The Mammoth Book of Hollywood Scandals (43 page)

The sudden death of Pete Duel was ruled a probable suicide, with the coroner concluding that the single gunshot wound to the head was consistent with a self-inflicted wound. Unbelievably, just twelve hours later the cast and crew were back on the lot of
Alias Smith and Jones
at the instructions of ABC. The script was rewritten and a hurried announcement came that the actor would be replaced by Roger Davis for the remainder of the series.

The fact that the series was hurried back into production so soon after his death seems to prove that Duel was correct in his feelings about working on the television show, expressed just months before. “It’s the ultimate trap,” he said. It is unfortunate that, in the end, he felt that his only means of escape was by taking his own life.

At the end of the movie
Rebel Without a Cause
, Sal Mineo’s troubled character Plato is fatally injured. Just over twenty years later the actor himself would sadly suffer the same fate, though in a very different way to the death he had acted out in
Rebel
.

Born on 10 January 1939 in New York City, Salvatore Mineo was the son of Italian parents, Josephine and Salvatore. From a very early age he developed an interest in the arts, after a talent scout came up to him on the street as he was playing with his sister, Sarina. After that he began taking part in dance lessons and drama, and learning his craft as a child actor while his siblings would watch him practise in the living room of their house. Once he had got a taste for acting, it wasn’t long before he appeared on Broadway in the 1951 production of
The Rose Tattoo
, and he then achieved a great deal of recognition when he acted as the prince opposite Yul Brynner in the stage version of
The King and I
.

Sal dabbled with television as a teenager, before scoring his first film role in
Six Bridges to Cross
, a vehicle for Tony Curtis, which gave him the chance to play the younger version of Tony’s character, Jerry Florea. It was a good role and a great opportunity for the young man, but it was his portrayal of Plato in the 1955 movie
Rebel Without a Cause
which really put him on the map as an actor. His performance was so deep and profound, in fact, that he was nominated for an Academy Award for his role, though he ultimately lost out on the award to Jack Lemmon for his film
Mister Roberts
.

Still, this disappointment did not deter Sal for long, and he was inundated with fan mail from that moment on. He ventured into the music business for a while, which earned him more attention and fans, particularly when one of his songs, “Start Movin’ (In My Direction)” reached number nine in the Billboard Hot 100. He also received another Academy Award nomination for his role in
Exodus
in 1960, and on this occasion he lost out to Peter Ustinov for his part in
Spartacus
. But despite his success on the screen, Mineo was still truly dedicated to his family, who remained in New York State. He bought his mother a home in Westchester County, which apparently cost the almost unheard-of amount of $200,000, and kept in close contact with his siblings and their families. He was very definitely a family man and while his film career was important to him, he always remained true to his roots.

By the early 1960s it was becoming apparent to everyone that Sal Mineo was being typecast in roles that always seemed to be some version of a troubled teenager. This was a problem by now as Sal was no longer a teenager himself, and he knew that it would not be long before acting those kinds of parts would be impossible. His popularity began to wane and soon nobody seemed to want him in their productions any more, which was a decision that baffled and troubled Sal Mineo. He still had his talent; he still had the ability to play roles; but sadly he became stuck in the rut frequented by so many former child actors – that of being too old to play a kid, and too young to play an adult.

It was a frustrating and difficult time for the man who had been acting his entire life, and when new parts began to open up, once again he would be typecast, only this time as a psychopathic bad guy. His personal life too was somewhat frustrating, as in spite of falling in love with his
Exodus
co-star, Jill Haworth, Sal was gay, something he fought against accepting for some years. This was a confusing time for the actor but in the end he decided publicly to admit his sexuality. He directed and starred in a somewhat controversial play entitled
Of Fortune and Men’s Eyes;
the part included nudity and homosexuality, and from then on Sal became something of a trail-blazer, pioneer and hero for others struggling to be accepted as homosexual, particularly in the film business.

