[Steve Helling] Really, by all accounts, she was sheltered and naive.
She never really thought
she was going to get out of that small town.
He saw what all of us saw,
this sweet little magical being with a big heart.
She was a Marilyn Monroe type.
And needed someone to protect her.
[camera shutter clicking]
He got her professionally shot,
sent it to the mansion.
They said to Hefner, this girl is gorgeous.
We have to fly her down for a photo shoot.
[Steve] He had a master plan for her.
And when Hugh Hefner has a master plan for you,
you do what he tells you to do.
The mansion's very mysterious.
If you get the wrong set of eyes on you,
there's a chance they could track you down,
and it could lead to something really awful.
Hefner considers himself the top dog,
and he doesn't want to share anything.
I called it the Playboy curse,
because once you were associated with that world,
things went horribly wrong.
She called me at home and was just crying all the time.
It was tough to be her friend.
She didn't see it coming, didn't see it coming.
[Richard] I just returned from work and received a call,
which is not uncommon.
As soon as you get home,
you're called, and away you go back.
I had arrived in an early evening, and it was so light.
[siren blaring]
The crime scene was contained within the ground floor bedroom.
There was no indication at all
of any type of forced entry into it.
I avoid making assumptions of the crime scene
until I have an understanding
as to actually what has occurred here.
When I did open the bedroom door...
there was the Playboy Bunny of the Year...
Dorothy Stratten laying there.
The 70s was kind of like the high point
for Playboy in a lot of ways.
The Playboy Mansion was a huge party house.
There were movie stars and celebrities
coming over all the time.
My name is Stella Tetenbaum,
and I worked at Playboy Mansion West
for Hugh Hefner.
In the late 70s, in Playboy world,
everything was huge.
The circulation was huge.
The clubs were big, and the money was just insane.
[Holly] A lot of famous writers like Kurt Vonnegut,
Hunter S. Thompson,
they wrote for the magazine. So it was respected.
Playboy magazine has been known for its nudity.
Everybody knew the Playmate of the Month,
the Playmate of the Year. So it was a really big deal.
I am Jeana Keough.
I was a centerfold November 1980.
I was in my early 20 when I came to California.
And being introduced to the Playboy Mansion
it was just so much fun.
There was actors and actresses, playmates,
that I got to know really well
because we'd do Friday night parties up there.
Hef would always have the top run movies,
and you'd have dinner and a movie,
and some people would go in the hot tub.
[Stella] Playboy was the top shelf magazine at the time.
And it was a lifestyle, classy, beautiful food, music.
Playboy at that time,
the audience was about a median age of 35 and up.
But Bob Guccione made Penthouse.
It was a little more exposure than Playboy,
the young man's version of Playboy.
[Holly] Penthouse magazine also featured
nude pictorials of women,
but they were much more explicit.
[Stella] Playboy wasn't at the full nudity period.
They were still...
Saw focus, boudoir-type shots, not full frontal.
[Holly] Playboy at first didn't show any full frontal nudity.
They would just show the breast area or the butt area.
But because of what Penthouse was doing
and how successful that was,
Playboy felt like they needed to start showing more
in order to keep up.
[Stella] Hefner was obsessed,
and he was always trying to figure out how to compete
without compromising his look.
[Holly] As Playboy's 25th anniversary was approaching,
he decided to, as a publicity stunt,
do a nationwide search for a special playmate
for the 25th anniversary issue.
How many girls do we need to interview?
3,500 on the hunt.
The criteria for this 25th anniversary playmate
was the same criteria they were looking for
in any other centerfold, a beautiful, fresh-faced,
all American girl.
But they just wanted something extra,
like somebody who was really amazing looking
or had a really special story.
They were looking for a Dorothy Stratten.
They just didn't know her name yet.
Dorothy Stratten was born in Vancouver, British Columbia,
in 1960 to a Scandinavian family,
first generation in Canada.
She was a smart kid.
She was a good student.
And really, by all accounts, she was sheltered and naive.
She lived in a very small community.
Her mother and father were just very normal people.
