Read Crime Wave: Reportage and Fiction From the Underside of L.A. Page 9

  Chapman braces Edward Rubin. He dittoes Hathaway. It did seem strange that Andy stayed that long.

  The case dragged on. A lot of the cops thought it wasn't even a murder. Bobby Chapman transferred out. Bobby Morck and Vince Bogdanich got the case. Morck thought it wasn't a murder. Bogdanich wasn't sure. They checked out leads anyway.

  Bogdanich braced David Lange on 7/2 3/68. Lange stuck by his '63 story. He refused to take a second polygraph test--on advice of legal counsel. Bogdanich thought he was a viable suspect.

  The leads trickled out. They worked other jobs. They worked the Kupcinet job as tips materialized. They braced David Lange on 9/I 7/69.

  Lange had a gig at Paramount. Morck and Bogdanich braced him at his office. He cooperated. They asked him if he'd take another polygraph. Lange said he'd talk to his lawyer.

  His lawyer called the boss at Sheriff's Homicide. He said: Mr. Lange would not take another polygraph test.

  The Karyn Kupcinet case was five years, nine months, and twenty-three days old. It was a freak show and a heartache. A woman got lost in the uproar.

  2

  The Victim

  It was Kup's town. The funeral was Kup's Show.

  The heavies turned out. Governor Kerner, aldermen, Mayor Richard J. Daley. They rode at the front of the car-line. Karyn's friends rode at the back.

  12/4/63:

  Temple Sholom on the Gold Coast. Adios, Karyn--it was too damn brief.

  Fifteen hundred people. Major coverage. A big egalitarian spin.

  Ward heelers weep. Hoodlums hurl tears into their hankies. Hipsters hobnob with hackles and schvartze waiters from the Pump Room.

  It's a mob scene. It's a mitzvah for a media man and his moviemad daughter. It plays nine days after the JFK entombment.

  Andy Prine did not attend the service. Rabbi Louis Binstock emceed. He praised Karyn. He said she was "high above the stage, with her warmth of manner and a glow in her eyes."

  An all-star lineup lugged the casket out to the hearse. Among them: ex-Chicago Bears quarterback Sid Luckman.

  Karyn closed strong. She would have dug the show.

  She was Irv and Essee K.'s first child. They named her Roberta Lynn and called her "Cookie." Their son, Jerry, was born three years later.

  Essee came from money. Try came from zilch. He played pro football. He called Bears games on radio and TV. He wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times. He hosted Kup's Show--a gabfest with real legs.

  Kup lobbed softballs in his column. People loved him. He loved the Joe Blow Chicagoan impersonally. He loved celebs for real.

  Essee loved celebs and culture. She took Cookie and Jerry to ballets and stage shows. She doted on Cookie. She said she should be an actress. She pushed her that way. Cookie bought the program.

  Essee stressed beauty and thinness. She got Cookie some childmodel gigs.

  Cookie loved drama. She loved to act. She loved Kup's World.

  It was glamorous. It was who you knew and who blew who. It was ringside seats and a special guest for dinner every night. Cookie dropped names like most kids dropped vowels.

  She went to the Francis Parker School. She excelled at kid theatrics. She got summer-stock gigs in and around Chicago. She played the tomboy role in a boffo rendition of Picnic.

  She finished high school. She went to Pine Manor College for a year and a half. She played leads and second leads in school shows. She put on a little weight. She took it off and put it on again. She moved to New York City in '6o.

  She gained weight and lost weight. She never got fat. It was all crazy shit in her head.

  She changed her name to Lynn Roberts. A plastic surgeon reshaped her chin.

  She lived off money from home. She auditioned and got a few gigs. She gained weight and lost weight. She got depressed. She dropped "Lynn Roberts" and renamed herself "Karyn Kupcinet."

  Kup was tight with Jerry Lewis. Jerry liked Karyn. He offered her a bit part in his flick The Ladies' Man.

  Karyn flew out to L.A. She dug it and decided to stay.

  Essee's mother moved out and played chaperone. They found a pad on Hollywood Boulevard. Essee set Karyn up with Mark and Marcia Goddard. Kup set her up with A-list contacts.

  Karyn started a new datebook on 3/9/61. She recorded her weight in most entries. She got a nose job on 5/16. She weighed 115½ pounds.

  "Awake during operation. AGONY. Felt needles, cutting, everything!"

  Karyn thought her new nose looked like a pig snout. Other people disagreed.

  5/29/61. In Vegas with Kup and Essee:

  "Nose much better!" "So many compliments!" Warren Beatty: "You're so beautiful." Eddie Fisher: "Thought you were Liz."

