Latest / Spooky Season Podcasts 🎃 / HOLLYWOODLAND: Poltergeist Curse: Paranormal Activity, a Plane Crash, and Murder

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HOLLYWOODLAND: Poltergeist Curse: Paranormal Activity, a Plane Crash, and Murder · Spooky Season Podcasts 🎃

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Happy Monday, everyone out there in Hollywoodland. It's the good doctor, Dr.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Lundy Esquire. And welcome to The Working Week, which means
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: another peek into our archive of stories at the intersection
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: of Hollywood and true crime. Today, we've got our episode
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: on the poltergeist curse for you. Four different actors from
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: the 1980s horror franchise Poltergeist died within a six-year span.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Dominique Dunne was murdered. Julian Beck succumbed to stomach cancer.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Will Sampson suffered from a degenerative disease. and Heather O'Rourke's
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: death at the age of 12 was deemed distinctly unusual.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Was it all an eerie coincidence or something more sinister?
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: I hope you guys dig this episode on the so-called
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: poltergeist curse, and I hope you join me again on
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Wednesday for the wrap party, where we hear from you,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: the people, and then again on Friday for a deep
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: dive into the 2017 film, A Ghost Story.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Please check the show notes for more information. Hollywoodland is
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: a production of Double Elvis. The stories surrounding the legend
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: of the so-called Poltergeist Curse are insane. Freakish events were
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: reported on the sets of the original three horror films,
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: including a strangulation and an exorcism. The real-life haunting that
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: inspired the first movie was a paranormal event so bizarre
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: that it stumped detectives and parapsychologists alike. An actress from
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: the first Poltergeist was brutally murdered outside her own home
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: while the film was still scaring up business in movie theaters.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Two more actors died unexpectedly around the release of the
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: second film. Yet another found himself an unlucky passenger on
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: a flight that ended in a horrible crash that claimed
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: the lives of 27 people. Whether you believe in the
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: curse or not, you've got to admit that the Poltergeist
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Trilogy are great films. Well, okay, the first one at least.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Unlike that clip I played for you at the top
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: of the show that wasn't from a great film. That
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: was a fair use sample from the Library of Congress
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: of the Imperial Marimba Band performing 12th Street Rag in 1921.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: I played you that clip because I can't afford the
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: rights to a clip from Barry Levinson's Good Morning Vietnam.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: And why would I play you that specific slice of
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Viva Da Nang cheese? Could I afford it? Because that
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: was the number one movie in America on February 1st, 1988.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: And that was the day that Poltergeist actress Heather O'Rourke
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: mysteriously died at the age of 12, sending rumors of
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: a curse into overdrive. On this episode, a real-life haunting,
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: a brutal murder, a horrible plane crash, and the poltergeist curse.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Hollywoodland. Richard Lawson thought
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: it was his lucky day. First, he had been able
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: to beat the incoming snowstorm by switching his flight from
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Monday to Sunday, which meant that he'd be able to
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: escape New York and make it to Cleveland, where he
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: could honor his commitment to the Cleveland Cavaliers. As a
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: drug counselor for the NBA, Richard often extolled the virtues
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: of simply showing up. And if he needed a little
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: luck so that he could show up, well, he'd gladly
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: take it. And then more luck. the ticket agent at
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: LaGuardia recognized him. Not from his work with the NBA, which,
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: despite being real, honest work, was actually his side hustle.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Because Richard Lawson's day job was as an actor, with
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: appearances in recurring roles on everything from Remington Steel to Dynasty,
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: and most recently, as a regular cast member on the
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: daytime soap All My Children. The ticket agent noticed that
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Richard was sitting in coach, seat 6A, and as a
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: diehard All My Children devotee, quickly upgraded the actor to
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: seat 1F in first class. But now, from the leathery
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: comfort of his spacious first class seat, Richard had a sudden,
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: inexplicable feeling that his luck was about to change. The
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: snow was already coming down. Flights had been delayed all
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: day long. As crews worked to thaw out the side
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: of the plane, Richard thought he could actually feel the
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: warm chemical blast of de-icing fluid. And then, he felt
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: something else. A chill. His stomach went upside down. The
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: plane wasn't even moving, but something was off. Something was wrong.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Richard felt it deep in his gut. He had to
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: get off the plane. Now. Now. Hold up. He took
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: a deep breath. Calm down. The basketball team was waiting
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: in Cleveland. He had to show up. He needed to
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: chill the fuck out. Everything was going to be fine.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: Richard convinced himself that there was nothing to worry about.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: The plane took its place behind several others on the runway.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: Minutes passed. Ten minutes. Twenty minutes. The snow began to
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: come down harder. Thirty minutes. The plane slowly ambled down
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: the tarmac. and the wind blew stinging wet against the
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: cabin windows. As the plane was cleared for takeoff, Richard
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: started to worry again. All that de-icing had happened 30
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: minutes ago. What if the plane was covered in ice again?
