Thelma Todd was one of the most popular and successful actors of her time. So the whole nation was shocked when she suddenly and mysteriously turned up dead. Was it suicide or something more sinister? This, and other famous Hollywood mysteries, have more questions than answers.
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00:00Thelma Todd was one of the most popular and successful actors of her time,
00:03so the whole nation was shocked when she suddenly and mysteriously turned up dead.
00:07Was it suicide or something more sinister? This and other famous Hollywood mysteries
00:11have more questions than answers.
00:14The filming of 1997's mega-hit Titanic was a heinously complicated affair that included
00:19a massive 775-foot recreation of the doomed ship, a tank that held 17 million gallons of water,
00:25and a ballooning budget that allegedly had studio executives sweating.
00:28Workers also told tales of injuries and implied that director James Cameron had gone off the
00:33rails. All of that faded when Titanic became the first movie to earn over $1 billion worldwide
00:38and rocketed actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet to superstardom.
00:42But one mystery still remained. Who drugged the chowder?
00:45It happened during filming on August 9, 1996. Cast and crew dined on clam chowder that was
00:51seemingly a legitimate product of craft services. But as the evening wore on,
00:55many began to have disorienting, hallucinatory experiences. Many of the affected,
00:59including Cameron and actor Bill Paxton, were sent to the hospital for suspected food poisoning.
01:05But that's not what it was.
01:06We ladled up the clam chowder, not knowing it was laced with PCP.
01:10Despite a police investigation, no one's sure who's responsible,
01:14though many suspect it was someone who'd been fired by the prickly Cameron.
01:18Even the most skeptical may look at the weird events that hit the filming of The Exorcist
01:22and wonder if the film might actually have been cursed. First, it seems,
01:25was the matter of much of the set burning down just as production was about to begin.
01:29Then, deaths in the families of stars Linda Blair and Max von Sydow meant both actors
01:34delayed their start times. Coupled with the loss of a major prop during transit,
01:37these were all annoying setbacks for the crew. But things got more sinister thereafter.
01:42According to actor Ellen Burstyn, nine people related to the production died during filming.
01:46Others experienced significant injuries, from the loss of a carpenter's thumb to a broken back
01:51suffered by Blair during a particularly intense scene. However, many of the casting crew remained
01:56skeptical, dismissing the upsets as common for long and involved film shoots. Others asked a
02:00priest who consulted on the film to perform a real-life exorcism, but he declined for fear
02:05of making everyone all the more riled up. He also suggested that the trouble was most likely just
02:09bad luck. But on the other hand?
02:12Could it be… Satan?!
02:16Though it happened more than 40 years ago, actor Natalie Wood's tragic death remains one of the
02:20most enduring Hollywood mysteries. In November 1981, Wood, her husband Robert Wagner, and fellow
02:26actor Christopher Walken took a brief jaunt on the yacht Splendor. On November 28, all four enjoyed
02:31a boozy dinner. They'd made it back to the Splendor fine, but by 11.05 in the evening, Wood
02:36and the yacht's small dinghy had gone missing. No one bothered to call the Coast Guard for four
02:40hours. Her body was found in the water the next morning. An autopsy revealed Wood had a blood
02:45alcohol level of 0.14 percent and sported bruises the medical examiner said were consistent with a
02:50fall. But while some accepted that conclusion, others believed Wood was killed. In 2011,
02:55an addition to the autopsy suggested that the bruising may have happened before Wood entered
02:59the water. It also noted conflicting witness statements, which muddied the timeline of her
03:03disappearance and couldn't reveal whether or not Wagner and Wood argued that fateful night.
03:07As a result, the case was officially reopened, something her sister was grateful for.
03:12I think what's important is to get to the bottom of what actually did happen."
03:15In 2013, the L.A. County Sheriff's Department officially changed her cause of death from
03:19accidental drowning to drowning and other undetermined factors. And in 2018,
03:24Wagner was declared a person of interest. But Wagner was officially cleared in 2022,
03:28and no one has ever been charged as the case remains open.