  5/27/61:

  "I'm pretty! So happy!"

  Karyn got a guest shot on Hawaiian Eye. Bob Conrad was "a doll." "Me--so-o complimented!"

  Karyn auditioned. Karyn went to brunch, lunch, and dinner. Karyn shopped and got her hair done. Karyn got her weight down to 1131/2.

  She got a series gig on 7/2 5. The show starred Gertrude Berg. It was called Mrs. G. Goes to College.

  She started work on 8/2. Her weight stood at 1 14. The director said she had a "wild body." Karyn played a kooky college kid.

  Karyn worked. Karyn hung out at Pj.'s and the Crescendo. Karyn ate at Linny's and the Hamburger Hamlet. Karyn shopped atJax and Saks.

  8/17/61:

  Gertrude thought she wore too much makeup. "Everyone around there makes me nervous."

  8/18/61:

  "Gertrude impossible. Finally--got my close-up and took four or five takes. Couldn't get damn thing straight."

  9/11/61: 113 pounds. 9/12/61: "Hardly ate at all!" 9/15 and 9/16/61: "Ate & ate."

  10/4/61: The Mrs. G. pilot airs. 109 pounds, "My hair darling--lots of compliments." 10/ 15/6 1: 116 pounds. "Ate 3 Danish," "Eating too much."

  Karyn logged male compliments. Karyn logged male encounters. She met men. She kissed them. They got schizzy and blew her off. 10/22/61: 110 pounds, "No one calls me." 10/28/61: 114 1/2 pounds. "Eating too many sweet rolls."

  Karyn worked on the Berg Show and tried out for other gigs. She went out on bad dates and hung out with her girlfriends. She went to twist clubs and movie premieres.

  1/23/62: 121 pounds. "I look too heavy; yet everyone calls me beautiful." 2/1/62: 117 pounds. "Everyone noticed my weight loss." 2/5/62: 125 pounds. "Stayed in bed. Ate. Feel so draggy & tired." 2/15/62: 121 pounds. "Took pills." "Looked gorgeous." 2/16/62: "Woke up very dopey (after 3 sleeping pills). Groggy." 2/19/62: "Slept late," "Bought 'Leen' tablets."

  The Berg Show was cancelled. Karyn went on unemployment. Kup and Essee sent her money. Her grandmother moved back to Chicago.

  3/22/62: 123 pounds. "Got to lose at least io lbs. by April 8! Only 17 days."

  3/29/62:

  "I'm beginning to discover who I am! My convictions & 'image' are getting clearer. I know I'm happiest following the pattern of sophistication, than one of girlish appeal."

  Karyn got a guest shot on The Red Skelton Show. Skelton to Karyn, 4/2/62: "3 people said you were prettier than Liz Taylor."

  More auditions. More pills. More brunches, lunches, and dinners.

  Two brief love affairs. Summer stock in Chicago--Sunday in New York. The Annie Sullivan role in The Miracle Worker at the Laguna Beach Playhouse. Good reviews and a run below 115.

  10/1/62:

  "Woke up feeling slightly nauseous & groggy. Hallucinations, inferiority complex, aching limbs, stiff neck, (surely liver damage) resulted from pills."

  10/8/62: "Cried myself to sleep." 10/9 to I 1/10/62: doodles and incomplete notations. 11/11/62: "Continuous hysteria. Deepest depression ever." 1 2/3/62: "Wide Country--6:00 A.M. call (location)." 12/4/62: "Andy Prine--doll!" 12/6/62: 105 pounds. "Andy. 'Raincheck." I 2/9/62: "Andy." 12/1 1/62: "Andy." 12/12/62: "Look thin." 12/13/62: "Andy." 12/i8, 19, 20, 21, 22: "Andy"--and no other notations.

  Karyn flew to Chicago for Christmas. 12/28, 12/31 and 1/1/63: "Andy called--'I love you."


  It was all Andy now.

  1/17/63: "Met Andy for lunch. He was attentive." "Wide Country--Andy was brilliant, I was an EXTRA. Felt depressed." 1/20/63: "Andy--aloof." 2/5/63: "Tense & anxious over Andy's attitude." 2/11/63: "Me tense, blurred vision. To Dr. Getzoff (pills) with Andy." 2/19/63: "Must maintain my own identity; not become his door-mat. So useless."

  3/25/63: "Andy picked me up 5:3o. Lovely love--ate at DuPar's--Back & lovely love." 4/ 9/6 3: "Eating much too much." 4/11/63: "I love Andy Prine." 5/21/63: "12 P.M.--Dr. Kroger. Gave me weight capsules. Finally get a 'lift.' Appetite's inhibited." 5/30/63: "Andy distant--me terribly possessive and weak."

