Jayne Mansfield is Killed in Car Crash (1967) & Katharine Hepburn Dies (2003)

On this date in 1967, Blonde bombshell actress Jayne Mansfield is killed when the car in which she is riding strikes the rear of a trailer truck on Interstate-90 east of New Orleans, Louisiana.

Mansfield had been on her way to New Orleans from Biloxi, Mississippi, where she had been performing a standing engagement at a local nightclub; she had a television appearance scheduled the following day. Ronald B. Harrison, a driver for the Gus Stevens Dinner Club, was driving Mansfield and her lawyer and companion, Samuel S. Brody, along with three of Mansfield's children with her ex-husband Mickey Hargitay, in Stevens' 1966 Buick Electra. On a dark stretch of road, just as the truck was approaching a machine emitting a thick white fog used to spray mosquitoes (which may have obscured it from Harrison's view), the Electra hit the trailer-truck from behind. Mansfield, Harrison and Brody were all killed in the accident. Eight-year-old Mickey, six-year-old Zoltan and three-year-old Marie, or Mariska, had apparently been sleeping on the rear seat; they were injured but survived. 

Born Vera Jayne Palmer in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, Mansfield arrived in Hollywood as a young wife and mother (to daughter Jayne Marie) in 1954, determined to become an actress. From the beginning, she wasn't afraid to make the most of her assets, particularly her curvaceous figure, flowing platinum blonde hair and dazzling smile. Cast in the Broadway comedy "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?", she turned heads as a voluptuous, dumb blonde movie star; in one famous scene she appeared in nothing but a white towel. She famously appeared nude in the 1963 comedy "Promises! Promises!", and stills from the set appeared in Playboy magazine, but her best performance was generally believed to have been in 1957's "The Wayward Bus," based on the John Steinbeck novel and costarring Joan Collins. While her screen career amounted to about a dozen less-than-memorable films, off screen she played the movie star role to perfection, and became one of the most visible glamour girls of the era. In 1958, after her first marriage ended in divorce, she married Hargitay, a former Mr. Universe; they divorced in 1963, and Mansfield was married once more, to Matt Climber, in 1964. That marriage also ended in divorce and she was awarded custody of their child, Octabiano. Mariska Hargitay, injured in the accident that killed her mother, later launched her own acting career, most memorably starring in the long-running television drama "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit."

On this date in 2003, Katharine Hepburn, a four-time Academy Award winner for Best Actress and one of the greatest screen legends of Hollywood’s golden era, dies of natural causes at the age of 96, at her home in Old Saybrook, Connecticut.

Hepburn was born into a well-to-do New England family, the daughter of a prominent surgeon, Dr. Thomas Norval Hepburn, and his wife, Katharine Houghton, a suffragist and birth control advocate. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania in 1928 and became a stage actress; her role in the 1932 Broadway production The Warrior’s Husband led to a Hollywood screen test and a contract with RKO studios. In Hepburn’s debut film, A Bill of Divorcement (1932), she starred opposite John Barrymore and was directed by George Cukor, who would become her close friend and helm many of her films (including 1933’s Little Women, 1935’s Sylvia Scarlett, 1938’s Holiday and 1949’s Adam’s Rib). 

Heralded as a fresh, unconventional beauty and a talented actress, Hepburn won her first Best Actress Oscar for only her third film, Morning Glory (1933). A string of films made with RKO had mixed degrees of success, and Hepburn began earning a reputation as arrogant and self-absorbed on set, though she was always meticulously prepared for her roles. She also refused to play by the rules governing typical Hollywood starlets at the time, appearing publicly in pantsuits and without makeup and refusing to sign autographs or grant interviews. After modest successes with Stage Door (1937) and Bringing Up Baby (1938), Hepburn decided to buy out her contract with RKO, a move that gave her unusual control over her career for that time. Her faltering image was revived by the success of The Philadelphia Story, which had originally been written for Hepburn to play on Broadway and was then adapted into a hit 1940 movie co-starring Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart. Several years later, Hepburn met the actor Spencer Tracy while co-starring with him in Woman of the Year (1942). Though Tracy, a devout Catholic, remained married, the two began a romantic relationship that would last until Tracy’s death nearly three decades later (Hepburn had divorced her husband of six years, Ludlow Ogden Smith, in 1934). On-screen, they acted in nine films together, including Adam’s Rib (1949), Pat and Mike (1952) and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967). Tracy died just weeks after shooting was completed on the last film, for which Hepburn would win her second Best Actress Oscar. 

Hepburn was awarded her third Oscar for her starring turn in A Lion in Winter (1968). She continued to appear in films and on television (including an Emmy-winning performance in 1976’s Love Among the Ruins) throughout the next three decades, winning a fourth Best Actress statuette for 1981’s On Golden Pond. Nominated for 12 Academy Awards in her lifetime (a record that would stand until 2003, when Meryl Streep received her 13th nomination), Hepburn never attended the awards show to collect her honors in person. In 1986, she broke her longtime silence about her relationship with Tracy (his widow had died in 1983) in a televised tribute to the actor. She read aloud a poignant letter she had written to him about his drinking and about their last years together. She later included the letter in her best-selling 1991 autobiography Me: Stories of My Life. In her final screen appearance, in 1994’s Love Affair (a remake of the classic 1939 film), Hepburn appeared frail but composed as ever in her portrayal of the aristocratic aunt of Warren Beatty’s character. In 1999, the American Film Institute (AFI) named Hepburn as the greatest female actress in the history of American cinema. When she died on June 29, 2003, the lights on Broadway were dimmed for an hour to mark the passing of one of entertainment’s brightest stars.

Joseph Smith, Founder and Leader of the Mormon Religion is Murdered - 1844

On this date in 1844, Joseph Smith, the founder and leader of the Mormon religion, is murdered along with his brother Hyrum when an anti-Mormon mob breaks into a jail where they are being held in Carthage, Illinois.