03:32During the 90s, things must have been looking fairly rosy for child star Joe Pickler. By the
03:36middle of the decade, he had moved to Los Angeles, and by 2001, he had starred in the third and fourth
03:41Beethoven movies. Yet the next year, he returned to his hometown of Bremerton, Washington. His
03:46mother, Kathy, had decided that he needed to step back from his film career. She told the Kitsap Sun,
03:50He's a good boy and took it well, but he wasn't really happy about it."
03:54Pickler reportedly planned to return to acting, but in the early hours of January 5,
03:582006, he went missing at the age of 18. His apartment was found unlocked and the lights on,
04:03but his wallet and keys were missing. Then, on January 9, Pickler's unoccupied car was found
04:08in Bremerton. Pointing to a downbeat note that Pickler left behind, investigators suggested he
04:13had died by suicide. However, his family pushed back against the idea, and no one found any
04:17definitive evidence of what happened to him. Pickler remains missing today.
04:22Bob Crane's interests weren't exactly secret. Though he was widely known as the namesake star
04:27of the 1960s TV show hit Hogan's Heroes, those who were closer to him also knew that Crane had a dark
04:32side as a womanizer and a serious appetite for extramarital affairs and adult films,
04:37which may have helped derail his career. Crane was still hoping for a second chance
04:41in Hollywood when he was found dead in his Scottsdale, Arizona apartment in 1978,
04:46brutally beaten by an unknown assailant who had left behind a gory crime scene. That scene was
04:50contaminated by a number of visitors whom police let in, including Crane's adult son Robert,
04:55Crane's business manager, and his lawyer. Many suspected Crane's longtime crony John Henry
05:00Carpenter, who had recently been seen feuding with Crane and whose car contained traces of
05:04type B blood, the same as Crane's. Yet, there was little else to go on. Even years later,
05:09DNA tests of the crime scene evidence were inconclusive, and Carpenter was acquitted
05:13of charges in 1994. Others have wondered if Crane's killer was a woman's angry partner,
05:18a person involved in his amateur X-rated film work, or even someone sent by Crane's
05:23soon-to-be-divorced second wife. But the truth remains a mystery.
05:26There were always two people in my mind, John Carpenter or my stepmother, for different reasons."
05:33The death of George Reeves was a shock. The actor, who played the Man of Steel on the 1950s
05:38television show The Adventures of Superman, was reportedly plagued by typecasting due to
05:42the show's popularity. He was also suffering from personal problems. After he began dating
05:46Lenore Lemon, his previous girlfriend Toni Mannix began to harass him, to the point where he filed
05:51a restraining order against her. On June 16, 1959, Reeves was found dead at home. Police said
05:57he died by suicide, but not everyone bought it. Wasn't it odd that Lemon and three friends were
06:02downstairs when Reeves died? Lemon even allegedly told guests that Reeves was going upstairs to harm
06:06himself, though his mother told reporters he was in no such state of mind. Police also allegedly
06:11discovered odd bruises on Reeves' body, as well as unexplained gunshot holes in the bedroom where
06:16he was found. Moreover, law enforcement was only called 45 minutes after Lemon heard gunfire.
06:20Today, no one's sure if it really was death by suicide, murder at the hands of a disaffected
06:25Lemon, a hit put out by Mannix, or something else.
06:29Sean Flynn was the son of two actors, Lily DeMita and screen swashbuckler extraordinaire
06:34Errol Flynn. He made appearances in several films in the 1960s, but it soon became clear
06:38that the younger Flynn was more interested in journalism than acting. In April 1970,
06:43Flynn traveled to Cambodia. There, in the midst of the Vietnam War that had spilled over into
06:47the neighboring nation, the 28-year-old Flynn and fellow wartime photographer Dana Stone suddenly
06:52went missing. They had last been seen on a motorcycle driving off to investigate a Viet
06:56Cong checkpoint. The most likely conclusion? Flynn and Stone had been captured and killed by
07:00unfriendly combatants. DeMita had her son declared dead in 1984, and unconfirmed reports supported
07:06this idea, with some claiming that the two photojournalists had been captured and executed.