In the early 1970s, Sal worked on television in such programmes as
Columbo
and
Hawaii Five-O
, but his film career was practically over, his last appearance being in
Escape from the Planet of the Apes
in 1971, as Dr Milo the chimpanzee. In spite of the decline in film roles, by the mid-1970s his career was on the up when he appeared in the theatre production
PS Your Cat is Dead
. It received good notices in San Francisco, and when it transferred to Los Angeles, so did Sal, moving into an apartment he had used frequently in the past three years: 8563 Holloway Drive.

On the evening of 12 February 1976 Sal was heading home after attending rehearsals for the play, and drove into the garage space of the apartment building. Once he had exited the car, however, he was set upon by an assailant; a confrontation took place and the man knifed the actor in what was an apparently unmotivated and meaningless attack. As Sal lay bleeding on the road, the shady figure then fled quickly from the scene.

Inside the apartment building, a woman by the name of Mrs Mitchelson was going about her business when at approximately 9.15 p.m. she heard an almighty scream and a voice shouting, “My God! My God! Help me!” There then followed another scream before finally silence descended on the area and several neighbours came running out to see what was going on. One resident, Ray Evans, saw the actor lying on his side and noted that blood appeared to be coming from his head. It was not until he turned him over that he realized the blood was actually gushing from his chest and running towards the top of his body due to an incline on the ground where he lay.

As Sal gasped, Evans tried desperately to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while others talked to him, telling him he’d be okay and that help was on its way. “I saw he was going into an ashen colour,” Evans told reporters who arrived at the scene, “and I immediately started to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Everyone was yelling, ‘Get the police. Get an ambulance.’”

Evans worked quickly and solidly on his neighbour and thought he was beginning to get a response, but it was not to be. Just as the police arrived, the actor gave his last breath at the age of thirty-seven, and was gone. The police at first decided it must have been a robbery gone wrong, but the discovery of Sal’s personal belongings, including a small amount of cash in his clothing and his house keys lying beside him, dispelled that theory.

More confusion came when detectives interviewed nearby residents who all seemed to give differing accounts of what they had and hadn’t seen during the course of the evening. Some said that there was no sign of the attacker at all, while others were adamant that he had been seen quite clearly running away from the building. His description, according to those who had seen him, was of a tall, white male with blond hair. This was a good lead until police interviewed other potential witnesses who gave their own descriptions; this time it was a five-foot seven-inch attacker, white with dark brown or black hair. Police were confused and after talking to as many people as possible, they were simply stumped as to who the attacker was and what could possibly be his motivation behind such a senseless assault.

Then several days after the murder, more intrigue came when mob boss Mickey Cohen stepped forward to claim Sal Mineo as a friend who had once frequented an ice-cream shop owned by Cohen’s sister. “I don’t think he was a close friend,” Cohen told reporters, “but I just spoke to him seven or eight days ago.” Describing the actor as a “fine young man”, he then expressed his shock at the death and added that he doubted very much if Sal was having trouble with anyone in Hollywood. “I think he’d have called me if there was any trouble,” he said.

It seems that the mobster was correct, because Sal Mineo appears to have lived a very quiet and discreet private life, though his agent, Tom Korman, later explained to the makers of
Mysteries and Scandals
that he felt the actor let too many people into his life who shouldn’t have been there. Rumours would surface that the murder was because of his lifestyle, and some thought it to be a crime of passion – a disgruntled lover who had come back for revenge. Others hinted at bizarre sexual practices and drug-taking, but this was incorrect; various attempts by the police to determine if these stories were true came to absolutely nothing. Instead, it would appear that the tales were an attempt by some to smear Sal Mineo’s name for reasons known only to themselves.