Born in Vermont in 1805, Smith claimed in 1823 that he had been visited by a Christian angel named Moroni who spoke to him of an ancient Hebrew text that had been lost for 1,500 years. The holy text, supposedly engraved on gold plates by a Native American historian in the fourth century, related the story of Israelite peoples who had lived in America in ancient times. During the next six years, Smith dictated an English translation of this text to his wife and other scribes, and in 1830 The Book of Mormon was published. In the same year, Smith founded the Church of Christ, later known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Fayette Township.

The religion rapidly gained converts, and Smith set up Mormon communities in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. However, the Christian sect was also heavily criticized for its unorthodox practices, such as polygamy. In 1844, Smith announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States. Although he did not have great enough appeal to win, the idea of Smith as president increased anti-Mormon sentiment. A group of dissenting Mormons began publishing a newspaper that was highly critical of the practice of polygamy and of Smith's leadership; Smith had the press destroyed. The ensuing threat of violence prompted Smith to call out a militia in the Mormon town of Nauvoo, Illinois. He was charged with treason and conspiracy by Illinois authorities and imprisoned with his brother Hyrum in the Carthage city jail. On June 27, 1844, an anti-Mormon mob stormed in and murdered the brothers.

Two years later, Smith's successor, Brigham Young, led an exodus of persecuted Mormons from Nauvoo along the western wagon trails in search of religious and political freedom. In July 1847, the 148 initial Mormon pioneers reached Utah’s Valley of the Great Salt Lake. Upon viewing the valley, Young declared, "This is the place," and the pioneers began preparations for the tens of thousands of Mormon migrants who would follow them to settle there.

Congress Passes the Mann Act - 1910

On this date in 1910, Congress passes the Mann Act, also known as the White Slave Traffic Act.

This legislation was ostensibly aimed at keeping innocent girls from being lured into prostitution, but really offered a way to make a crime out of many kinds of consensual sexual activity. The outrage over "white slavery" began with a commission appointed in 1907 to investigate the problem of immigrant prostitutes. Allegedly, women were brought to America for the purpose of being forced into sexual slavery; likewise, immigrant men were allegedly luring American girls into prostitution.

The Congressional committees that debated the Mann Act did not believe that a girl would ever choose to be a prostitute unless she was drugged and held hostage. The law made it illegal to "transport any woman or girl" across state lines "for any immoral purpose." In 1917, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of two married California men, Drew Caminetti and Maury Diggs, who had gone on a romantic weekend getaway with their girlfriends to Reno,Nevada, and had been arrested. Following this decision, the Mann Act was used in all types of cases: someone was charged with violating the Mann Act for bringing a woman from one state to another in order to work as a chorus girl in a theater; wives began using the Mann Act against girls who ran off with their husbands. The law was also used for racist purposes: Jack Johnson, heavyweight champion of the world, was prosecuted for bringing a prostitute from Pittsburgh to Chicago, but the motivation for his arrest was public outrage over his marriages to white women.

The most famous prosecutions under the law were those of Charlie Chaplin in 1944 and Chuck Berry in 1959 and 1961, who took unmarried women across state lines for "immoral purposes." Berry was convicted and spent two years in the prime of his musical career in jail. After Berry's conviction, the Mann Act was enforced only sparingly, but it was never repealed. It was amended in 1978 and again in 1986; most notably, the 1986 amendments replaced the phrase "any other immoral purpose" with "any sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense."

Mafia Boss John Gotti is Convicted (1992) & William Bayly of New Zealand is Convicted of Murder (1934)

On this date in 1992, mafia boss John Gotti is sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty on 14 accounts of conspiracy to commit murder and racketeering.  

Moments after his sentence was read in a federal courthouse in Brooklyn, hundreds of Gotti's supporters stormed the building and overturned and smashed cars before being forced back by police reinforcements. Gotti, born and educated on the mean streets of New York City, became head of the powerful Gambino family after boss Paul Castellano was murdered outside a steakhouse in Manhattan in December 1985. The gang assassination, the first in three decades in New York, was organized by Gotti and his colleague Sammy "the Bull" Gravano. The Gambino family was known for its illegal narcotics operations, gambling activities, and car theft. During the next five years, Gotti rapidly expanded his criminal empire, and his family grew into the nation's most powerful Mafia family. Despite wide publicity of his criminal activities, Gotti managed to avoid conviction several times, usually through witness intimidation. In 1990, however, he was indicted for conspiracy to commit murder in the death of Paul Castellano, and Gravano agreed to testify against him in a federal district court in exchange for a reduced prison sentence. On April 2, 1992, John Gotti was found guilty on all counts and on June 23 was sentenced to multiple life terms without the possibility of parole. While still imprisoned, Gotti died of throat cancer on June 10, 2002. 

On this date in 1934, William Bayly is convicted of murder in New Zealand despite the fact that the body of one of his alleged victims was never found.  

Most of the evidence against Bayly consisted of trace amounts of human hair, bone, and tissue, representing a marked advance in the field of forensics. Sam and Christobel Lakey disappeared from their farm in Ruawaro, New Zealand, in October 1933, along with their rifles. Christobel's body soon turned up in a pond on the farm with terrible bruising to her face and head, and investigators then discovered fresh bloodstains in both an old buggy and a barn, leading them to believe that Sam had been shot and transported somewhere else.  

One of the first suspects was William Bayly, who owned a farm adjacent to the Lakey's, and who was known to have argued with his neighbors frequently. Years earlier, he had been suspected of killing his cousin, but was released due to insufficient evidence. Suggesting to police that Sam Lakey had probably fled after killing his wife, Bayly soon dropped out of sight himself. Meanwhile, detectives found the missing rifles buried in a swamp on Lakey's property. Following up on a report that there had been thick smoke coming from a shed on Bayly's property on the day that the Lakeys disappeared, investigators found pieces of hair and bones, ash, and shotgun lead in a large oil drum inside the shed. It appeared that Bayly had cremated Sam Lakey's body in this drum. Tests of the hair and bone fragments from the drum in the shed proved that they were human in origin. Baley was convicted and hanged at Mount Eden Jail in July.