07:10Unidentified remains were recovered in 2010, but a DNA test showed that they did not belong to Flynn,
07:16leaving the question of his final fate still unanswered.
07:19In 1922, Hollywood actor and director William Desmond Taylor was found dead,
07:23and the police officers who responded to his bungalow were initially told that it was a
07:27natural death. Yet, upon discovering Taylor's body, they found he had been shot in the back.
07:31Even more suspicious? Other Hollywood types were already on the scene and going through his things.
07:36The matter of who killed Taylor and why soon became a major news story.
07:40Actor Mary Miles Minter suffered a serious career hit after her nightgown and a love
07:44letter from Taylor to her were found in the bungalow. Her mother, Charlotte Shelby,
07:48was known to threaten others for getting too close to her daughter, and it was reported that
07:51the person who provided an alibi for Shelby the night of Taylor's death received a mysterious
07:55but hefty payout. Yet, there was also speculation that Taylor was gay, and at least some of the
08:00people digging through his belongings were covering up that fact, perhaps even planting
08:04Minter's nightgown. Some pointed the finger at Taylor's former valets, Edward Sands and Henry
08:09Peavy, both of whom had criminal records. However, the mystery of Taylor's murder has never been
08:14solved. In the 1920s and 30s, Thelma Todd became a highly successful comedic actress.
08:19Todd's life included an on-again, off-again affair with the married director Roland West,
08:23as well as a short-lived marriage of her own to producer and petty criminal Pat DiCicco.
08:27After her divorce was finalized in 1934, Todd opened Thelma Todd's Sidewalk Café,
08:32a restaurant in Pacific Palisades, with West. On the night of December 15, 1935,
08:37Todd reportedly went to a nightclub. A taxi driver later told police that he had dropped
08:42her off safely at home close to 4 a.m. Yet, Todd was found the next morning in her garage,
08:46slumped over in the front seat of her car. She was apparently dead of carbon monoxide poisoning,
08:51still dressed in her jewelry and evening wear. An autopsy and grand jury concluded that Todd's
08:56death was an accident, speculating she had been locked out of her home. Not wanting to wake West,
09:00who was also a neighbor, for a key, she may have attempted to keep warm in her running car.
09:05But others claim that the remaining fuel in the car and injuries on Todd
09:08indicated some sort of conspiracy. Was she killed by her ex-husband,
09:11West's jealous wife, or had Todd died by suicide? No one knows, even today.
09:17Jean Spangler had a tough time in 1940s Hollywood. She landed a few bit parts,
09:21sure, but had to turn to less prestigious dancing to keep her career going. Spangler
09:25also had a daughter, Christine, with ex-husband Dexter Benner, and was embroiled in a nasty
09:29custody battle for years. On Friday, October 7, 1949, Spangler told her sister-in-law Sophie
09:35that she was going to work. However, Spangler was on no call sheet that night, and Sophie
09:39claimed that Spangler had given her a wink while saying this. Spangler never made it home.
09:43By Sunday, her handbag was found in Los Angeles' Griffith Park, sporting a broken
09:47handle and in notes in Spangler's handwriting which read,
09:50"'Kirk, can't wait any longer. Going to see Dr. Scott. It will work best this way while
09:54Mother is away.'"
09:55Despite a police investigation and a $1,000 reward, no more was found with Spangler. So,
10:00who were Kirk and Dr. Scott? Investigators suspected actor Kirk Douglas, who had starred
10:05in Young Man with a Horn, where Spangler had been an extra. He claimed that while he remembered
10:09speaking with her, he knew nothing else. Likewise, the LAPD couldn't find anyone named Dr. Scott who
10:14knew anything of Spangler. Theories about her disappearance cover everything from organized
10:18crime or a failed back-alley medical procedure to Spangler's ex-husband and even the Black Dahlia
10:23killer as agents of Spangler's end. No clear evidence has ever emerged.