Talk:Dorothy Stratten

Film comments in paragraph about murder?
The sentence "Peter Bogdanovich's movie They All Laughed (in which he had cast Stratten) received such bad press surrounding her death that no studio wanted to release it. Bogdanovich financed the release personally, but the movie proved to be a box office failure." is entirely inappropriate in the section about her murder. I am going to create a separate section for that line just to get it out of the "murder" section. Mal7798 (talk) 18:18, 16 June 2008 (UTC) How come there isn't any picture of Dorothy Stratten on this site? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Saltheshoe (talk • contribs) 04:11, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

How do we know it was a murder?
We should be careful about calling this death a murder, which is a legal term requiring some kind of legal judgment. It could have been an accident. GeorgeLouis (talk) 03:24, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * he 'accidentally' killed her and then 'accidentally' killed himself?? lmao, give us a break. 194.221.133.211 (talk) 15:41, 27 October 2008 (UTC)


 * yea.. and w/ a shotgun, no less. 'oh shit i didnt know it was loaded...'? similar to phil spector shooting. 76.218.248.127 (talk) 17:04, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

photo of dorothy stratten
The picture is good, cover girl from Playboy, but you could have pick a better photo. Just my opinion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Saltheshoe (talk • contribs) 01:48, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * If you're going to upload a photo, please don't do it over the one that's already here. Create a new file name.  Additionally, the file that you uploaded was so small that it looks horrible when expanded in the article.  Dismas |(talk) 04:30, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Humm...I see your point
The other photo does look terrible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Saltheshoe (talk • contribs) 02:08, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Murder details
I've just undid Ouspen's grizzly details of Dorothy Stratten's murder; it doesn't seem like this level of graphic detail is encyclopedic, especially when it wasn't part of any trial, etc. Chime in on this. If the community believes I'm wrong, then fine, my undo can always be undone. But it seems sensationalistic to me. Greg Salter (talk) 20:02, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree.   Will Beback    talk    20:25, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I understand your concerns, but the murder details were included due to its historical relevance, not sensationalism or gore factors; at the time, I specifically remember the print, radio and TV coverage of the event, and pointed references were made (to varying degrees) about the details of the murder. Moreover, it can be strongly argued that the nature of Stratten's death--her young age ended with such brutality solidified her story in the minds of those living at the time, and (as we have witnessed) to history, as opposed to someone recieving a "clean" (relatively speaking) gunshot wound.

Example: Several American Presidents have been assassinated in U.S. history, but the very nature of John Kennedy's assassination was so graphically horrifying that it sets it apart from Garfield, McKinley or even Lincoln. Aside from research on the motives behind JFK's assassination, few books or filmed productions in 46 years ever omitted direct, detailed refernces to JFK's fatal wound as matter of historical record, and to illustrate why the crime was and remains so shocking and important. While i'm not saying Dorothy Stratten held the status of a president during one of the most chaotic periods of the 20th century, the point is that the historically accurate details inform the reader of just why her tale is considered so tragic. Supressing the facts robs the case of the very reason it became an instant moment in time/cultural event, and in a sense, hides Paul Snider's monumentally malevolent act against Stratten.

For that reason, I feel the details should be restored, and if anyone else has questions about the addition, please read my response here, where (hopefully) the motives are made clear.

Thanks!

Ouspen (talk) 21:10, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Ouspen.


 * I've removed the material again. Aside from the discussion about whether it's appropriate, which is an editing decision, there's no question that it has to be cited to reliable sources. Once those sources have been identified we can complete the discussion of whether, or how much, of the detail to include.   Will Beback    talk    03:45, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Will, thanks for the explanation. I've revised the entry and added asterisks for 3 reliable, verifiable sources: the Village Voice's Pulitzer Prize winning article "Death of a Playmate" by Teresa Carpenter (pub. Nov. 5 - 11, 1980), the aforementioned E! True Hollywood Story quotes, and an article from the well known UK magazine Murder Casebook ("Victims of Desire," Vol. 6, #79, published 1991). As each is a known, legitimate source, i'm guessing the material i've posted should not present any further problems.

Regarding the nature of the additions, my previous post on the matter is about as clear as I can be on the historical significance/why the crime was so remembered/defining. ...though an interesting parallel is in the Carpenter article about a Hefner press release: "A dispassionate eulogy from which one might conclude that Miss Stratten died in her sleep from pneumonia." The point being that a "casual" sentence or two about her murder removes the very malevolent reasons her death catapulted her into tragic (pop) cultural and crime history.