Mobster James "Whitey" Bulger is Arrested - 2011

On this date in 2011, James “Whitey” Bulger, a violent Boston mob boss wanted for 19 murders, is arrested in Santa Monica, California.  

The 81-year-old Bulger, one of the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” fugitives, was arrested with his longtime companion, 60-year-old Catherine Greig, who fled Massachusetts with the gangster in late 1994, shortly before he was to be indicted on federal criminal charges. At the time of his 2011 arrest, there was a $2 million reward for information leading to Bulger’s capture, the largest amount ever offered by the agency for a domestic fugitive. Born in Massachusetts in 1929 and raised in a South Boston housing project, Bulger, who earned his nickname as a child for his light blond hair, served time in federal prison in the 1950s and early 1960s for bank robbery. Afterward, he returned to Boston, where he eventually built an organized-crime empire with partner Stephen Flemmi. At the time the two men were involved with drug trafficking, extortion, murder and other illegal activities, they were serving, since the mid-1970s, as FBI informants, providing information about rival mobsters in return from protection from prosecution.

After a rogue FBI agent tipped off Bulger that he would soon be arrested on racketeering charges, Bulger disappeared in December 1994. (John Connolly, the agent who tipped off Bulger, was later convicted on charges of racketeering, obstruction of justice and second-degree murder.) Despite an international manhunt, Bulger eluded authorities for over a decade and a half. Then, on June 20, 2011, the FBI employed a new tactic by airing a public service announcement focused on Greig, Bulger’s companion. The ad, which aired in cities across the U.S. where the mobster was thought to have once lived or have contacts, was aimed at female viewers who might have seen Greig, who underwent a variety of cosmetic surgeries, at a beauty parlor or doctor’s office. Based on one of the tips they received, FBI agents staked out Bulger and Greig, then going by the names Charles and Carol Gasko, and arrested them without incident at the modest, two-bedroom Southern California apartment building they had long called home. Law enforcement officials found weapons, fake identification and more than $800,000 stashed in Bulger’s apartment. He later revealed to them that during his years on the lam he had traveled frequently to such places as Boston, Mexico and Las Vegas, armed and sometimes in disguise. After their arrest, Bulger and Greig were returned to Boston. In June 2012, as part of a plea agreement, Greig was sentenced to eight years in prison for helping Bulger to stay in hiding. Bulger remains behind bars, charged with 19 murders and awaiting trial.

John Hinckley is Found Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity - 1982

On this date in 1982, John W. Hinckley, Jr., who on March 30, 1981, shot President Ronald Reagan and three others outside the Washington Hilton Hotel, was found not guilty of attempted murder by reason of insanity.  

In the trial, Hinckley's defense attorneys argued that their client was ill with narcissistic personality disorder, citing medical evidence, and had a pathological obsession with the 1976 film Taxi Driver, in which the main character attempts to assassinate a fictional senator. His lawyers claimed that Hinckley had watched the movie more than a dozen times, was obsessed with the lead actress, Jodie Foster, and had attempted to reenact the events of the film in his own life. The movie, not Hinckley, they successfully argued, was the actual planning force behind the events that occurred on March 30, 1981.

On that day, in front of the Washington Hilton, Hinckley had fired six shots at the president, hitting Reagan and three of his attendants, including Press Secretary James Brady, who was shot in the head and suffered permanent brain damage. The president was shot in the left lung and the .22-caliber bullet just missed his heart. In the aftermath, Hinckley was overpowered and pinned against a wall, and President Reagan, apparently unaware that he'd been shot, was shoved into his limousine by a Secret Service agent and rushed to the hospital. The president fared well, and after 12 days in the hospital he returned to the White House.

John Hinckley was booked on federal charges of attempting to assassinate the president. He had previously been arrested in Tennessee on weapons charges. The June 1982 verdict of "not guilty by reason of insanity" aroused widespread public criticism, and many were shocked that a would-be presidential assassin could avoid being held accountable for his crime. However, because of his obvious threat to society, he was placed in St. Elizabeth's Hospital, a mental institution. In the late 1990s, Hinckley's attorney began arguing that Hinckley’s mental illness was in remission and thus he had a right to return to a normal life. Beginning in August 1999, he was allowed supervised day trips off the hospital grounds and later was allowed to visit his parents once a week unsupervised. The Secret Service voluntarily monitors him during these outings. If his mental illness remains in remission, he may one day be released.

Mobster Benjamin "Bugsy Siegel" is Killed - 1947

On this date in 1947, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, the man who brought organized crime to the West Coast, is shot and killed at his girl friend, Virginia Hill’s home in Beverley Hills, California.  

Siegel had been talking to his associate Allen Smiley when three bullets were fired through the window and into his head, killing him instantly. Siegel's childhood had been pretty similar to that of other organized crime leaders: Growing up with little money in Brooklyn, he managed to establish himself as a teenage thug. With his pal Meyer Lansky, Siegel terrorized local peddlers and collected protection money. Before long, they had a business that included bootlegging and gambling all over New York City. By the 1930s, Siegel had become one of the major players of a highly powerful crime syndicate, which gave him $500,000 to set up a Los Angeles franchise. Bugsy threw himself into the Hollywood scene, making friends with some of the biggest names of the time--Cary Grant, Clark Gable, and Jean Harlow. His all-night parties at his Beverly Hills mansion became the hot spot in town. He also started up a solid gambling and narcotics operation to keep his old friends back east happy. Just before World War II began, Siegel traveled to Italy to sell explosives to Mussolini, but the deal fizzled when tests of the explosives did too. 

In 1945, Siegel had a brilliant idea. Just hours away from Los Angeles sat the sleepy desert town of Las Vegas, Nevada. It had nothing going for it except for a compliant local government and legal gambling. Siegel decided to build the Flamingo Hotel in the middle of the desert with $6,000,000, a chunk of which came from the New York syndicate. The Flamingo wasn't immediately profitable and Siegel ended up in an argument with Lucky Luciano over paying back the money used to build it. Around the same time that Siegel was killed in Beverly Hills, Luciano's men walked into the Flamingo and announced that they were now in charge. Even Siegel probably never imagined the astounding growth and success of Las Vegas in subsequent years.