  Karyn tanked auditions. Karyn shopped and ate and saw shrinks.

  6/21/63:

  "At his house; found out about Cheryl H. & B. Scott. Awful! 'I don't want to see you tonight either.' I went over. Got in. Came back later--HYSTERICS."

  6/27/63: "Getting my self-respect back. I'm stronger." 6/30/63: "Oh Andy, lovely, lovely." 7/1/63: 134 pounds. "Beginning today--I starve!" "Dr. Krohn prescribed Desoxyn." 7/8/63: 124 pounds. "Dr. Krohn, 1:30 p.M. (Figure's looking better.) Andy: 'It excites me to hurt U a little."

  Karyn learned she was pregnant. Mark and Marcia took her down to Tj. 7/9/6 3: "Like a nightmare. This can't be happening to me." 7/10/63: "Oh God--I don't know what to do. Called Dr. Estrada (call back after noon)."

  7/11/63: "Called Dr. Estrada again. Getting used to the idea." Karyn got an abortion on 7/12/63. "Traumatic. Glad it's over. Relief after nightmare." She returned to L.A. "Andy considerate & attentive." "Knots, gas--like cramps. Andy made soup."

  7/25/63: "I'm so happy. How long can it last?" 7/30/63: "Andy with Anna. Me watched from hedge. Awful. Nightmares."

  Karyn stopped auditioning. Karyn cut down her social contacts. 8/15/63: "I must not be possessivesweet."

  8/17/63:

  "Really MAD at the Son of a Bitch. For the first time, I really dislike Andy. He shows no consideration or understanding & he humiliates me." 8/18/63: "How dare he not make one concession or show any feelings?"

  8/20/63: "So humiliated by Andy's lack of interest." 8/27/63: "Feel like I'm about to explode!" 8/28/63: "Eating too much!"

  Karyn stepped up her social contacts. Karyn moved to the Monterey Village Apartments. A heat wave scorched L.A. Karyn got a shot on Perry Mason.

  10/29/63:

  "Andy acting ugly. Complete indifference. Scene at his house. I'm hysterical."

  11/1/63: "No Andy--spyed on him." 11/2/63: "Went to his house--selfish, independent, inconsiderate & thoughtless. Never gives & unpenetrable." 11/4/63: "I hid in attic; then sat outside in cold for 2 or 3 hours. Wish I were dead." 1 1/8/63: "Dr. Kroger-- cried in his office." 11/9/63: "Eating all day & night." 11/10/63: "Can't stand it--I'm losing reality." 11/11/63: "Call Andy--sex." 11/15/63: "2:00 P.M.--Kroger. Happy & up. Wore pink skirt-- Admiring looks."

  11/22/63: "President assassinated."

  11/23/63: "Palm Springs."

  11/25/63: "Ate to oblivion."

  11/27 or 28:

  DEAD

  The datebook ended five weeks short of New Year's. A sheet was clipped to the back.

  Karyn jotted down some book tides. They were psychoanalytic texts.

  Beside them:

  A list of all the men she'd slept with.

  3

  Karyn Redux

  They entombed her in a Jewish cemetery. They honored her with classy endowments.

  Two Karyn Kupcinet Theaters. A Karyn Kupcinet Gallery. A Karyn Kupcinet Scholarship.

  Kup and Essee kept her name out there. No one knows how they defined her death and rush to self-destruct. No one knows how many what-ifs and might-have-beens they indulged over cocktails.

  Karyn died moments after a freeze-frame. The camera's in tight. She's all passion and disorder. A close-up sends out an implication: She could go anywhere now.

  It might be true. It might be a wishful conceit. She left a list of books and a list of men as her last will and testament. It might have marked a step toward self-knowledge. It might have been a Band-Aid to cover her wounds until her shitheel lover called. She had a fierce heart and no will to moral judgment. Her compulsive componentry was common to young women. She carried her own strain of a plague. It hadn't been identified yet. The time impinged her. Her shrink cosigned her rebop and tapped Kup's bankbook. She didn't get the gender-role thing. She didn't know that women took it up the shorts systematically. She didn't know that the precept could spark a will to change. She had the juice to grasp the concept. She might have found the guts to go with it and burned her old life to the ground. She was just a kid. She didn't know shit from Shinola. She labored under a shroud. She thought showbiz was real.

  It was the Kupcinet family blessing and curse. It started with Kup. He passed it on to Karyn and Jerry.

  Jerry turned 19 the month Karyn died. He loved the visual arts. He wanted to forge a Kupcinet life on the other side of the camera.

