The Backstory: Fatal obsession with a rising star

We’ve seen it too many times: A young star begins the climb to the top, only to be murdered by an obsessed lover or fan. Dorothy Stratten burst onto the Hollywood scene when she was just 19 years old…and she was dead by 20. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, we've all heard stories about glamorous movie stars and
singers who were murdered by crazed fans or maybe a
jealous lover. But one of the most heartbreaking murders was
that of twenty year old Dorothy Stratton. Yeah, just twenty
years old. I'm Patty Steele. This is what happens when
love turns to obsession and then becomes lethal. That's next

(00:22):
on the backstory. We're back with the backstory. Dorothy Stratton
was a rising star in what they called the New
Hollywood era. It was the late nineteen seventies, and she
was on the cusp of stardom. She was impossibly young,
impossibly beautiful if you like tall slender blondes, and destined

(00:45):
to become a Hollywood icon, at least according to folks
like Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. But that brief moment in
time is where it all ended, a brutal and senseless
murder carried out by somebody who was supposed to love her.
It's the late nineteen seventies and Vancouver, Canada, where Dorothy

(01:09):
Hoog Stratton later known as Dorothy Stratton, was born into
a working class family. As a teenager, she worked at
Dairy Queen. She was shy and soft spoken, but again
strikingly beautiful, five foot nine, blonde hair, captivating, deep blue eyes,
and an innocence about her that made her even more appealing.

(01:30):
It was actually her job at Dairy Queen, believed it
or not, that changed her life. Paul Snyder, a guy
who ran a will nightclub, was a hustler and sometime pimp,
walked in and saw Dorothy. He was instantly smitten, and
he also saw Dorothy as his ticket to the big time.
She was just eighteen years old, and Snyder convinced Dorothy

(01:52):
to let him groom her for a much bigger life
than a Vancouver dairy queen. She trusted him, and the
next year he talked her into posing for nude photographs,
which he then sent to Playboy. Playboy was just as impressed,
and they flew Dorothy to Los Angeles to meet Hugh
Hefner and his team. In no time, they chose her

(02:14):
as Playboys Miss August nineteen seventy nine and then Playmate
of the Year in nineteen eighty. Hefner was so blown
away by her he called Dorothy the next Marilyn Monroe,
which is kind of scary and in comparison, when you
think about Marilynd's life right, Dorothy became the it girl.
Her looks, her innocence, and her charm captivated Hollywood insiders.

(02:39):
In her first year there. She appeared in three movies,
several TV shows, and became one of Hefner's favorite playmates. Meantime,
she married Paul, and the problem is, as she headed
for stardom, Paul's tenuous grasp on the big time was plummeting.
As Dorothy soared, Paul began to lose control of her.

(03:00):
Worse yet, while he saw her as his creation and
sort of his possession, she started to see him as
a toxic parasite. The big shots at Playboy wanted her
to cut ties with him, and he couldn't stand the
thought of her slipping away. He became crazy, jealous, and paranoid,
and then everything imploded for him when Dorothy attracted the

(03:23):
attention of filmmaker Peter Bogdanovitch, another rising star. At first,
Dorothy and Peter's relationship was just professional. He cast her
in his upcoming film called They All Laughed, But then
their professional connection became something a little more heated, Bogdanovitch
adored her, respected her, and saw her potential above and

(03:47):
beyond the playboy brand. Now, Paul, already jealous and insecure,
panicked at the thought of Dorothy slipping away from him emotionally, financially,
and romantically. He became obsessed with maintaining control over every
facet of her life. Okay, now it's the summer of
nineteen eighty and Dorothy tells her friends and close business

(04:11):
associates that she wants to leave Snyder. She felt she'd
outgrown him, but more importantly, she was terrified of him.
He'd become even more abusive and erratic as she tried
to pull away. And it was right around this time
that the relationship between Dorothy and Peter Bogdanovitch became romantic.

(04:31):
Paul was beside himself, and Dorothy was feeling guilty about
leaving him. They'd been together since Dairy Queen, after all,
but she knew she needed to escape now. The problem is,
when she tried to break up with him, he became enraged.
He wanted her, and if he couldn't have her, nobody could.
On August fourteenth, nineteen eighty, Dorothy agreed to talk things

(04:54):
over with Paul at their old apartment. She'd been staying
with Bogdanovitch, but she wanted to find analyze things with
Paul and smooth out the separation. She didn't know it,
but he had a plan. If Dorothy wasn't going to
stay with him, there was only one solution. In the
days leading up to their get together, he bought a

(05:14):
twelve gage shotgun. He told people that Dorothy was betraying him,
that he had made her who she was and she
was now abandoning him. When Dorothy arrived at the apartment,
the two went to the bedroom to talk. Not long after,
there was complete silence. Hours later, her friends, worried that
she didn't come home, went to the apartment and one

(05:37):
of them made a horrifying discovery. Dorothy's nude body was
on the bed. She'd been shot in the face at
point blank range by the shotgun Snyder had bought. Next
to her, Paul Snyder was also dead. He killed himself.
Snyder couldn't stand to lose Dorothy, along with the fame
and money she represented for him, so he decided murder.

(06:01):
Suicide was the only way out. Dorothy Stratton's murder shocked
Hollywood and the world. Obsession had taken the life of
a twenty year old girl, a rising star. Hugh Hefner
and Peter Bogdanovitch were, of course devastated by her murder.
Bogdanovitch was heartbroken and later actually married Dorothy's younger sister,

(06:21):
Louise Folks, who knew Dorothy, said she was just beginning
to come into her own, not just professionally but personally.
She was breaking free from the toxic environment that had
kept her trapped. Was it mental illness that caused Paul
Snyder to kill Dorothy and then himself. No real way
to know, but his growing paranoia and need for control

(06:43):
sure suggests that Dorothy Stratton was just twenty years old
when Paul Snyder's obsession cost her everything. It's a reminder
of how dangerous jealousy and the need for control can
become when obsession is disguised as love. I hope you

(07:08):
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I'm Patty Steele. The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks,

(07:31):
the Elvis Duran Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer
is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new
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at Real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele.
Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele, the

(07:52):
pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.