Julius & Ethel Rosenberg are Executed - 1953

After a few days of much needed rest...the blog is BACK!!!

On this date in 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed.

They had been convicted of conspiring to pass U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviets. Both refused to admit any wrongdoing and proclaimed their innocence right up to the time of their executions. The Rosenberg’s were the first U.S. citizens to be convicted and executed for espionage during peacetime and their case remains controversial to this day. 

Julius Rosenberg was an engineer for the U.S. Army Signal Corps who was born in New York on May 12, 1918. His wife, born Ethel Greenglass, also in New York, on September 28, 1915, worked as a secretary. The couple met as members of the Young Communist League, married in 1939 and had two sons. Julius Rosenberg was arrested on suspicion of espionage on June 17, 1950, and accused of heading a spy ring that passed top-secret information concerning the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. Ethel was arrested two months later. The Rosenberg’s were implicated by David Greenglass, Ethel's younger brother and a former army sergeant and machinist at Los Alamos, the secret atomic bomb lab in New Mexico. Greenglass, who himself had confessed to providing nuclear secrets to the Soviets through an intermediary, testified against his sister and brother-in-law in court. He later served 10 years in prison. 

The Rosenberg’s vigorously protested their innocence, but after a brief trial that began on March 6, 1951, and attracted much media attention, the couple was convicted. On April 5, 1951, a judge sentenced them to death and the pair was taken to Sing Sing to await execution. During the next two years, the couple became the subject of both national and international debate. Some people believed that the Rosenberg’s were the victims of a surge of hysterical anti-communist feeling in the United States, and protested that the death sentence handed down was cruel and unusual punishment. Many Americans, however, believed that the Rosenberg’s had been dealt with justly. They agreed with President Dwight D. Eisenhower when he issued a statement declining to invoke executive clemency for the pair. He stated, "I can only say that, by immeasurably increasing the chances of atomic war, the Rosenberg’s may have condemned to death tens of millions of innocent people all over the world. The execution of two human beings is a grave matter. But even graver is the thought of the millions of dead whose deaths may be directly attributable to what these spies have done."

Judy Garland Marries Vincente Minnelli - 1945

On this date in 1945, the 23-year-old actress and singer Judy Garland marries director Vincente Minnelli, her second husband.  

Garland was born Frances Gumm in 1922, in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. Her parents ran a movie theater, and at age three Frances joined her two older sisters in a vaudeville act called The Gumm Sisters that performed before the movie presentation. Her mother later took them on the vaudeville circuit, where they were eventually renamed The Garland Sisters. Although the girls weren’t especially well received as a vaudeville act, Frances--now known as Judy Garland--drew the attention of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)’s production head, Louis B. Mayer. He signed her to a contract when she was 13 years old. Two years later, she made the first of her nine films with Mickey Rooney. Garland became a star in 1939 with The Wizard of Oz, in which she played Dorothy, a role originally intended for Shirley Temple. In the film, she performed the plaintive ballad “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” which would become one of her signature songs. Garland also delighted audiences in other movie musicals, including Strike Up the Band (1941), For Me and My Gal (1942) and Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). 

In 1941, at the age of 19, Garland married the bandleader David Rose, but the marriage broke up in 1945. She met Minnelli, who was also married at the time, when he directed her in Meet Me in St. Louis. Minnelli was born in Chicago in 1903 and, like Garland, entered show business while a toddler, performing in a family act. He dropped out of school at 16 and became a costume designer and stage manager for the live acts that preceded films shown at a Chicago theater chain. He later moved to New York, eventually becoming an art director at Radio City Music Hall. He began directing Broadway musicals in 1935, and moved to Hollywood in 1940, when MGM hired him as a film director. While they were married, Garland and Minnelli worked together on The Clock (1945) and The Pirate (1948). Their daughter, Liza, was born in 1946, and the marriage lasted until 1951. Minnelli went on to direct Oscar-winning films that included An American in Paris (1951), Band Wagon (1953) and Gigi. He also directed Father of the Bride (1950). Garland had used amphetamines and sleeping pills since adolescence, and her dependence on drugs and alcohol eventually undermined her career and led to several nervous breakdowns and suicide attempts. Her third husband, Sid Luft, managed her comeback in the early 1950s, booking her in triumphant live engagements in London and New York. Garland won an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for A Star Is Born (1954), but her downward spiral resumed in the 1960s, and she died of an overdose of sleeping pills on June 22, 1969, at the age of 47.

TWA Flight 847 is Hijacked - 1985

On this date in 1985, TWA Flight 847 from Athens to Rome is hijacked by Shiite Hezbollah terrorists.

The hijackers demand to know the identity of ''those with Jewish-sounding names," then forced the plane to land in Beirut, Lebanon. Once on the ground, the hijackers called for passengers with Israeli passports, but there were none. Nor were there any diplomats on board. They then focused their attention on the several U.S. Navy construction divers aboard the plane. Soon after landing, the terrorists killed Navy diver Robert Stethem, and dumped his body on the runway. TWA employee Uli Derickson was largely successful in protecting the few Jewish passengers aboard by refusing to identify them. Most of the passengers were released in the early hours of what turned out to be a 17-day ordeal, but five men were singled out and separated from the rest of the hostages. Of these five, only Richard Herzberg, an American, was Jewish. During the next two weeks, Herzberg maintained that he was a Lutheran of German and Greek ancestry. Along with the others, he was taken to a roach-infested holding cell somewhere in Beirut, where other Lebanese prisoners were being held. Fortunately, the TWA hostages were treated fairly well.  