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Richard's anxiety began to increase in direct proportion to the
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: plane's increase in speed as it taxied down the runway.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: And then, they were airborne. The plane was barely 50
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: feet in the air when it began to roll to
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: the right. It rolled some more, hard, and then the
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: nose pointed down, like it was a magnet being pulled
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: down to a steel tarmac. Passengers screamed, and the plane
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: was nearly sideways when it hit the ground. The crunch
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: was deafening. They caught air again briefly, and then once
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: more came down, hard, and the nauseating screech of metal
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: on asphalt rang out. Flames licked the windows from outside,
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: It was impossible for anyone to tell where the plane
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: was at or what direction it was headed in. It
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: was rolling over on itself, tumbling towards oblivion, literally splitting
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: apart at the seams. And suddenly, everything went black. The
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: noises stopped, and the passengers could barely see a thing,
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: but they knew they were upside down, held in place
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: only by their safety belts. And the sound of bubbles
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: began to percolate from all sides. Goddamn thing was underwater.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: The plane had landed in Flushing Bay, and it was
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: slowly sinking to the bottom. But Richard Lawson knew he
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: was going to die. He was trapped. His body was
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: pinned between two unseen objects. He began to panic for real.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: This was luck, all right. Bad luck. Maybe he shouldn't
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: have taken that upgrade to first class. Maybe he shouldn't
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: have switched flights. Maybe one of his minor decisions that
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: day had jinxed it. Maybe his bad luck was bigger
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: than his choices that day. As the plane cabin began
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: to fill with ice-cold salt water, Richard's mind flashed back
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: to that one movie he had made ten years earlier
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: in 1982. The legacy of Poltergeist and its sequels was infamous.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: Four actors dead in their wake. Some said the productions
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: were ill-fated and that the actors were the ones paying
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: the ultimate price, one by one. Richard Lawson struggled to
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: free himself from the overturned airport. as it was swallowed
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: by Flushing Bay. He knew it was futile. His fate
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: was clear. He was about to become the latest tragedy
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: in the poltergeist's curse. The skeletons weren't supposed to be real.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: Or that's what actress Jo Beth Williams assumed. Real skeletons
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: would be too creepy, too gross. But fake skeletons cost
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: too much and took too much time to manufacture. Real
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: skeletons were cheap and easy to come by. So it
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: was real skeletons that bobbed up in the muddy water
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: and brushed elbows with Jo Beth Williams in the iconic
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: pool scene from the original Poltergeist, Toby Hooper's 1982 horror classic.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Jo Beth's authentic reaction to her close encounter with actual
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: human bones helped make Poltergeist not only the highest-grossing horror
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: movie of 1982, but the eighth-highest-grossing movie of the entire year.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: And it wasn't the only authentic reaction in the movie.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Eleven-year-old Oliver Robbins, who played Jo Beth's son, was reportedly
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: nearly choked to death by his character's toy clown. as
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: the possessed toy wrapped a long arm around his neck
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: and tried to strangle him. According to Oliver, while they
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: were shooting the scene, the animatronic clown malfunctioned and the
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: arm actually constricted his airway. He struggled, his eyes bugged out,
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: he gasped for air, and the crew of adults thought
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: that Oliver was simply delivering a knockdown drag out performance.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: It wasn't until his face began to turn blue that
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: they realized something was terribly wrong. None of these terrifying
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: on-set mishaps fazed child actress Heather O'Rourke. who was all
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: of five years old when she was first cast as
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: Carol Ann, the youngest member of the Freeling family and
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: the character who makes contact with and later is abducted
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: by the malevolent spirits haunting her family's house. Heather was
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: told there was nothing to fear. In fact, she had
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: been taught how to pretend she was afraid. She hadn't
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: acted before, but she knew the business of making movies,
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: the make-believe business. Her older sister made movies. In fact,
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Heather was lunching in the MGM commissary with her mother
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: one day, waiting for her sister to wrap a scene,
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: when Steven Spielberg spotted her. Spielberg was Poltergeist's writer and producer,
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: and Heather fit his vision for Carol Ann Freeling to
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: a T. Spielberg was in the middle of making his
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: latest masterpiece, E.T. The Extraterrestrial, and was therefore contractually prohibited
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: from directing another movie at the same time, which is
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: why MGM hired Toby Hooper Texas Chainsaw Massacre fame to