Ouspen (talk) 20:37, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Ouspen


 * The rationale for the inclusion of this material is not well-reasoned. The explicit details of Stratten's murder were not widely publicized at the time (just use Google News), and have little to do with the historical significance of the event, which has far more to do with the ensuing films about Stratten than the lurid and sensationalist tone of the proposed insertion, much of which is speculative rather than factual.  What was widely reported is accurately summarized in the article as-is.  The proposed material for insertion really has no place in a Wikipedia article. Fladrif (talk) 15:03, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Fladrif, you are incorrect about a few items:


 * 1. At the time of the murder, the Village Voice article appeared only 3 months after the crime, with details as explicit as that which i've presented here, as it is one of the sources used.


 * 2. Various newspapers (Google will not link you to the pay-only archives of many publications) explained much of the murder details about a step and a half from the way i've described it here. (as a historical bit of context on content and the media, the mental, sexual and other gross abuses of Jim Jones' Peoples Temple were the subjects of several articles before the mass murder/suicides in 1978; in the immediate aftermath of the massacre, news sources printed grisly details of the carnage at Jonestown, the Port Kaituma airstrip and the Georgetown murders. This was two years before Stratten's murder, so much the media of the period was not all shy about reporting the truth, particularly in extremely horrid crimes.


 * 3. Peter Bogdonavich--one of the survivors himself, went into graphic detail in his book on Stratten, The Killing of the Unicorn: Dorothy Stratten (1960–1980), published in 1984.


 * The 1981 TV movie or 1983 Fosse film were most certainly not the way in which the public gained knowledge of the specifics of the crime.


 * Finally, believe your reasoning is without intellectual merit, as there's no rule stating a Wikipedia source--which strives for historical accuracy--should only reflect the limited nature of reporting when events occured. One, that's not the case with Stratten, and two, no other Wikipedia article dealing with (for one example, a crime) is only listing details as originally covered. See the article on "John F Kennedy Assassination," where as a historian, I can tell you, no major newspaper recalled Mrs. Kennedy's specific comments while in the motorcade, yet it appears here. Why? Because the grisly details are historically relevant & accurate, and in the interest of historical accuracy/relevancy, specifics cannot be buried under highly questionable claims of period reporting (having no logical influene on present day need for accuracy and importance) or dsires for unwarranted censorship.


 * Ouspen (talk) 00:01, 14 June 2009 (UTC)OuspenOuspen (talk) 00:01, 14 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I can't agree. The specific nature of the injuries, the explicit details of the crime scene and the speculation as to the specific sequence of events are simply not historically significant, nor are they encyclopedic in content and tone. The notability of Stratton and of her murder have nothing to do with those specifics. The article as written is complete and accurate as to the level of detail that is relevant: she was murdered by her husband and died of a gunshot wound to the head.  Fladrif (talk) 17:37, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Fladrif, you are attempting to supress relevant historical information. I've already provided other Wikipedia article (JFK Assassination) to clealy illustrate descriptive text used other than a simple (ex.) "he was shot 3 times, once in the head." The coverage of the time in which the crime occured only gained its instant attention/notoriety due to the specifc nature of the crime--as reported at the time. Stratten was a minor star (a Tonight Show appearance was common for many minor personalities of the era) and had not yet realized any full celebrity potential which would have made a simple reporting of her murder (which you advocate) controversialin its detail. Stratten's grim demise was the event which elevated her to the status of a known person to history---tragic potential unrealized--stopped in a horrific way. Like it or not, it is the details of how she died which etched her into history otherwise, few would be talking about her today, like other media personalities who were the victims of murder.

My revisions are culturally and historially relevant--backed by the fact the most well known reporting ever produced on the subject--Teresa Carpenter's Pulitzer Prize winning article for the Village Voice, and Murder Casebook (with contributions by the famed Colin Wilson--world reknown for decades as one of the leading experts on crime) covered the exact datails I use in my revision. No other sources have ever been as accurate as the Village Voice (or Murder Casebook) article, including this Wikipedia article, which suffers from not attempting to (at least) match the best, most historically relevant piece ever written on Stratten's life and specifics of her death.

For this reason, the revisions will be submitted again, lest another risks violating rules on reverting articles for reasons not supported by the said rules (in other words, my additions were not violating any rules), but i'm more than willing to post this situation in the Administratiors' Noticeboard, as two revert actions have already occured to my additions (which alread applies to one, and will apply to any other member who engages in this practice).