On June 30, after careful negotiations, the hostages were released unharmed. Since the terrorists were effectively outside the law's reach in Lebanon, it appeared as though the terrorists would go free from punishment. Yet, Mohammed Ali Hammadi, who was wanted for his role in TWA Flight 847 attack, was arrested nearly two years later at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany, with explosives. Within days of his arrest, two German citizens were kidnapped while in Lebanon in a successful attempt to discourage Germany from extraditing Hammadi to the United States for prosecution. Germany decided to try Hammadi instead, and he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, the maximum penalty under German law. He was released on parole in 2005 after serving 19 years. Since then, the United States has unsuccessfully petitioned for his extradition from Lebanon. Despite unconfirmed reports that Hammadi was killed by a CIA drone in Pakistan in June 2010, he remains on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists List along with his surviving accomplices.

Miranda Rights Established - 1966

On this day in 1966, the Supreme Court hands down its decision in Miranda v. Arizona, establishing the principle that all criminal suspects must be advised of their rights before interrogation. 

Now considered standard police procedure, "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can, and will, be used against you in court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you," has been heard so many times in television and film dramas that it has become almost cliché. The roots of the Miranda decision go back to March 2, 1963, when an 18-year-old Phoenix woman told police that she had been abducted, driven to the desert and raped. Detectives questioning her story gave her a polygraph test, but the results were inconclusive. Police were able to track the license plate of a car that resembled that of her attacker's, which brought police to Ernesto Miranda. Although the victim did not identify Miranda in a line-up, he was brought into police custody and interrogated. What happened next is disputed, but officers left the interrogation with a confession that Miranda later recanted, unaware that he didn't have to say anything at all. 

The confession was extremely brief and differed in certain respects from the victim's account of the crime. However, Miranda's appointed defense attorney (who was paid a grand total of $100) didn't call any witnesses at the ensuing trial, and Miranda was convicted. While Miranda was in Arizona state prison, the American Civil Liberties Union took up his appeal, claiming that the confession was false and coerced. The Supreme Court overturned his conviction, but Miranda was retried and convicted in October 1966 anyway, despite the relative lack of evidence against him. Remaining in prison until 1972, Ernesto Miranda was later stabbed to death in the men's room of a bar after a poker game in January 1976. As a result of the case against Miranda, each and every person must now be informed of his or her rights when arrested.

Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman are Murdered - 1994

On this date in 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ron Goldman are brutally stabbed to death outside Nicole's home in Brentwood, California.

In what quickly becomes one of the most highly publicized trials of the century and with overwhelming evidence against him, including a prior record of domestic violence towards Brown, O.J. Simpson became the chief suspect. Although he had agreed to turn himself in, Simpson escaped with friend A.C. Cowlings in his white Ford Bronco on June 17. He was carrying his passport, a disguise, and $8,750 in cash. Simpson's car was spotted that afternoon, but he refused to surrender immediately. Threatening to kill himself, he led police in a low-speed chase through the freeways of Los Angeles as the entire nation watched on television. Eventually, Simpson gave himself up at his home in Brentwood. 

The evidence against Simpson was extensive: His blood was found at the murder scene; blood, hair, and fibers from Brown and Goldman were found in Simpson's car and at his home; one of his gloves was also found in Brown's home, the other outside his own house; and bloody shoeprints found at the scene matched those of shoes owned by Simpson. However, Simpson's so-called "Dream Team" of defense lawyers, including Johnnie Cochran and F. Lee Bailey, claimed before a national television audience that Simpson had been framed by racist police officers such as Detective Mark Fuhrman. After deliberating for three hours, the jury acquitted Simpson. He vowed to find the "real killers," but has yet to turn up any new leads. 

In a civil trial brought about by the families of the victims, Simpson was found responsible for causing Goldman's death and committing battery against Brown in February 1997, and was ordered to pay a total of $33.5 million, little of which he has paid. In 2007, Simpson ran into legal problems once again when he was arrested for breaking into a Las Vegas hotel room and taking sports memorabilia, which he claimed had been stolen from him, at gunpoint. On October 3, 2008, he was found guilty of 12 charges related to the incident, including armed robbery and kidnapping, and sentenced to 33 years in prison.

Escape from Alcatraz (1962) and John Wayne dies (1979)

On this date in 1962, John and Clarence Anglin and Frank Lee Morris attempt to escape from Alcatraz federal prison.

The three men were never seen again, and although some believe that theirs was the only successful getaway from what was known as "The Rock," it is far more likely that they drowned in the chilly water. Four days after their escape, a bag containing photos, which belonged to Clarence Anglin, was found in San Francisco Bay. Escape From Alcatraz, both a J. Campbell Bruce book and a Clint Eastwood movie, later dramatized the incident. The three prisoners began their daring escape by using stolen tools to chip away at the cement near ventilation holes in their cells. Creatively, they then made fake grills out of cardboard and painted them to match the originals, which were located in a small area where they could get outside without being seen. In a classic maneuver, the inmates made dummy heads and placed them in their beds so that the guards would not notice them missing. They even used scraps of hair from the barbershop to make them look more realistic. Once outside, the three climbed over a 15-foot fence and made their way out to the choppy waters surrounding the island prison with life preservers made out of raincoats. Over the years in which Alcatraz was used as a prison, 36 inmates (in 14 separate attempts) tried to escape. One drowned; six were shot to death; and five were never found, but were assumed to have drowned, including the Anglins and Morris. The remaining were captured, including two who were executed after one man, Bernard Coy, jumped a guard and got his gun in May 1946. With the help of others, Coy captured nine guards. However, the ensuing showdown left two guards and three inmates dead, and no one got off the island.

 On this day in 1979, John Wayne dies at age 72 after battling cancer for more than a decade.

Heidi Fleiss is Arrested - 1993

On this day in 1993, the now-infamous madam-to-the-stars Heidi Fleiss is arrested. 