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: direct Spielberg's Poltergeist script. But Spielberg couldn't divorce himself from
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: the production. He was on set just as much as Hooper.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: And according to which cast or crew members you ask,
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: he was the one who was actually really calling the shots.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: What Spielberg and Hooper did and didn't do, where one
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: of them ended and the other began, well, that was
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: just a little bit of Hollywood magic. It was all
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: part of the larger sleight of hand as Heather O'Rourke
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: would learn. It was how movies got made. It was
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: all make-believe. Just like the scary bits were make-believe. But
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: that wasn't entirely true. That was just something that adults
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: said to make children less frightened. The truth was, there
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: were things out there. Unexplainable things. Things that made the
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: hair stand up on the back of your neck and
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: the skin on your arms tink. Who or what those
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: things were, it was sometimes impossible to know. But one
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: thing was for sure. They're here. They had always been here.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: James Herman stood in the doorway to the bathroom speaking
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: to his son who was brushing his teeth. It was
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: a perfectly normal moment, downright prosaic actually, one that happened
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: nearly every day. But it was about to be disrupted
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: by a very abnormal occurrence, the kind that was beginning
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: to happen with alarming frequency at the family's three-bedroom single-story house.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: It was around 11 in the morning, Sunday, February 9th, 1958.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: Strange things had been happening in the Herman's home at
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: 1648 Redwood Path in Seaford, Long Island, for nearly a week.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: Bottles all throughout the house were popping open on their
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: own and falling to the floor. Shampoo, medicine, liquid starch
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: in the kitchen, bleach in the basement, a bottle of
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: holy water in the master bedroom. And none of the
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: bottles were sealed with corks or pop-tops. They all had
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: screw caps, which required several rotations to remove. James and Lucille,
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: along with their children, 12-year-old James Jr. and a 13-year-old
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: daughter also named Lucille, listened in varying degrees of confusion
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: and fear as the bottles popped and fell from nearby
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: rooms all week long. But they hadn't witnessed it firsthand
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: until now. As James Jr. worked the toothbrush back and
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: forth on his molars, James Sr. stood in the doorway
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: of the bathroom and watched in horror as a glass
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: medicine bottle moved shakily across the top of the sink,
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: 18 inches, give or take, entirely on its own. And
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: then it crashed and shattered into the sink basin. James Jr. jumped,
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: his toothbrush hit the floor. James Herman couldn't explain it.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: The sink top was level. The medicine bottle shattered with
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: such force that it must have been shoved. But by whom?
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: Or what?
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: When Nassau County Detective Joseph Tauzzi arrived at the Herman's
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: house to investigate. He made it clear that he didn't
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: believe in the supernatural. Ghosts, spirit specters, all horseshit. Surely
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: there was a reasonable logical explanation for what was going on.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: Perhaps a high-frequency radio transmission, a downdraft in the home's chimney.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: But unexplainable things continued to happen. The bottle of holy
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: water once again fell from the master bedroom bureau. When
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: James ran to retrieve it, seconds after hearing it fall,
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: he found it hot to the touch. Later that same day,
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: James Jr. and Lucille were watching TV when a porcelain
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: figure rose from a table, moved three feet through the air,
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: and fell to the floor. Detective Tozzi himself bore witness
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: to some truly weird shit. It challenged his logical just-the-facts mind.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: He went home each night and thought about all the
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: ways he could try to explain what he had seen.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: And the Hermans, on the other hand, had seen too much.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: And they were freaked the fuck out. So they got
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: the fuck out. On February 21st, a little over two
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: weeks since they had begun to experience the inexplicable, they
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: packed their bags and went to stay with a relative.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: And they were gone for two days. No supernatural activity
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: was detected at their home while they were away. and
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: neither did anything out of the ordinary happen at the
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: relative's house where they were staying. When they returned to
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: 1648 Redwood Path on the evening of February 23rd, they
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: were greeted by a flying sugar bowl. An 18-inch statue
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: of the Virgin Mary rose from a bureau and soared
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: 12 feet through the air. A large bureau tipped over
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: in James Jr. 's room. A record player weighing 10
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: pounds rose from a table and traveled 15 feet across
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: the room. The Herman's predicament became a local, even national, sensation.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: People all over the country wrote letters, made phone calls,