She had a younger sister.
I did meet Dorothy several times.
And she was just the salt of the earth
kind of personality, very sweet and lovely.
[Steve] Her parents split up when she was young.
And I think she was dealing with
what most kids from broken homes deal with,
which is not understanding what's going on
and looking for someone
who can really be her support system.
She never really thought she was going to get out of that small town
until she met Paul Snider.
In the summer of 1977,
she had been working in a Dairy Queen,
uh, in Vancouver.
Paul Snider walked in kind of dressed to the nines.
And they started talking.
Paul Snider represented the kind of man
that Dorothy had never met.
He was sophisticated. He drove a fast car. He was willing to take her out
to dinner and buy her clothes.
[Jeana] Paul was a dreamer.
He had lots of ideas and lots of ambition.
And he took one look at Dorothy and said,
I'm going to make you a star, baby.
[Richard] Paul Snider was the club promoter.
He was the most interesting, glamorous man
she'd ever met up to that point.
He was always doing things.
He was always on the move.
And she loved that and hung on every word that he said.
Paul was a fairly intelligent guy.
He was up there looking for any sort of
entrepreneurial venture that might lead
to something promising down the road.
And he seemed to be a guy who latched onto a project,
who would work very hard at achieving his goal.
And so, as much as Dorothy was into Paul, he was into her too,
not just because she was beautiful to look at,
but she could carry on a conversation.
And he loved that about her.
It was like catnip to her.
She couldn't get enough of the attention from him.
[cameras flashing]
[Stella] It was in the summer of '78.
Paul Snider asked Dorothy to do nude photos.
He tried it himself,
but he decided, "I'm going to get a professional
because I really want you to be discovered."
[Richard] Dorothy was living this small town life.
And all of a sudden, here comes Paul Snider
saying, you know, "You can go far.
You can do all these things."
You could even be in Playboy.
So I think there were stars in her eyes.
[Stella] There was a lot of pressure on her.
She wasn't used to posing nude.
She wasn't really groomed yet for that.
And she had a shyness about her.
[Holly] It must have been scary for Dorothy taking those photos
for the first time.
When it's your body, you feel like
you're going to be the one to mess it up.
Like if your photos never get published.
It was just kind of terrifying.
[Stella] Paul got her professionally shot,
sent it to the mansion.
Mary O'Connor intercepted the photos, said to Hefner,
this girl is gorgeous.
We have to fly her down for a photo shoot.
[Stefan] My name is Stefan Tetenbaum.
I work for Hugh Hefner at the Playboy Mansion West
four and a half years as his butler.
Mary ran the house for Hefner.
Mary would go through the photos
and see the different girls
and the ones that would end up in the trash can
and the ones that I would take down to Mr. Hefner's room
and show him.
Hef would pick the girls.
They would be offered jobs at the Playboy Club
in Century City,
or they have photo shoots scheduled.
I came to Playboy in 1979.
I was modeling with a big agency,
and we all got invited to the 25th anniversary TV special.
[reporter] The party was held at the mansion,
that sybaritic palace which was once a Chicago landmark.
[Jeana] It was a big television special
and all the models and playmates and bunnies.
It's a beautiful building in downtown Chicago.
Dorothy came to the party, and she was wearing lingerie
because the parties, you had to be very provocative,
very seductive.
[reporter] Beautiful people have all been invited.
The sights and the sounds are real.
And of course, we all went hoping to get it discovered.
In the spring of 1978,
they announced the winner of the 25th anniversary playmate
who Hef had handpicked himself.
[Steve] So Dorothy was a finalist in this contest.
Surprisingly, Dorothy didn't win.
When somebody gets chosen as an anniversary playmate
or Playmate of the Year,
they're expected to do a lot of press,
and they didn't really think she had the confidence
for that yet.
Even though she didn't win,
it put her on the radar of Playboy.
Paul was going to become the super manager
to the superstar.
That was in his mind what he was doing.
I think what he saw was,
I'm going to get her to this destination,
and I'm going to go with her.