In the 1980s, Fleiss’ then-boyfriend introduced her to the leading Beverly Hills madam Elizabeth (Alex) Adams, who, according to Fleiss, taught her the tricks of the trade. Before long, Fleiss started a competing business, and when Adams was arrested in 1988, Fleiss took her spot as the leading provider of expensive prostitutes in Hollywood. As her business grew, she enjoyed the perks of celebrity, even as her rising profile attracted the attention of local authorities. On June 9, 1993, after she sent four of her employees (along with a quantity of cocaine) to fulfill an arrangement made with three “clients” (actually undercover agents), the 27-year-old Fleiss was arrested and charged with pandering, pimping and narcotics possession. 

Fleiss’ trial, during which she refused to name any of her agency’s high-profile clients (though testimony did reveal at least one of them, the actor Charlie Sheen), was the talk of Hollywood. She pleaded not guilty to all the charges, and her lawyers argued that the authorities had entrapped her. In December 1994, a California grand jury found Fleiss guilty on three of five pandering counts and not guilty on the narcotics charge; she was sentenced her to three years in prison and ordered to pay a $1,500 fine. Fleiss also went on trial before a federal grand jury on charges of conspiracy, money laundering and tax evasion. She was convicted in August 1995 on eight of the 14 counts and sentenced to 37 months in prison.

All told, Fleiss served three years in prison, and was released in the fall of 1999. She later began a two-year relationship with the actor Tom Sizemore, star of films such as Heat, Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down. In 2003, Fleiss filed charges against Sizemore for violent abuse; he was convicted that August on six of 16 counts, including abuse, threat, harassment and vandalism. His initial sentence of six months in jail was eventually reduced to 90 days, plus mandatory drug rehab and domestic-violence and anger-management counseling. Fleiss, who has also struggled with drug abuse, has attempted to profit from her infamy by authoring several non-fiction books, including Pandering (2003). In early 2008, Fleiss opened a Laundromat called Dirty Laundry in Pahrump, Nevada; she also announced plans to open a brothel catering to female customers.

James Earl Ray is Arrested - 1968

On this date in 1968, James Earl Ray is arrested in London, England, and charged with the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.  

On April 4, 1968, in Memphis, King was fatally wounded by a sniper's bullet while standing on the balcony outside his second-story room at the Motel Lorraine. That evening, a Remington .30-06 hunting rifle was found on the sidewalk beside a rooming house one block from the Lorraine Motel. During the next several weeks, the rifle, eyewitness reports, and fingerprints on the weapon all implicated a single suspect: escaped convict James Earl Ray. A two-bit criminal, Ray escaped a Missouri prison in April 1967 while serving a sentence for a holdup. In May 1968, a massive manhunt for Ray began. The FBI eventually determined that he had obtained a Canadian passport under a false identity, which at the time was relatively easy. 

On June 8, Scotland Yard investigators arrested Ray at a London airport. Ray was trying to fly to Belgium, with the eventual goal, he later admitted, of reaching Zimbabwe, which at the time was ruled by an oppressive and internationally condemned white minority government. Extradited to the United States, Ray stood before a Memphis judge in March 1969 and pleaded guilty to King's murder in order to avoid the electric chair. He was sentenced to 99 years in prison. 

Three days later, he attempted to withdraw his guilty plea, claiming he was innocent of King's assassination and had been set up as a patsy in a larger conspiracy. He claimed that in 1967, a mysterious man named "Raoul" had approached him and recruited him into a gunrunning enterprise. On April 4, 1968, however, he realized that he was to be the fall guy for the King assassination and fled for Canada. Ray's motion was denied, as were his dozens of other requests for a trial during the next 29 years. 

During the 1990s, the widow and children of Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke publicly in support of Ray and his claims, calling him innocent and speculating about an assassination conspiracy involving the U.S. government and military. U.S. authorities were, in conspiracists' minds, implicated circumstantially. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover obsessed over King, who he thought was under communist influence. For the last six years of his life, King underwent constant wiretapping and harassment by the FBI. Before his death, Dr. King was also monitored by U.S. military intelligence, which may have been called to watch over King after he publicly denounced the Vietnam War in 1967. Furthermore, by calling for radical economic reforms in 1968, including guaranteed annual incomes for all, King was making few new friends in the Cold War era United States government.  

Over the years, the assassination has been reexamined by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, the Shelby County, Tennessee, district attorney's office, and three times by the U.S. Justice Department. All of these investigations have ended with the same conclusion: James Earl Ray killed Martin Luther King, Jr. The House committee acknowledged that a low-level conspiracy might have existed, involving one or more accomplices to Ray, but uncovered no evidence definitively to prove this theory. In addition to the mountain of evidence against him, such as his fingerprints on the murder weapon and admitted presence at the rooming house on April 4, Ray had a definite motive in assassinating King: hatred. According to his family and friends, he was an outspoken racist who told them of his intent to kill King. Ray died in 1998.

Jean Harlow Dies - 1937

On this day in 1937, actress Jean Harlow dies from kidney failure at the age of 26.

Born Harlean Carpenter in Kansas City, Missouri, she moved with her mother to Los Angeles as a child after her parents separated. Harlean was an amalgam of her mother’s maiden name, Jean Harlow, which the actress later took as her stage name. At the age of 16, she eloped with Charles McGrew, a young bond broker. Their marriage ended after she decided to pursue an acting career, against the will of her husband.  

After working as a film extra, Harlow signed a contract with the producer Hal Roach, under which she briefly but memorably bared her soon-to-be-famous legs in Double Whoopee (1929), a Laurel and Hardy comedy. She made her sound debut in The Saturday Night Kid (1929), starring Clara Bow. Harlow got her big break soon after that, when Howard Hughes cast her in the sound update of his silent World War I era epic Hell’s Angels (1930). In that film, Harlow made an impression on audiences with her glowing white-blond hair and the suggestive line “Would you be shocked if I put on something more comfortable?” 