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: even showed up at the Herman's home to play armchair Ghostbuster.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: A priest performed a blessing. Another so-called holy man conducted
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: a ritual to cleanse the house. Some people blamed aliens,
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: others said it was communists. A March 1958 profile of
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: the Hermans in Life magazine raised another possible suspect, James Jr.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: The article reported that, quote, In the annals of Poltergeist,
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: it has been consistently noted that the mysterious motion of
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: objects has taken place in households containing adolescent children. It
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: further reported that James Jr. was often nearby when bottles
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: popped and porcelain figures hovered midair. Dr. Jay Pratt, a
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: psychologist from Duke University's parapsychology laboratory, made the trip to
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: New York from North Carolina to investigate whether or not
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: James Jr. 's mind was indeed influencing matter. Like Detective Tozzi, Dr.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: Pratt didn't believe in ghosts, but he did believe that
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: some people were able to, let's say, animate otherwise inanimate
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: objects with their own minds without even knowing it. It
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: is within the realm of possibility, Dr. Pratt once said,
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: that if 8 million New Yorkers at one time concentrated
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: on moving the Empire State Building, it might move a bit. Dr.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: Pratt was in Seaford for three days, and nothing moved
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: on its own, not the Empire State Building, not even
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: a decorative porcelain figurine. But as soon as he left
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: to return to North Carolina, it all started up again.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: Unlike the movies, there was no tidy ending to explain
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: the paranormal activity occurring in the Hermann's Long Island home.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: There was no discovery of an ancient burial ground beneath
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: the house's foundation, No 4'3 spiritual medium named Tangina who
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: was able to detect an unsettling dark presence called the Beast.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: No portal to another sphere of consciousness that douses those
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: who pass through it with a sloppy layer of ectoplasm. Those,
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: of course, were Hollywood embellishments to the true story of
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: the Hermanns' 1958 haunting. And that true story was used
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: nearly 25 years later as the basis for the poltergeist
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: screenplay written by Steven Spielberg, Michael Graess, and Mark Victor.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: In the movie, Carol Ann Freeling, played by five-year-old newcomer
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: Heather O'Rourke, the one Spielberg met in the MGM commissary,
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: is the manifestation of Life magazine's psychokinetic child. She doesn't
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: move objects with her mind, but she is clairvoyant and
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: communicates with ghosts directly through the family's TV set. Heather
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: talked to the TV set the way she talked to
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: her stuffed animals and dolls. It was make-believe. She knew
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: not to be scared for real. Her performance, however, in
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: the movie as a whole, scared the pants off audiences
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: in the summer of 1982. It also scared others. up
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: some serious box office bucks. Throughout the summer of 82
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: and well into the fall, for 24 weeks, Poltergeist raked
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: in more than $ 75 million in domestic gross. That said,
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: The number was peanuts compared to the money that the
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: other out-of-this-world Steven Spielberg blockbuster made when E.T. was released
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: the very next week. One cast member in particular was
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: never able to see Poltergeist reach its full box office potential.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: When she was cast as the eldest Freelink sibling, Dominique
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Dunn was a 22-year-old actress with a handful of TV
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: roles under her belt. Poltergeist was Dominique's first movie role
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: in her big Hollywood break. Her potential as one of
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: the decade's defining scream queens was palpable. Audiences loved her.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: One person in particular professed to love her more than
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: anyone else. But Dominique knew that John Thomas Sweeney was
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: confusing love with obsession, which was why she broke their
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: relationship off. Sweeney was more than just jealous and possessive.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: He was volatile, unhinged even. In August, when Poltergeist was
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: putting fear in the hearts of moviegoers, Dominique was busy
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: dealing with the horror film that was her life. During
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: an argument, Sweeney grabbed Dominique by the hair and pulled
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: so hard that he ripped out a chunk by the roots.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Dominique wrote Sweeney a letter but never sent it. We
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: are not compatible, it read. When we are good, we
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: are great, but when we are bad, we are horrendous.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: The bad outweighs the good. The whole thing has made
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: me realize how scared I am of you. A month later,
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: against their better judgment, Dominique was living with Sweeney again.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: Around 3 a.m. one night, they fought again. Sweeney wrapped
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: his hands around Dominique's neck and the two fell to
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: the floor. He was on top of her. He squeezed tight.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: Dominique struggled. She managed to escape. She scrambled out of