By now, Dorothy lives in the Bunny Hutches,
which were these little cabins on the property
that house different girls that weren't
quite in the household yet.
But that was their ultimate goal.
The thing that Dorothy didn't know is at Playboy Mansion,
you weren't allowed to have a boyfriend,
and you weren't allowed to bring a man.
No men were ever invited.
So Paul got an apartment,
and eventually she told Hefner,
"This is my boyfriend,
and I want him to come to the parties."
Hefner took an instant disliking to Paul Snider.
Hefner considers himself the top dog,
and he doesn't want to share anything.
[Stella] Dorothy wasn't living inside the mansion yet,
and they said,
"Now you're going to work at the Playboy Club
in Century City, Los Angeles."
There were Playboy Clubs in London, Jamaica, Chicago,
New York, and LA.
A Playboy Club was a place you could go
for an upscale business dinner or business lunch,
and they would have entertainment.
Then they had Playboy Bunnies walking around,
serving everybody.
So it was a really special environment.
So a Playboy Bunny was basically a cocktail waitress
wearing the little bunny outfits,
and they weren't appearing in the magazine,
although sometimes there was crossover where they would.
You could have thought that maybe being put as a Playboy Bunny
was not a good step for her,
because she wasn't a Playboy Playmate at that point.
Dorothy and I met kind of under a...
Somewhat unusual circumstance.
Some of my friends decided to head over to Century City
to the Playboy Club, and lo and behold, uh,
working as a Door Bunny was none other than Dorothy.
She was one of those people
that would give you the impression
that you were the only person in the room
having a one-on-one conversation.
And we just kind of became friends.
Those of us knew her then as
an absolutely magnificent looking woman who...
Had so much more than looks.
What happened with the Playboy Club, too,
they would farm girls from there.
They would say, "Okay, she would be good for a pictorial.
Let's use her."
I can't imagine she was a bunny for more than a month,
because she was way too busy
to work four or five days being a waitress.
They had her doing so many things.
I mean, there was magic about her.
They knew from their first test shots.
[Stella] Dorothy was 18, 19 years old.
[Stefan] Her eyes just sparkled.
We were just talking about it for a long time
with the other staff.
She was all nervous and giddy.
It was cute to see somebody that unaffected.
When I first met Dorothy, my initial impressions
were how much like a Marilyn Monroe type she was.
Just this... walked into the room and she owned it.
No one could take your eyes off of her.
There was just something magical about her.
Dorothy Stratten was chosen playmate of the month
for August of 1979.
[Jeana] Playmate of the Month is a big deal.
There's 12 playmates a year, so it is kind of prestigious.
A lot of girls get looked at for those 12 slots.
Paul convinced her of the fact that
if she simply tied herself to his dreams and plans,
that the two of them together would have a very bright
and lucrative career together.
[Holly] Hef was not happy about their relationship.
Hef saw something in her.
He had a master plan for her.
And when Hugh Hefner has a master plan for you,
you do what he tells you to do.
At the mansion, Hef would say,
I'd rather you not be around.
[Stefan] Dorothy appreciated Paul
because he introduced her to Playboy.
So she felt that she wanted to take care of him.
It's worth noting that she did it with Hugh Hefner,
telling her not to.
I think if you were to ask Paul,
he would have said that he and Dorothy came to LA as a team.
He knew that everything he wanted and needed,
only Dorothy could provide for him.
[Stella] Hefner hated him, couldn't stand him.
Paul Snider represented
everything that Playboy wasn't.
He was really sleazy.
He was not the image they wanted in the mansion.
He stood out like the proverbial sore thumb
at the Playboy Mansion.
He did not fit in.
He was a big fan of the mansion
and just in awe of everything.
He was trying hard to meet everybody and be nice.
But he was just such a hustler.
And it's just like, wow, she can do so much better.
[Steve] If Hef doesn't like you,
you're not allowed in the mansion.
You're not allowed in the club.
You're not allowed anywhere
that has the Playboy name on it.
[Stella] And Hefner said, you've got to get rid of this boyfriend.
