Classic Reissue: The Journalistic Autopsy of Dorothy Stratten

An infamous Hollywood murder leads to a post-mortem shaming.

Today, we’re revisiting a dark one, a story of Hollywood tragedy that left a deep scar on the industry and exposed the toxic misogyny that permeated every aspect of the victim’s life.

Content warning for topics of murder, sexual assault, and violence against women. I quote some very painful moments from the piece to provide proper context, so if these topics are something that could potentially trigger you, please approach with caution.

 In 1981, the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing was awarded to Janet Cooke of The Washington Post for her heart-rending reporting into the life of an eight-year-old heroin addict named Jimmy. The story had inspired the nation and led the then-Mayor of Washington D.C., Marion Berry, to organize an all-out police search for the boy. They never found him, and soon, other journalists began to doubt the veracity of Cooke's piece. Eventually, Cooke confessed her lies to her editors, who held a press conference to admit the scam. Cooke was forced to resign and never returned to journalism. Her Pulitzer was revoked and re-awarded to the runner-up, Teresa Carpenter of The Village Voice. Where Cooke's story had offered a scaremongering faux-insight into every parent's worst nightmare, Carpenter's covered similar ground, albeit rooted in truth. What her piece did differently, however, was force America to acknowledge its addiction to misogyny.

The Village Voice. "Death of a Playmate." November 5, 1980. Teresa Carpenter.

(Read the profile here.)

Dorothy Ruth Hoogstraten had been dead for less than four months when Carpenter's piece appeared among the pages of The Village Voice. She had barely been in the spotlight for two years when she was brutally murdered by her estranged husband, Paul Snider, who then took his own life. Having been coaxed into moving to Hollywood from Canada by Snider, she soon found herself posing nude for Playboy and being named Playmate of the Month for August 1979, then Playmate of the Year in 1980. As well as becoming the new face of the magazine, she started acting on film and TV. She was cast in the comedy They All Laughed, directed by Peter Bogdanovich, and they soon fell in love. She left Snider for him, who did not take too well to having his meal ticket walk away. On August 14, 1980, she met with Snider to discuss finances. He killed her. She was 20.