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: the house through the bathroom window. Sweeney heard her car
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: start up and ran outside. Suddenly, he was in front
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: of the car, but Dominique smashed her foot into the
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: gas pedal. Sweeney jumped out of the way to avoid
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: getting hit, and the car sped off into the LA darkness.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: Dominique Dunn escaped with her life, at least that time.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: But there was no escaping the fear she lived with constantly.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: She hid out at a friend's house. She only showed
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: her face in town when she was 100% sure that
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: Sweeney was at work. It wasn't ghosts or an unsettled
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: dark presence that would come for Dominique Dunn, but it
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: was a beast, and not a make-believe beast either. We'll
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: be right back after this word, word, word. Dominique Dunn
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: decided that she had left John Thomas Sweeney for the
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: last time. She didn't care that he was the right-hand
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: man to famed chef Wolfgang Puck in the kitchen of
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: the Chichi Malmaison restaurant on Melrose Avenue, or that he
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: continued to profess his undying love and remorse with a
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: fistful of flowers. In actuality, he did more evil with
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: those fists than prepping food and carrying flowers. Dominique cared
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: about her own safety. She cared about the fact that
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: when she filmed a cameo as a victim of abuse
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: on the gritty TV cop drama Hill Street Blues, She
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: didn't need any makeup to look battered. The black and
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: blue bruises on her neck that she wore to set
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: were real. Every time she looked in the mirror, it
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: was a reminder of that cycle of violence that she
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: continued to fall into. And she wanted out. October 30th, 1982,
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: 8.30 p.m. Poltergeist was still showing well at movie theaters
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: across the country. even if it had slipped from the
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: upper echelon of the box office while movies like First
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: Blood and An Officer and a Gentleman dominated. Not to
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: mention Spielberg's E.T., which was well on its way to
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: becoming the year's runaway smash. Didn't matter much to Dominique Dunn.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: She was already moving on, prepping for the next thing,
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: the next big success. Dominique was at her one-bedroom home
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: on Rangeley Avenue in West Hollywood, the same one she
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: had once shared with John Thomas Sweeney, She was running
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: lines with fellow actor David Packer for the pilot of
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: a new TV miniseries called V. Dominique and David paused
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: when they heard a car pull up outside the house.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: A car door opened and slammed shut. A voice, a knock. Fuck.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: She knew it was Sweeney. Again. Always fucking Sweeney. Dominique
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: opened the front door but left the door chain attached.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: She looked through the two-inch gap and saw Sweeney staring
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: back at her. He said he wanted to talk. He
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: was worked up, out of breath. She wasn't about to
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: let him inside, but she knew she had to get
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: rid of him. She hoped she could reason with him.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: She told David to wait inside. She undid the door chain,
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: walked out onto the porch, and closed the door behind her.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: David looked over the script in his hand to begin
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: to run lines on his own. He could hear Dominique
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: and Sweeney talking outside. Their voices slowly began to escalate.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: Sweeney's voice erupted. It dominated the argument with aggressive force.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: David could no longer concentrate on memorizing lines. He couldn't
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: make out what they were saying, but he knew it
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: wasn't good. A loud smacking sound made David jump and
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: send chills down his spine. And another one. And the
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: front of the house shook with each thud. David couldn't
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: see what was happening, but he knew someone or something
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: was hitting the house. It was rattling the windows. Then,
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: a scream. Another scream. This one more blood-curdling than the last.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: It horrified David. The screams were followed by more thuds.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: David panicked. He picked up the phone and called the police.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: LAPD responded and told him that Rangeley Avenue, West Hollywood,
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: that was out of their jurisdiction. Nothing they could do.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: Out of their jurisdiction? David couldn't believe it. He didn't
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: have the number for the sheriff's department offhand. LAPD wasn't
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: in a call-forwarding kind of mood, and David was terrified
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: to open the front door. He decided to slip out
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: the back door. And as he came up the side
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: of the house and approached the driveway, he saw Sweeney
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: trying to blend in with the bushes, but failing, crouching,
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: hiding like the cowardly piece of shit animal that he was.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: And then, David saw Dominique lying lifeless in the driveway.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: On November 4th, Dominique Dunn was taken off life support