Sal’s body was flown back to New York several days after his death, accompanied by his friends and fellow actors Courtney Burr, Michael Mason and Elliot Mintz. His funeral took place at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church and was attended by co-stars and family, as well as Nicholas Ray, the director of
Rebel Without a Cause
. Sal’s brother-in-law Charles Myers delivered the eulogy in the same spot that the actor himself had stood after his father had passed away just three years before. In the moving speech, Sal was described as a special person, “a gentle man whose sensitivity and understanding affected everyone he met”. He went on to say that the actor had lived his life with courage, style and grace, and that no matter what, his body of work would always be remembered: “Nothing, not a person nor the passage of time, can take it away from him.” He also ensured that everyone knew his brother-in-law was very different to the teenage, angst-ridden character he portrayed so often on the screen.

During the memorial, Sal’s brother described him as being dedicated to his family, honest and sincere, while others wept openly in the front row, mourning the loss of their beloved friend. Sal’s mother, Josephine, quietly let the tears fall from her face, unable to come to terms with the fact that she was burying her beloved son. Finally, after the service was over and everyone had said their goodbyes, Sal Mineo made his last journey and was buried next to his father in the family plot at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery, Hawthorne.

PS Your Cat Is Dead
, the play in which Sal was appearing at the time of his death, went on without him, with Jeff Druce taking over his part. The director, Milton Katselas, told reporters that the whole thing had not been an easy task. “It’s not a matter of just going on with the show,” he said. “It’s more a matter of overcoming.” He then described the actor as a true gentleman who was always happy to tell a joke and take direction. “We loved him,” he said, and it seems that everyone with whom the young man ever worked had exactly the same feelings. The play became a tribute to Sal, and his co-stars made positive and loving comments about him to the media. But still the question remained: “Who murdered Sal Mineo?”

Police remained baffled by the senseless crime for several years after the death, but then suddenly they had a lead. They arrested a man called Lionel Ray Williams who quite bizarrely was the complete opposite of the tall, white, blond man that many neighbours claimed to have seen. In fact, Williams was a short, black man with an afro haircut who was believed to have spoken to police a short time after Sal’s death, apparently telling them that his death was the result of a drug deal gone wrong. There was no other information at that time to move that line of enquiry forward, so the police were unable to do anything more about it and Williams went on his way.

Then in October 1978 the man was in prison for another crime when he was rumoured to have told an inmate that he was the one who killed Sal Mineo as a result of an attempted robbery gone wrong. The conversation was heard by a prison warden who later told a colleague and an investigation began, resulting in the discovery that the man had apparently robbed someone just a mile away from where the murder had taken place, just thirty minutes after the event.

Williams was charged with the murder and the case went to court in January 1979, where at first confusion reigned because of the initial impression that the attacker had been white. A twelve-year-old girl and her mother confused the court even more when they testified that the man the child had seen running away had dark curly hair that bounced as he ran, but she was sure his face was white. However, later a tape was played that showed this to be untrue, when the mother apparently admitted that her daughter had not actually seen his face or the colour of his skin – just the side of his head.

But one piece of testimony that did raise suspicions about the defendant was that of a neighbour who had seen the murderer run away from the scene and jump into a small, yellow car. As Williams was known to drive a rental car of the same distinct colour, this went some way in putting him at the scene of the crime that day. To this day, Lionel Ray Williams denies ever murdering Sal Mineo but the jury did not believe his plea and, after being described by Deputy District Attorney Michael Genelin as “a night marauder who would kill you if he had to – even if he didn’t have to”, the man was found guilty and sentenced to fifty-one years to life in prison. He actually only remained there for eleven years in the end, though he was soon back in prison after committing another crime shortly after his release.

The life and career of Sal Mineo was short; his death tragic and senseless. A gentle, kind man who always had a nice word for all whom he encountered, he will be best remembered for his part as Plato in 1955’s
Rebel Without a Cause
. Sadly, no one could have possibly known at the time that Sal and those who acted beside him – James Dean and Natalie Wood (along with Nick Adams who played the minor role of Chick) – would all go on to have short lives with bitter endings. The film itself was a tragedy, their lives even more so, and yet the legacy of what Sal and his fellow young actors brought to the screen will live on forever. For that, at least, we can be grateful.