Harlow appeared in a string of films in 1931, including The Secret Six, The Public Enemy, Goldie and Platinum Blonde. Her roles in these movies, as in Hell’s Angels, relied less on her acting and more on her alluring appearance. After Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer bought Harlow’s contract from Hughes in 1932, she made her breakout appearance in Red-Headed Woman (1932), for which screenwriter Anita Loos created a part especially for Harlow. The film was the first to showcase her comedic talent as well as her bombshell looks. Harlow’s popularity with fans and film critics alike continued to grow throughout the next several years, thanks to smash hits like Red Dust (1932)--one of her numerous movies with Clark Gable--Dinner at Eight (1933), Hold Your Man (1933) and Bombshell (1933). 

Aside from her meteoric rise to fame in her professional life, Harlow’s private life was marked by grief and tragedy. Her second husband, Paul Bern (an executive at MGM), died by an apparent suicide in 1932. Harlow’s third marriage, to cinematographer Harold Rosson, lasted less than a year. Harlow was engaged to marry the actor William Powell, her co-star in Reckless (1935) and Libeled Lady (1936), when she suddenly became seriously ill in late May 1937. According to her obituary in the New York Times, the actress had suffered from poor health for a year, including “an acute case of sunburn,” a throat infection and influenza. She also contracted scarlet fever and meningitis as a teenager, which permanently weakened her health. After doctors diagnosed uremic poisoning the weekend before, according to the Times, “Miss Harlow soon responded favorably to treatment and was thought well on the road to recovery when she lapsed into a coma last night.” She died the next day, June 7, 1937, at a hospital in Hollywood, California. Powell was at Harlow’s bedside when she died, along with her mother, stepfather and cousin. Harlow’s final film, Saratoga (1937), was released posthumously; another actress served as her stand-in for several scenes so that the movie could be completed.

Robert Kennedy is Shot - 1968

On this date in 1968, Senator Robert Kennedy is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after winning the California presidential primary.

Immediately after he announced to his cheering supporters that the country was ready to end its fractious divisions, Kennedy was shot several times by the 22-year-old Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan. He died a day later. The summer of 1968 was a tempestuous time in American history. Both the Vietnam War and the anti-war movement were peaking. Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated in the spring, igniting riots across the country. In the face of this unrest, President Lyndon B. Johnson decided not to seek a second term in the upcoming presidential election. Robert Kennedy, John's younger brother and former U.S. Attorney General, stepped into this breach and experienced a groundswell of support. Kennedy was perceived by many to be the only person in American politics capable of uniting the people. He was beloved by the minority community for his integrity and devotion to the civil rights cause. After winning California's primary, Kennedy was in the position to receive the Democratic nomination and face off against Richard Nixon in the general election. As star athletes Rafer Johnson and Roosevelt Grier accompanied Kennedy out a rear exit of the Ambassador Hotel, Sirhan Sirhan stepped forward with a rolled up campaign poster, hiding his .22 revolver. He was only a foot away when he fired several shots at Kennedy. Grier and Johnson wrestled Sirhan to the ground, but not before five bystanders were wounded. Grier was distraught afterward and blamed himself for allowing Kennedy to be shot. Sirhan, who was born in Palestine, confessed to the crime at his trial and received a death sentence on March 3, 1969. However, since the California State Supreme Court invalidated all death penalty sentences in 1972, Sirhan has spent the rest of his life in prison. According to the New York Times, he has since said that he believed Kennedy was "instrumental" in the oppression of Palestinians. Hubert Humphrey ended up running for the Democrats in 1968, but lost by a small margin to Nixon.

Angelina Jolie is Born - 1975

On this day in 1975, the Academy Award-winning actress Angelina Jolie (Voight) is born in Los Angeles, California.

 Jolie’s father, actor Jon Voight, had been nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for Midnight Cowboy (1969); he won the award for Coming Home (1978). Her mother, Marcheline Bertrand, was also an actress; the couple divorced when Angelina was still an infant. As a young girl, Jolie worked as a model and appeared with her father in the 1982 film Lookin’ to Get Out. She later studied acting at the famed Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and New York University. After appearing in a small role in Cyborg 2 (1993), Jolie landed a sizeable part in the better-known Hackers (1995), which co-starred the British actor Jonny Lee Miller. Jolie and Miller married that year but split in 1997 and later divorced. 

After a string of forgettable films, Jolie was nominated for an Emmy and won a Golden Globe for her role as the wife of the segregationist Alabama governor, in the television movie George Wallace. She earned another Emmy nod the following year for her portrayal of the troubled bisexual model Gia Carangi in the TV biopic Gia. Suddenly very much in demand, Jolie landed roles in higher-profile big-screen projects such as Playing By Heart (1998), Pushing Tin (1999) and The Bone Collector (1999). It was Jolie’s mesmerizing turn as the charismatic sociopath Lisa in Girl, Interrupted, however, that catapulted her to A-list Hollywood stardom. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the role, and characteristically raised eyebrows by locking lips with her older brother, James Haven, at the 2000 Oscar ceremony. That May, Jolie again generated a flurry of headlines when she wed Billy Bob Thornton, her much older, four-times-married co-star in Pushing Tin (1999), in a quickie ceremony in Las Vegas. Later in 2000, Jolie starred in the fast-paced hit Gone in Sixty Seconds and the thriller Original Sin. During a brief reconciliation with her father, the two appeared together in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), a blockbuster action film in which Jolie performed the majority of her own stunts. Despite poor reviews, Tomb Raider and its 2003 sequel were both huge box-office hits. Less successful was the romantic comedy-drama Life or Something Like It (2002). 