[crowd applauds]
It was common knowledge that she was
probably shoeing for Playmate of the Year.
When she was centerfold, they already kind of knew.
I mean, there was just magic about her.
Playmate of the Year, you get $100,000 check.
You get a car. You get jewelry.
You get some... probably some movie roles,
auditions for it, at least.
As her career with Playboy grew
and after she was named Playmate of the Year,
there was no doubt in my mind
that she would be a household name someday.
And that's when Dorothy graduated
from the Bunny Huts into the mansion
and had her room there.
[Holly] Hef lived full time at the Playboy Mansion in California
by the mid-70s.
The mansion was very mysterious.
I mean, everybody knew that there were
wild parties going on, and this is a nude magazine.
So of course, people are going to think it's like
edgy or whatever,
but people didn't know specifics.
When the girls come to the mansion,
they would be told, this is what is expected of you.
And if you want to stay here
and you want to be part of this family,
then this is what you have to do,
which entailed group sex, orgies, drugs, the full Monty.
[Stefan] And everything was free.
When you come to LA and somebody says to you,
"Come up, the drinks, the drugs, the women, it's all free."
How do you say no?
It's like a dream world.
And it was like the jackpot
until you were actually living the life
and realizing that you were being totally drained
of any innocence you ever had.
So it started to go downhill for Dorothy.
At this point, she's by herself.
Paul Snider was still up in Vancouver.
She became very depressed
because she was living this life that she wanted,
but she didn't know how to handle.
They're giving her money.
They're giving her drugs.
They're telling her she's going to be famous.
And she was distraught and abused.
She called me at home and was just crying all the time.
They had to do her makeup.
Once you went to the photo shoots,
her eyes were so red.
It was tough, you know, to be her friend.
It can be so intimidating at the Playboy Mansion.
It's so extreme either way.
If a woman shows up to the Playboy Mansion
and doesn't want to be involved
in any of the sex or drugs or anything,
it can be really, really scary.
Paul was living in this small apartment in Westwood,
I guess near UCLA, and paying an exorbitant rent.
Then Dorothy approached me about the place in West LA
that was becoming available
that might serve as a place for the three of us to live.
So to get out of the mansion
and still be a part of Playboy,
she told Hefner she wanted to marry Paul.
She wanted out of the mansion
because she couldn't handle it.
The rapes, the orgies.
She was just losing her mind, literally.
She was absolutely losing her mind.
Mr. Hefner discouraged her
from marrying Paul at the time.
[Holly] It was very uncommon for playmates to be married.
I think Hef always wanted, like,
young women who seemed available.
So she was stuck in a very awkward position
for such a young woman.
Dorothy was at that time of 18 or 19
very much interested in pleasing everybody.
And I think that carried over from
not only everybody she met,
but from her wanting to please Paul.
I think that was a big part of her
ultimately agreeing to marry him.
[Jeana] I think Dorothy married Paul
because she felt she owed it to him.
He got her out of Canada and into this magic life.
And I think she attributed to him.
They went to Vegas,
which was exactly what Paul Snider needed.
He needed a piece of paper
that he was connected with her,
that they were partners on some level.
The majority of the women who came to Playboy
wanted to be actresses.
They wanted to go further.
[Stella] And Dorothy wanted the same.
She wanted to be an actress.
And she loved the lifestyle
and wanted to be a well-known screen star.
Hef always loved Hollywood,
the movies, the Hollywood industry,
and really wanted to be a part of it.
And I think the idea of a playmate
becoming a mainstream movie star
was really exciting to him.
[Stefan] Hefner wanted to be a famous film producer.
So he had all the actors,
directors, producers, always were there.
[Jeana] All the guys that came up to the mansion,
they were directors or producers or actors.
They would always try to get us parts
and submit us for things to do.
I got at least three movies out of the mansion.
Not every centerfold had the ability to become an actress.
Hef saw in Dorothy that ability.
He wanted big things for her. He had big dreams for her.
[Stefan] Peter Bogdanovich was always at the mansion.