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: at Cedars-Sinai. Her funeral was two days later. Four to
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: six minutes. That's how long medical examiners estimated John Thomas
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: Sweeney strangled Dominique Dunn outside her West Hollywood house. Four
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: to six minutes. The prosecuting attorney opened Sweeney's murder trial
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: by letting a stopwatch run for an agonizing four minutes
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: to drive the point home. But despite those chilling four
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: minutes of silence, justice did not prevail. First, the judge
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: would not allow another of Sweeney's former live-in girlfriends to
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: testify about the ten times he had beaten her during
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: their relationship, about how Sweeney broke her nose, punctured her eardrum,
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: collapsed her lung. The judge said, To make matters even worse,
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: the judge then granted the defense's motion to reduce the
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: charge from first-degree murder to manslaughter. In the defense's eyes,
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: the killing was not premeditated. It was committed in the
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: heat of passion. Despite their personal views on the matter,
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: members of the jury had to deliver a verdict within
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: the strict confines they were being presented. Sweeney was saved
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: by the law. He got a max of six years,
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: but wound up serving slightly less than three years, eight months.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: To Dominique's family, it was a miscarriage of justice. The trial,
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: the sentence, the time, all of it, it defiled the
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: memory of their daughter The tragic loss of Dominique Dunn
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: and the travesty of justice would haunt them for the
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: rest of their lives. When John Thomas Sweeney was released
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: from his appallingly short prison stay in 1986, coincidentally perhaps
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: it was around the same time that the sequel to
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: Poltergeist hit movie theaters. Steven Spielberg didn't return to co-write
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: or produce Poltergeist II The Other Side, but the other
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: original screenwriters did return. as did the majority of the
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: original cast. Heather O'Rourke, now 10 years old, was back
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: as Carol Ann. Since she was so young and her
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: exposure to the media was kept to a bare minimum,
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: there was very little documentation of how much Dominique Dunn's
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: death impacted Heather on or off the set. There's also
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: little documentation to back up the rumors about strange occurrences
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: that once again were reported to have happened during the
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: sequel's production. like the one that an actual exorcism was
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: performed in order to cleanse the set of evil spirits.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: While Poltergeist II retains a cult status among diehard movie fans,
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: it certainly wasn't the same phenomenon the second time around.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: It barely made half the amount of money as the
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: first installment. But there was one eerie similarity between the
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: first and second Poltergeist. A few months before Poltergeist II
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: was released, Julian Beck, the veteran actor who co-starred in
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: the sequel as Reverend Harry Kane, a.k.a. Evil Incarnate, succumbed
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: to stomach cancer at the age of 60. And then,
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: in June 1987, a little over a year after the
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: sequel came out, another of its co-stars, Will Sampson, who
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: played the Native American shaman protecting the family from Harry
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Kane's paranormal voodoo, died at 53 from post-operative kidney failure.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Like the unexplained activity that had taken place nearly 30
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: years earlier at the Herman family home in Long Island,
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: the fact that three actors died shortly after making poltergeist
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: films began to make people wonder. Was it all just
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: a coincidence? A random tragedy? Or was there something more?
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: Something that couldn't be seen. When principal photography wrapped up
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: for Poltergeist III in the summer of 1987, Heather O'Rourke
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: went home to Big Bear Lake in California. That winter,
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: she turned 12 years old. She began to prepare for
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: the press junket that would precede the third movie's Hollywood premiere.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: But Heather O'Rourke never made it to the premiere. She
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: never even got a chance to see the finished movie.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: What happened next? turned a series of strange coincidences into
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: a widespread theory that the Poltergeist movie franchise, just like
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: the Hermann's Long Island home, was cursed. March 22nd, 1992.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: Richard Lawson was still upside down. The entire plane was
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: still upside down.
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: U.S.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: Air Flight 405 was currently inverted in Flushing Bay. The
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: runway lights of LaGuardia flashed in the rear distance, and
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: the snow continued to fall sideways. Inside the plane, it
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: was all blackness. The water was on its way in.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: The oxygen was on its way out. It was all
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: happening way too fast. Richard struggled to free himself, but
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: he couldn't move. His head was stuck. What were these
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: two objects pinning his body down? Seats, maybe? Other passengers?