The press painted a vivid picture of Jolie and Thornton’s eccentric devotion to each other, including the fact that they wore vials of each other’s blood around their necks. Still, Jolie filed for divorce in mid-2002. By that time, she had been appointed a goodwill ambassador by the United Nations, having first made goodwill trips while researching her role as an aid worker in 2003’ Beyond Borders. She also adopted a son, Maddox, from Cambodia. In April 2004, Jolie began filming Mr. & Mrs. Smith, in which she and Brad Pitt played a married couple who are secretly both hired assassins. Rumors soon began flying about their off-screen romantic involvement, and only intensified after Pitt and his wife Jennifer Aniston announced their separation in January 2005. Two months after his divorce from Aniston was finalized, Pitt petitioned to adopt Maddox and Jolie’s daughter Zahara (adopted in June 2005 in Ethiopia). In January 2006, during a visit to the Dominican Republic, the now-official couple--dubbed “Brangelina” by the press--announced that Jolie was pregnant. Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt was born that May in Namibia. Jolie adopted another son, Pax Thien, from an orphanage in Vietnam in March 2007; she gave birth to twins, Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline, in France in July 2008. Though her film career often seemed to take a backseat in the headlines to her globetrotting lifestyle and ever-expanding family (not to mention her romance with the equally photogenic Pitt), Jolie continued to work steadily in films, notably in the spy drama The Good Shepherd (2006) and A Mighty Heart (2007), in which she played Mariane Pearl, the wife of a Wall Street Journal reporter who was killed by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002. In 2008, she starred in the summer action film Wanted and the crime drama Changeling, directed by Clint Eastwood.

Serial Killer Leonard Lake is Arrested - 1985

On this date in 1985, serial killer Leonard Lake is arrested near San Francisco, California.

This ended one of the rare cases of serial killers working together. Lake and Charles Ng were responsible for a series of particularly brutal crimes against young women in California and the Pacific Northwest during the mid-1980s. Lake was a former Marine who had served time in Vietnam. Ng, born in Hong Kong, was educated in England, and attended college in California briefly before being caught with automatic weapons that he had stolen from a military base in Hawaii, and sent to Leavenworth federal prison. After his release, Ng hooked up with Lake in California and the two began a series of murders. 

Ng and Lake shared a love of John Fowles' The Collector, a book in which the protagonist kidnaps a woman solely to keep her in his possession, like the butterflies he collects as a hobby. Creating "Operation Miranda," named after a character in the book, Ng and Lake began kidnapping young women and bringing them to a cinderblock bunker in a secluded area south of San Francisco. There, they tried to brainwash the women into becoming their willing sex slaves. They also kidnapped a young couple and their infant son in San Francisco while at their home pretending to be interested in some audiovisual equipment the couple was selling and later killed them. 

While in custody, Lake ingested cyanide and killed himself. Ng escaped to Canada, where he successfully avoided extradition for almost six years. When he was finally returned to California for trial, he utilized other delaying tactics. By the time he was finally convicted, he had gone through multiple attorneys and judges. It was one of the longest homicide prosecutions in state history and one of the costliest, at approximately $11 million dollars. The trial itself was unorthodox. Against his attorney’s advice, Ng persuaded the judge to let him testify in his own defense. He told the jury that he was Lake's subservient partner, and denied killing anyone. The prosecution used his testimony to introduce new evidence, including cartoons drawn by Ng depicting babies being smashed, drowned, fried in a wok, and put in a microwave oven. Ng said the cartoons were meant to be funny. After a four-month trial, the jury convicted Ng and sentenced him to death in 1999.

Marilyn Monroe was Born - 1926

On this date in 1926, Marilyn Monroe is born in Los Angeles, California.

She was born Norma Jeane Mortenson but later be given her mother’s name, and baptized Norma Jeane Baker. But she  become better known around the world as the glamorous actress and sex symbol Marilyn Monroe.  After a tumultuous childhood that saw both maternal grandparents and her mother committed to mental institutions, young Norma Jeane lived with a string of foster families. She married one of her neighbors, James Dougherty, when she was 16.  A photographer “discovered” the naturally photogenic Norma Jeane while she was working in a California munitions factory, and she was soon launched into a successful modeling career. She divorced Dougherty in June 1946 and soon after signed a film contract with 20th Century Fox. 

At the outset of her acting career, Norma Jeane dyed her brown hair blonde and changed her name again, calling herself Marilyn Monroe (Monroe was her grandmother’s last name). After a bit part in 1947’s The Shocking Miss Pilgrim, she had a string of forgettable roles before landing a spot in John Huston’s thriller The Asphalt Jungle (1950). That same year, she also drew attention for her work in All About Eve, starring Bette Davis. Her true breakout performance, however, came in Niagara (1953), a thriller in which Monroe played an adulterous young wife who plots with her lover to kill her husband.

After starring in Gentleman Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire in 1953, Monroe was at the top of Hollywood’s A-list. In January 1954, she married baseball great Joe DiMaggio at San Francisco City Hall. Though the press hailed their relationship as the quintessential All-American love affair, trouble began brewing almost immediately. DiMaggio was notoriously uncomfortable with his new wife’s sexy public image, and her popularity, as evidenced by the near-riot among U.S. servicemen stationed in Korea during a performance she gave in the middle of the couple’s honeymoon. They would divorce that October, after only nine months of marriage, but remained good friends.  

Monroe attempted to switch to more serious acting roles, studying at the prestigious Actors’ Studio in New York. She earned positive reviews for her more nuanced work in Bus Stop (1956), The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) and particularly Some Like It Hot (1959). By 1961, however, trouble in Monroe’s personal life began to develop, her third marriage, to the acclaimed playwright Arthur Miller, dissolved after four years and Marilyn was left in an ever increasingly emotional state of mind, and that year she was admitted on two occasions to hospitals for psychiatric observation and rest. Her final film was The Misfits (1961), written by Miller and co-starring Montgomery Clift and Clark Gable (it would also be Gable’s final appearance on-screen.) In June 1962, Fox dismissed the actress after repeated and extended absences from the set of Something’s Got to Give. On August 5, 1962, Monroe was found dead from an overdose of barbiturates in her home in Brentwood, California. She was 36 years old.

Michael Thomas Barry is the author of numerous books that includes Fade to Black Graveside Memories of Hollywood Greats, 1927-1950. The book was awarded a silver medal at the 2011 Readers Favorite International Book Awards and was the winner of the 2013 Beverly Hills Book Awards. The book can be purchased from Amazon through the following link:

Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/Fade-Black-Graveside-Memories-Hollywood/dp/0764337092/ref=la_B0035CPN70_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1400077263&sr=1-5