He was a famous film director.
[man] Be prepared.
And Hef always is.
This summer Hef converted his tennis court
into a skating rink.
Dorothy and Peter first met
when we were filming the roller skating.
It was just a fun, easy, relaxed daytime stuff.
So it was easy to talk to people and meet people.
[Steve] So Peter Bogdanovich was really well established.
Everything he had touched was turning to gold.
Peter was rich.
He was famous.
He was successful.
And he carried himself in that way.
And so for somebody like Dorothy,
wow, what a difference.
And he got bit by the magic bug.
He saw what all of us saw,
this sweet little magical being with a big heart.
He was a Marilyn Monroe type
and needed someone to protect her.
[Stella] Peter was absolutely head over heels for her.
And she said, "I want to be a movie star."
And he said, "I'm writing a movie."
Long story short, he wrote her part.
And he said, "I'm going to go to New York to shoot it."
I want you to come with me.
[Jeana] In 1980, Dorothy went to work.
They all laughed with Peter Bogdanovich in New York.
Everybody was so excited for Dorothy when she got the part.
She was like a little kid in a candy store.
She was so excited.
Then a couple of the girls went out with her
to go shopping and get some New York big girl clothes
because she had nothing
and no idea what people wore in New York.
I always tried to reassure her, sincerely so,
that she had what it takes.
She had that special something that Hollywood
and movies was always looking for.
You know, she had been in other movies,
little bit parts, but they were lower budget.
This was a big deal.
And that's where she was.
And she was filming.
And she was falling in love with the director.
[Holly] Peter and Dorothy kept their relationship a secret for a while.
Dorothy was married to Paul Snider.
And Peter had been through a lot publicly
and his personal life.
So I don't think he wanted to, you know,
blast that he was dating a married woman.
[Jeana] Paul's whole life was Dorothy.
You know, that his whole identity was wrapped into hers.
He stopped doing all of his projects to focus on hers.
And when Paul wasn't allowed to go to New York
to watch her film,
that was kind of a kick in the teeth to him.
He thought he should be there.
My name is Patti Laurman.
When Dorothy was filming in New York,
Paul and I would spend a lot of time together.
We'd be talking and he would be saying
how sad he was about what's going on with Dorothy.
And he'd start crying.
I love her so much, but I just don't want
anybody to hurt her.
I don't want anybody to take advantage of her.
I called it the Playboy curse
because once you were associated with Playboy
and that world, things went horribly wrong.
Being a playmate puts you in the public eye
in a way where people tend to sometimes
get unhealthy attachments to these centerfolds.
If you get the wrong set of eyes on you...
There's a chance they could track you down.
That could lead to something really awful.
Dorothy was very naive
and she just didn't see, she didn't see the bad.
Didn't see it coming, didn't see it coming.
Paul stood to lose everything.
Two years after they moved to LA, Dorothy was moving on.
So it was tough for him.
Once Paul had realized that this was the end
of his opportunity with Dorothy financially,
and he had developed other ideas and so forth
and was grooming another young lady
to become a playmate also.
I was modeling at the Long Beach Complex Arena
and Paul came by and started talking to me
and asked if I'd done any other modeling,
if I ever considered Playboy.
And then he told me about his wife
being Playmate of the Year.
Her name was Dorothy and we just had a conversation.
Paul mentioned to me that they had an extra room downstairs
that I could pay rent and I could live in that room.
And so... So that's what I did.
Dorothy was already shooting a film in New York,
so she was gone most of the time.
When a playmate settles down with somebody,
they can either think her being in the magazine
is really cool and they're really proud of it,
or they can be really jealous and possessive.
Paul was starting to just be more emotional.
He had written a song for Dorothy.
He would sit there and play that song a lot
because he played guitar.
I'd tell him that, you know, that, "Hey,
I know that you love her so much,
but you can't force somebody to be with you."
At this point, Paul suspects
that Bogdanovich is in love with her.
In his mind, he thought, "I brought her here."
She owes me. She's here because of me.
And now she's in New York?