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: He was trapped. He was going to die. Up until
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: this moment, he thought it was all bullshit. All that
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: stuff about the so-called poltergeist curse. The one that had
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: claimed four actors from the three films. Fuck that. Curses
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: were make-believe. Those tragedies were real. Dominique Dunn died at
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: the hands of a violent abuser. Julian Sands had cancer.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: Will Sampson suffered complications from surgery. Heather O'Rourke, well, that
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: had come out of left field. Shocked everyone. They all
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: thought she had a nasty case of the flu. Her family,
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: the doctors. But her heart stopped on the way to
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: the hospital. They were able to revive her and life
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: flighted her to the Children's Hospital in San Diego. She
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: died on the operating table before the doctors could help.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: They didn't even know where to begin. No one knew
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: that she had been born with a birth defect that
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: made a section of her intestine abnormally narrow. She didn't
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: have the flu. She suffered a bowel obstruction that sent
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: bacterial toxins into her bloodstream. She died from a shock
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: caused by infection of her blood. The doctors said that
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: Heather's death was very unusual because she never exhibited symptoms
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: that anything was amiss at any point in her life.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: The problems seemed to have come from nowhere. Insights like
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: those drove the cursed conspiracy theorist wild. But Richard Lawson
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: put little credence into any conspiracy theory, especially one that
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: connected all of these tragedies. Until now. Because even though
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: his role as a parapsychologist in the first Poltergeist movie
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: was a small role Richard had nonetheless acted in a
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: poltergeist movie. And like four other actors before him, he
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: now found himself staring down an unexpected death. This was
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: his fate. He knew it now. He had been foolish
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: to doubt it in the past. He accepted what was
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: about to happen. He ceased to struggle. He wanted to
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: die with a spirit of peace. He wanted the people
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: who loved him on the other side of the wreckage
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: to know that he was okay. That he hadn't died afraid.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: He continued to hold his breath underwater and was about
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: to finally let it all go. One giant exhale and
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: done when something came over him. He felt a sensation
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: take over his body. It was warm, friendly, the opposite
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: of fear. The sensation enveloped his entire body, from the
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: top of his head to the bottom of his toes.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: And he heard a voice say, Get out of here.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: Take your seatbelt off and get out of here. Richard
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: put his hands on his belt buckle and released it.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: He felt the seatbelt release from around his waist. Get
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: out of here now, Richard. He put his hands on
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: the things that had trapped him in place for minutes,
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: things that had been unmovable before. Now they easily moved
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: to the side with the gentlest of touches from his hands.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: He could hardly believe it. His body began to move.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: He didn't know if it was up or down. He
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: just wanted to find an airport. When his head finally surfaced,
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: the twisted wreckage below his feet, kicking and thrusting him
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: toward salvation, he took a deep breath. He inhaled bay
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: water and jet fuel and spat it back out. He
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: looked up and an arm had reached down through a
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: hole in the side of the plane. He couldn't see
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: who it was attached to, if it was a man
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: or a woman, a first responder or another passenger. He
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: just saw the arm, and the hand at the end
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: of that arm was reaching out just for him. Let
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: me help you, a voice said. And with that, Richard
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: was hoisted from a watery grave to a place where
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: the snow and wind were so cold you knew you
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: were alive. 27 people died in the crash of U.S.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: Air Flight 405 that day. Richard Lawson later learned that
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: at least one of those deaths had been a passenger
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: sitting in row 6 back in coach, where he was
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: originally assigned. If that wasn't a sign, He didn't know
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: what was. His life hadn't been taken by some evil spirit.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: It had been saved by a benevolent force. Something unexplainable.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: The kind of thing that made the hair stand up
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: on the back of your neck and the skin on
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: your arms tingle. Who or what that thing was, it
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: was impossible to know. But curses? Bullshit. Curses weren't real.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: Just ask the Herman family in Long Island back in 1958.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: They eventually moved out of their supposedly haunted house and
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: never experienced another paranormal event again. Evil spirits didn't follow them.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: Maybe it was just some easily explained natural phenomenon that
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: had eluded the experts. But it was not a curse.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: Curses were just make-believe. And make-believe stuff, well, everyone knows,
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: it ought to be in pictures. I'm Jake Brennan, and
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: this is Hollywoodland.
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: Hollywood Land was created by Years Truly and is produced
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: in partnership with Double Elvis. Follow, like, rate, and review
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: Hollywood Land wherever you get your podcasts and get in
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: touch with us on social media at Double Elvis. If
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: you like Hollywood Land, check out my other show, the
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: award-winning Disgraceland, which.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: Looks at the world of music through the lens of
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: true crime. Just search for Disgraceland wherever you get your podcasts.