal Mineo was murdered in an alley behind his West Hollywood apartment
11:38on February 12, 1976.
11:40Eyewitnesses claim they saw a tall young man with long blonde hair fleeing the crime scene.
11:45Now, it was pretty well known that 37-year-old Mineo was gay.
11:49So right away, rumors began that Sal was killed by a disgruntled boyfriend.
11:54He was very accessible, unfortunately too accessible.
11:57If you let too many people get into his life, they shouldn't have gotten into his life.
12:01We thought that it was probably a crime of passion.
12:04There's clubs that cater to homosexuals.
12:08We sent undercover people in.
12:10We even had people hypnotized.
12:13All those interviews turned to nothing.
12:17So what about the blonde guy seen near the crime scene?
12:20Eyewitnesses often have differences in descriptions of a suspect,
12:24even though they see the same person.
12:27So that blonde individual, we could never locate.
12:31Another rumor on the street was that Mineo was killed over drugs.
12:35Well, if he was dealing drugs, he was the poorest drug dealer in America.
12:39We spent weeks sometimes tracking down a rumor.
12:42What turned out to be just a rumor.
12:44And some of them were involved in narcotics.
12:47More than two years after Mineo was murdered, a suspect was finally taken into custody.
12:52But instead of a tall young man with long blonde hair,
12:55police arrested a black 21-year-old short guy with an afro and a record a mile long.
13:00His name was Lionel Ray Williams.
13:03Ironically, the police had interviewed Williams shortly after the murder.
13:06I received a phone call that he had a suspect that had been arrested for robbery.
13:11And he wanted to give information on the murder of Sal Mineo.
13:16And he told us at the time that Sal had been killed as a result of a dope negotiation.
13:22We let him loose with the proviso that he get better information and come back to us.
13:28But the next time L.A. authorities heard about Williams
13:30was when they were contacted by prison officials in Michigan.
13:33He was in prison in Michigan for forgery.
13:36A whole lot of bad checks.
13:39Quite a bit of money.
13:40One of the prison guards had overheard Williams tell another inmate that he had killed Mineo.
13:49I did not confess to anybody that I killed anybody.
13:53His wife, Teresa Williams, contacted a district attorney's investigator.
14:00That's all crap. That's not true.
14:03Police went to her. She had a prostitution case.
14:06And was going to take my kids from her.
14:09It drove her to the point where she put a bullet in her head.
14:12She tried to kill herself.
14:14The police were making her lie against her husband.
14:18And that she don't want to live anymore.
14:21Glenn O'Reilly Williams is an arrogant man.
14:23I think that to this day he thinks in some way that he is going to be able to convince people that he didn't do this.
14:30When will the conspiracy end?
14:32You know, when I'm dead?
14:34The gigs up right after the break.
14:36A surprise twist. A confession.
14:38And the final verdict in the mystery of who killed Sal Mineo.
14:42After the slaying of 37-year-old actor Sal Mineo, convicted felon Lionel Ray Williams was charged with murder.
14:48On January 12, 1979, Williams faced a jury of his peers.
14:53All the jurors were white.
14:56And they were from like, I'd say 35 to maybe 70 years old.
15:01They needed somebody to try the case.
15:03And they said, Mr. Gentleman, you're a senior trial lawyer. Earn your pay.
15:07I did what any trial lawyer would do. I prepared.
15:10Lionel Ray Williams had committed a whole series of robberies.
15:14We proved that he had committed a robbery half a mile to three-quarters of a mile from where Mineo was killed.
15:23Within probably 30 minutes of killing Mineo.
15:28Michael Gillen is a professional liar.
15:32He's an attorney.
15:35And he trains himself to be a liar so he can get people convicted.
15:41We'll let you determine who's lying here.
15:43The next piece of evidence was a car seen leaving the crime scene.
15:47The killer was seen to run down the alleyway to the street east of where the killing took place.
15:57He jumped into a yellow car and drove off.
16:03Williams admits he was driving a yellow rental car but claims he wasn't anywhere near the crime scene that night.
16:09Small yellow car, it broke down.
16:11I had that car towed back to O'Connor Lincoln on the 13th.
16:18Although the murder weapon was never found, tests were performed to determine what kind of knife was used in the killing.
16:24Williams had a very curious tattoo on his arm.
16:27He had tattooed on his arm a knife.
16:33Not a kitchen knife, it would be something you take with you if you went hunting.
16:37We had the replica of that knife tattooed on his hand, on his arm.
16:41There it was.
16:42That's another lie that they put down.
16:45They're saying that I tattooed the same knife that was used in the murder.
16:51During the trial, several witnesses testify that Williams admitted to murdering Sal Mineo, a simple case of an attempted robbery gone bad.
16:58No, I didn't. No, I didn't.
17:01The officers, they told him exactly what to say.
17:05What was confusing at the trial and still causes speculation is the testimony of eyewitnesses who saw a white man at the scene of the crime.
17:13I don't look like I'm white, do I?
17:15We had three very different descriptions.
17:20In my closing argument, I said, I cannot draw a complete picture of the face of Lionel Ray Williams.
17:29But what you can do is, using the dots as pieces of evidence, you can connect enough of the pieces of evidence so that you draw enough of the face so you can say, that's the murderer.
17:44And the jury agreed with the prosecution.
17:46Three years and one day after the murder of Sal Mineo, Williams was found guilty of ten counts of robbery and one count of second degree murder.
17:54He was sentenced to 51 years to life.
17:57But just 11 years after he was convicted of killing Sal Mineo, Williams was paroled in July of 1990.
18:03Soon after, he was arrested again for a robbery and homicide.
18:07Despite all of Williams' excuses and denials, Ray sang a much different tune back when he was taken into custody by Detective John Spitzer.
18:14Williams had a fictitious driver's license under the name Raymond Williams.
18:21I asked Williams why he had the driver's license under the false name, and he indicated that he didn't want to be hassled by the police.
18:33And Mr. Williams stated, man, I killed Sal Mineo, that's a hassle.
18:40For Williams, the death of Sal Mineo has been a hassle.
18:43For Sal's friends and family, it's been a tremendous loss.
18:46The pain is as raw today as it was in 1976.
18:50Sal's sister-in-law, Ann Mineo.
18:53Sal was a remarkable brother.
18:59Forget in-law. He was a good brother.
19:02He was honest. He was passionate. He was sincere.
19:10He liked my jokes.
19:12He had a wonderfully comic side to him.
19:15He was a very funny fellow.
19:17An enormously talented kid, just enormously talented.
19:21I was very fond of him.
19:23Interesting, individualistic in every way.
19:26He was darling, just darling.
19:28There were very few people who had that kind of presence.
19:32And he had it. He had it.
19:35As a friend, he's irreplaceable. I miss him all the time.
19:39Mineo's funeral was held on February 17, 1976 at the Catholic Church near the New York estate Sal purchased for his mom 20 years earlier.
19:48Fans, friends, and family joined together to pay their final respects.
19:53My brother, Sal Mineo, a rare, very special person.
19:58A gentleman whose sensitivity and understanding affected everyone he met.
20:04Those who loved him knew that he loved life and that he lived his life with courage, with abandon, with humor, and with grace.
20:14I will miss you, Sal. God bless.
20:19During his short life, Sal always said his success was due to the fact he was in the right place at the right time.
20:25Little did Mineo know that his life would end because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
20:30High Above Hollywood, I'm A.J. Benzo.
20:48© BF-WATCH TV 2021