Now she's traveling with Peter Bogdanovich?
The frustration had to be overwhelming.
Without Dorothy, Paul Snider was nothing and he knew it.
[Jeana] In summer of 1980, Dorothy was pretty much the "it girl."
She was everywhere.
She was on Johnny Carson.
She was on a couple other talk shows
promoting her movie.
It was great. We were all so happy for her.
I had been waiting on him at the Dairy Queen.
She had little pigtails and a little red smock on her.
"Can I help you?" And he said, "What's your name?"
And... [laughs]
It was really encouraging for all the other centerfolds,
you know, because it gave meaning to what they were doing.
-You really are a lovely young lady. -Thank you.
[Patti] Paul didn't know what was going on.
He tried to call. He couldn't get through to her.
He would get really frustrated.
"How could she do this to me? You know, she's there.
She's trying to tell me she's staying at one hotel,
but I know he's at the Pierre and she's staying with him."
Paul had a private investigator working for him
and I didn't know what that was about.
And then Paul explained that he was concerned
about what was going on with Dorothy.
And so that's why he hired this person to find out
what was happening with her
to make sure that she was okay.
And I'm sure probably finding out
if she's having a relationship with somebody else.
Dorothy was in town at one time
and Paul didn't know she was in town
and she was staying at Bogdanovich's house.
And I think the investigator saw her car there.
And that's when I think he found out
about her relationship with Bogdanovich.
In early summer 1980,
Dorothy came back from New York all excited,
full of life and her adventures there.
She was really starting to be her own woman.
Peter was crazy for her and wanted to marry her.
And Dorothy realizes she can't go back to Paul.
Even though she cares about him,
she feels that she has some type of loyalty
because he got her to where she was.
[Patti] So Paul would always pick me up after my acting classes.
And so one day he told me
he wanted to go check out an ad that he had seen.
And at first he told me it was for a shotgun.
I was like, "What do you need a shotgun for?"
He was like, "Oh, I just want to go check it out.
I want to just see."
When Paul was saying that,
I didn't think that was too unusual.
Especially living in LA, I thought that was a good idea
to have a firearm for protection.
So we drove to look for it
and that's when we really had one of those talks.
He was so frustrated.
You're married to somebody, you can't talk to her.
You don't know what's going on.
You just know that you're just getting pushed,
you know, doors closed on you wherever you go.
That's when he was saying, if I can't be with her,
because I was like, you don't want to be with her
if you have to force her to be with you.
You know, you want her to be with you because she wants to be.
Dorothy and Paul
had agreed to meet at the house they once shared.
[knock on door]
So I said, "Okay, I'm going to go with my friend
to Venice Beach and go roller skating."
Patti got home sometime prior to my arriving there,
but exactly what time, I have no idea.
Then we're just watching TV and talking
and then we got a call from Paul's friend,
the private investigator, and he was saying,
"You know, I've been trying to call Paul.
He's not answering. This isn't right."
I remember going downstairs. Patti was right on my tail,
turned the corner. There's the door to their bedroom.
And I remember knocking on the door.
And there was no answer.
I kept knocking two or three different times.
I said to myself, "Steve, go ahead and open the door.
Come on. Look in there and see what's going on.
The door is open.
Open the door."
[Patti] And it was unlocked till we opened the door.
[Stephen] And there's Dorothy.
It was just the worst moment of my life.
Once I came to the realization of what had happened after,
you know, what seems like an eternity, my mind went blank.
You know, I just...
[sighs in despair]
I don't know what I did then.
It was just, uh, the worst moment of my life.
And, uh, it was then, it is 43 years later.
And, uh, you know, that's life.
[Patti] I was like in shock.
It's like a permanent picture in my mind.
I'll never not see it. I'll never forget.
That was just so eerie and so, so horrible.
Stephen told me to just go up to the phone
and tell the investigator and to call the police.
[Richard] When I did open the bedroom door,
Dorothy was slumped down in front of the bed.
And then I found that Paul's body
was laying face down.
In the center of the room, the murder weapon utilized
was a 12-gauge shotgun.