Ouspen (talk) 18:20, 16 June 2009 (UTC)OuspenOuspen (talk) 18:20, 16 June 2009 (UTC)


 * You should reread WP:3RR. Your understanding of it is incorrect. There is no concensus here on the notability of the encyclopedic nature of the proposed addition.  You are completely wrong from a factual standpoint about the gruesome details having anything whatsoever to do with the notability of Stratton or her death. Fladrif (talk) 18:33, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Can we have the facts on the page please. The fact is the details of her murder are notoriously well documented, and I'm going to have use a source other than wikipedia to present them. Whomever is arguing that 'the details are unimportant' is intentionally surpressing factual information, whether they think it's for a good reason or not, it's not.

People should be able to easily know why Bob Fosse included that lingering shot of the exercise machine in his biopic, let's not ignore facts here (by saying 'that's not relevant' - when it demonstrably is) please. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.43.53.46 (talk) 09:07, 15 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Ouspen? This matter has been resolved a long time ago. If anybody wants to read the grizzly details, they can go to the references. Fundamentally, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It isn't a tabloid newspaper. Fladrif (talk) 20:50, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

You make a good point, but...
...I think that it is more important to remember her for the way in which see lived, not how she died. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Saltheshoe (talk • contribs) 00:03, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that's at all a salient comment as no one was suggesting ranking the relative importance of different events, simply addressing facts and coverage, both of which had significant impact in public awareness of Stratten. If you feel the addition needs qualification, doing so is reasonable, but deletion is not. Squeamishness is not reason to delete content. Skyhawk0 (talk) 15:33, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Another Song
"Cover Girl" by Prism is about Dorothy. It was also co-written by Bryan Adams.69.158.20.126 (talk) 05:22, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Stratten is the subject of two books
Dorothy Stratten is the subject of two books. The first book The Killing of the Unicorn by Peter Bogdanovich was issued in 1984. A second book written by Lynn Crosbie called Dorothy L'Amour was issued by Harper Collins in 1999. The lead should mention this.  Caden  cool  17:38, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Lack of citations
This part reads very much like conclusions to me with no citations given for it: "When Stratten arrived at the Playboy Mansion for the 25th Anniversary Playmate Hunt she was very shy and naive. She was very uncomfortable with the casual nudity and sex. Several contemporary playmates including Pamela Bryant, Gail Stanton and Marcy Hanson befriended Stratten and protected her from some of Hefner's friends whom they considered to be predators."

There's no indication of where any of this info came from. (Forgive me if I did anything improperly here, first time starting a Talk point). seanpaune (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:57, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Original research
Danny M125 has added a lot of content in the past four years, but much of it is based on their own views of sources and events. This is called Original research and is not allowed on Wikipedia. The section "Aftermath of Stratten's murder" is the main concern. In particular, editors need to find sources that comment on Carpenter's article and Bogdanovich's book rather than inserting their own commentary. Fences &amp;  Windows  17:53, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Chippendales: cuffs and collar Stratten's idea?
The 2022 Hulu miniseries Welcome to Chippendales has Paul Snider and Dorothy Stratten play incidental but instrumental roles in the look of the male dance revue.

From this news article https://www.indiewire.com/2022/11/welcome-to-chippendales-dorothy-stratten-inventor-1234783550/:

''In Hulu’s new limited series “Welcome to Chippendales,” Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten (Nicola Peltz) is presented as the person behind putting the Chippendales dancers in their soon-to-be-iconic cuffs-and-collars look. With 10 minutes left in the pilot, Stratten pitches an idea to Chippendales creator Steve Bannerjee (Kumail Nanjiani): “I know how much you admire Hugh Hefner…which got me thinking, what if Chippendales did a Playboy Club thing? Cuffs and collars, just like the Bunnies.”''

But I don't find any confirmation of this from sources. I presume that this is a fictionalization of real-life events.

This may be worth a mention in the Legacy section as an appearance of Stratten as a character in the tv show -- plus some confirmation of its veracity or exaggeration or falsehood. Bobbarkerinla (talk) 02:57, 28 November 2022 (UTC)


 * This is confirmed as factual in an Esquire article from today, and that per Rob Siegel, it is likely that Stratten sought Hefner's OK to use the idea. See   Also confirmed in Cosmopolitan  and USA Today.  Banks Irk (talk) 19:34, 1 December 2022 (UTC)