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Dorothy Stratten

Dorothy Stratten (28 February 1960 – 14 August 1980) was a Canadian model and actress. Stratten found fame as the Playboy Playmate of the Month for August 1979 and subsequently Playmate of the Year for 1980. She was the second Playmate (after Lee Ann Michelle) to be born in the 1960s.

However, Stratten is most famous for the circumstances of her murder at age 20 by her estranged husband, an act that was the basis of two motion pictures.

Biography

Stratten was born Dorothy Ruth Hoogstraten in a Salvation Army hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia, to Simon and Nelly Hoogstraten, Dutch immigrants. Her parents had married in Holland in 1954. In 1961 her brother John Arthur was born, and her sister Louise Stratten followed in May 1968.

She attended Centennial High School in Coquitlam. In 1977, while working part-time in a local Dairy Queen, she met a Vancouver-area promoter and pimp named Paul Snider (then 26), who had nude photos taken of her and eventually sent them to Playboy. Because she was underage, she had to attain her mother's signature to have the photos taken.

In 1979, after having her surname shortened to Stratten, she became Playboy's Miss August. She also found work as a Bunny at the Los Angeles Playboy Club. In June 1979, she married Snider in Las Vegas, Nevada. The couple's relationship quickly deteriorated, as Snider became prone to fits of jealousy and bizarre, controlling behavior; he constantly took credit for Stratten's fame, stating that he was the reason for her success, and repeatedly attempted to usurp her fame when in the presence of celebrities.

In 1980, she became Playboy's Playmate of the Year. Her original pictorial was photographed by Mario Casilli.

Hugh Hefner reportedly encouraged Stratten to sever ties with Snider, calling him a "hustler and a pimp." Rosanne Katon and other friends warned Stratten about Snider's behavior. By August of 1980, Snider's personality had turned obsessive as he became aware of Stratten's affair with the director of her film debut, Peter Bogdanovich. Snider hired a private detective to follow Stratten and report back to him everything she did. Snider and Stratten separated, and Stratten moved in with Bogdanovich. Stratten had also made plans to file for divorce from Snider.

Murder

On 14 August 1980, Snider and Stratten met at Snider's duplex, in which the couple had once lived in Los Angeles along with their friend, Dr. Stephen Cushner. They met to discuss a financial settlement regarding the divorce.

Cushner still lived in the home with his girlfriend and his girlfriend's best friend, but Cushner and the women were all out for the day when Stratten showed up at the home between 11:45 a.m and 12:30 p.m. What exactly transpired is unknown; shortly after Stratten's arrival, Snider's private investigator called the apartment. He saw Stratten go into the house, and he wanted to make sure that everything was going smoothly. Snider told the detective "Everything is going fine" through a previously arranged code and hung up.

At 5:00 p.m., Cushner's girlfriend and her friend arrived home to find Stratten's car, a 1967 Mercury, in the driveway. The door to Snider's room was closed, and Stratten was nowhere to be seen; the women assumed that the two were in the bedroom and wanted privacy. They stayed until 6:00 p.m. to watch the news, when they left to go skating.

At 7:00 p.m., the two women arrived back from skating. Cushner also returned home and noticed the closed door; he assumed that Snider and Stratten wanted privacy. One hour later, at 8:00 p.m., Cushner's girlfriend Patty and her friend arrived back home from skating. At 11:00 p.m., the private investigator called Patty, who declined to knock on Snider's door; Cushner then agreed to check the bedroom. According to the investigator, Snider had given him instructions to periodically check in over the course of the day, but Snider hadn't answered his private line downstairs for some time. Cushner had heard the ringing. The investigator told Cushner that he believed something was wrong and that someone needed to check on Snider and Stratten.

Shortly after 11:00 p.m., Cushner entered Snider's room after receiving no response from knocking. There he discovered Stratten dead from a gunshot wound to the head and Snider from a self-inflicted gunshot.

Dorothy Stratten is buried at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles, California. Stratten and Carol Willis are the only two Playmates to die within a year and a half of their Playboy appearances. At 20 years of age, their deaths were the youngest of any Playmate.

Film reception

Peter Bogdanovich's movie They All Laughed (in which Stratten was cast) received poor press due to the circumstances of her death and no studio was willing to release the movie. Bogdanovich personally financed the release, but the movie went on to become a box office failure.

In pop culture

Jamie Lee Curtis portrayed Stratten and Bruce Weitz played Paul Snider in the 1981 television film Death of a Centerfold: The Dorothy Stratten Story.

Stratten's story was portrayed in Bob Fosse's 1983 film Star 80 starring Mariel Hemingway (Stratten) and Eric Roberts (Snider). The movie was filmed in the very same house where the actual murder/suicide occurred.

Peter Bogdanovich wrote a book about her titled The Killing of the Unicorn that was released in the summer of 1984. He later married her sister, Louise. They divorced in 2001.

Fellow British Columbian Bryan Adams co-wrote two songs about Stratten. The first, titled "Cover Girl," became a hit for the band Prism in 1980. The second was titled "The Best Was Yet to Come" and was written with Jim Vallance; it appeared on Adams' 1983 album Cuts Like a Knife and was later covered by Laura Branigan.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Other notes
1979	Autumn Born	Tara Dawson
	Americathon	Americathon stage dancer	Uncredited
	Skatetown USA	Girl at the snack bar
	Fantasy Island	Mickey	TV, 1 episode
	Buck Rogers in the 25th Century	Miss Cosmos	TV, 1 episode, credited as Dorothy R. Stratten
1980	Galaxina	Galaxina	Credited as Dorothy R. Stratten
1981	They All Laughed	Dolores Martin	Released posthumously