Both had sustained gunshot wounds.
Dorothy to the face and Paul to the side of his head.
All of the evidence fit exactly it being a murder-suicide.
It appears that she held up her right hand
when the shotgun was pointed at her and fired
because the tip of her index finger was also shot off.
It is in line of her looking at the shotgun
and turning away from it.
And as she turned, it was fired as she held her hand up.
Paul had put the shotgun
to the left side of his left temple
and fired a round that went through his head
-and out the right side. -[gunshot]
And when he fell forward, the shotgun fell under him.
When we finally rolled him over,
you could see the absolute imprint of the shotgun in him.
[Patti] I mean, I can't...
Oh, the details are just so blurry
because I'm still in just shock over what I saw.
I mean, I wasn't crying or anything.
The reality hadn't set in yet.
So many police and investigators there.
As protocol, they dusted me for gunpowder,
took a whole history and told them what I knew
and, uh, never spent another night in the place.
And that was her fate and that was the end of her life.
She was 20 years old.
Kind of shocked that such a young lady
would lose her life so young.
Everyone felt the horror of it.
I know all the centerfolds did and everybody I knew.
They were just horrified,
but how could this guy do that?
Why did he have to take her life?
If there's one thing that captures the media,
it is a beautiful blonde lady
who has been killed by somebody.
There was sex, there was violence, there was intrigue.
It just became well known that Dorothy Stratten,
Playboy Bunny of the Year, was murdered.
By the time I finished up with my investigation,
-I was receiving calls from all over the world. -[phone ringing]
Canada, England, everywhere that you could possibly think of.
This was before the days of 24-hour cable,
of the internet or anything like that,
but there were still newspapers,
there were still breaking news on television,
and this was big news.
After Dorothy was killed, Hef was just so upset.
Hefner went into a depression
because I don't think anything like that had ever really stunned him.
[Jeana] Hef was just beside himself, you know.
He wanted people around him, and he had a lot to process.
It was heartbreaking. It affected everybody.
Everybody loved a little piece of Dorothy, you know.
Everybody could relate to her.
Everyone felt the horror of it.
The tragedy with Dorothy was such big news,
it was something Playboy couldn't even distance itself from.
They ran kind of a memorial feature for Dorothy
the following year, and it was something
that had reverberations through the company
for many, many years to come.
Bogdanovich tried to blame on the so-called "Playboy lifestyle,"
and he was just very, very angry.
He was lashing out at anybody connected with Playboy or not.
And then they're both pointing fingers at each other.
It's your fault. It's for you went out with the married ones, your fault.
And what really, really turned the corner
was Bogdanovich decided to write a book
about what really happened to Dorothy.
The lifestyle in the mansion, what went on,
and blamed Hefner.
And Hefner had a heart attack.
He literally had a...
This was five years later.
He told Bogdanovich, "You gave me a heart attack,"
because he knew it was the truth,
but who wants to hear that?
Come on. It's nobody's fault. He's a crazy husband.
Never in a million years would I ever imagine
that Paul could do what he did.
I've seen everything that you could think of
as far as murder suicides or double suicides.
For Snider, this was all about money for him.
Money and opportunity.
He wanted it all and couldn't have it.
She was an angel on Earth,
and she was just a delight to be around.
And I try to honor her memory
because she was just an extraordinary human being.
And I guess I'd say... [clears throat]
Uh...
We'll never see the likes of her again.
When I think about Dorothy,
it's just the incredible sadness of this beautiful,
bright spirit being crushed by an evil husband.
There had been some tragic deaths
concerning playmates before Dorothy,
but I feel that this particular case
hit really close to home
because everyone really knew and loved Dorothy.
You know, there's nothing anybody could have done,
but there's always that feeling, like,
"I wish I could have done something more."
[camera clicking]
The 50th Anniversary Playmate was presented as
being like a very special playmate.
It doesn't matter if you posed nude in Playboy,
that doesn't give somebody access or the right.
You never know who you are surrounded by,
what this person's background is.
It can be a really scary path.