  He went to Bradley U and Columbia of Chicago. He studied photography. He graduated and shot pix for Playboy. He shot stills for the Chicago stage run of Hair.

  He became a TV cameraman and director. He directed segments of A.M. Chicago and Good Morning America. He married a woman named Sue Levine. They had a son and a daughter.

  Jerry got a gig on The Richard Simmons Show. He moved his family out to L.A. It was '8 1. His daughter was nine years old. Her name was Karyn Ann Kupcinet.

  Essee called it reincarnation. Kup said he almost agreed. The blessing and curse hit a third generation.

  Karyn Two didn't look like Karyn. It was all inside. The Karyns bubbled and churned. They lived to please and lived to perform. Essee pushed Karyn Two the same way she pushed Karyn. She pushed her to act and stay thin.

  Karyn Two went to Parker School in Chicago. She hung out at the Karyn Kupcinet Gallery. She pretended that they named the place after her.

  She knew her Aunt Karyn died young. She knew somebody killed her. Nobody fed her more details. She felt no urge to learn more.

  Jerry moved his brood out to L.A. Karyn Two grew up on Karyn's old turf.

  She gained weight and lost weight. Food was a punishment. Food was a reward.

  She went out on kid auditions. She got a few TV and stage parts. She played Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker. She was a high-school freshman then.

  She kept a journal. She wrote a play called The Porcelain Doll. It was all about a weight-obsessed girl. She writes her thoughts in a journal. She dies young. Her best friend finds the journal and reads it.

  Karyn Two acted. Karyn Two gained and lost weight. Karyn Two had a nice boyfriend.

  The boyfriend went to the Film Academy library. They kept files on professional performers. He asked to see the file on Karyn Two. The clerk gave him the file on Karyn.

  The file freaked him out. He skimmed it and called Karyn Two. She went to the library and read the file cover to cover.

  She copied down most of the data. She studied it. She flew to Chicago and looked through Karyn's belongings. Kup and Essee kept twelve boxes.

  Karyn Two dug through them. She read Karyn's datebooks. She read fan-mag stories on Andy Prine. She started writing journal entries to her aunt.

  She caught the psychic-twin bit full-on. She caught the ugly belief in appearances that took Karyn down and tossed it straight back at herself. She saw herself as Kaiyn reborn. She got stone flicking obsessed.

  She reread Karyn's datebooks. She ran "what-if" and "mighthave-been" riffs. She dreamt about Andy Prine.

  She loves him. She trusts him. He loves her. He does not act like a shitheel or a killer.

  The dreams drove her crazy. Maybe Karyn sent them. Maybe she wanted to absolve Andy. Maybe she was glad that he killed her. Her life was horrible. Maybe death was a treat.

  She finished high school. She went to UCLA. She auditioned. She got commercial gigs and guest shots on soaps. Rejections killed her. She felt like the '62 Karyn. Her OBSESSION ate her alive.

  She wr
ote to a dead woman. She reread her last words and hoarded the details of her life. She kept Karyn's purse. She fondled her wallet and dried-out cigarettes.

  She was born in '71. She never knew her aunt. She knew she had her mad blood in her veins.

  She turned 20. She got a steady gig on The Young and the Restless. She played a pregnant crackhead. She had ratted hair and wore ripped jeans. She cried on cue every day. They shot the show at Beverly and Fairfax. The Monterey Village Apartments stood a mile or so northwest. Andy Prine's ex-wife worked on the show.

  Karen Two loved the work. She loved the whirl that went with it.

  Parties and clubs. Access to exciting people. Accommodators and sycophants. Insider status in an insider town. Limos and drugs. Weak, sexy men. Kup's World--updated and revised for a youth market.

  She fell into it. It subsumed her dialogue with a dead woman and thinned out her mad blood.

  The pace kept her weight down. Cocaine helped. Hallucinogens undermined her monomania.

  She ran through soft and self-obsessed men. "Actors." "Musicians." Studs who ran long on looks and "Potential." Her affairs burned out in similar patterns. The studs revealed themselves fast. Karyn Two possessed good antennae. She majored in Karyn One and minored in Andy Prine and David Lange. She started to put it all together. She built a generational thesis. She connected the dots back to 1963.

  It came to her siow. The L.A. scene tempted and diverted her. She put it together over good time.

  Mad blood shared. Gifts locked within. Pj.'s and the Crescendo. The Rainbow and the Roxy. Desoxyn and hallucinogens. Weak men and skinny bodies to make them love you. Would-be actors and actors. The actors' psyche as defined by some actorsavant: "My only regret in life is that I'm not somebody else."

  She put it together siow. Andy Prine types distracted her. She put it together over good time. She made the connections and sealed and severed the bond all in one go.