josh pincus is crying

Rasmus Karl Therkelsen Gottlieb was born in 1886 in central Copenhagen, Denmark. As a teenager, he apprenticed as a machinist. He married and had two children, but with the outbreak of World War I, he entered the military. In 1916, after his discharge from military service, he headed to America alone, hoping to send for his family later (he didn’t). He had $25 in his pocket and spoke no English. He found work in a foundry. By summer 1917, he worked as an auto mechanic.
In Denmark, Karl’s father worked as a curtain-puller at a theater. Hanging around the theater, Karl got the inspiration to act. In late 1917, Karl appeared in his first picture. It was the first of a series of anti-German propaganda films. Karl was paid three dollars a day. He was making three dollars a week as a mechanic. The films were very successful. Rasmus Karl Therkelsen Gottlieb changed his name to “Karl Dane” and officially became an actor.
In December 1924, Karl was cast in King Vidor’s “The Big Parade”. The movie was a major success, becoming the second highest grossing silent film of all time, making almost $6.5 million.
Karl worked alongside Rudolph Valentino in “Son of the Sheik”. This film was also a success. Karl signed a contract with MGM in 1926. He began to appear as comic relief in several films including “The Scarlet Letter”, “La Boheme” and “Alias Jimmy Valentine”. Soon after signing his MGM contract, Karl teamed with George K. Arthur as a comedic duo. Together they were dubbed Dane & Arthur. In May 1927 the duo’s first film was an instant success, as were their subsequent films. By June 1927 MGM signed Karl to a long term contract. Dane & Arthur’s last silent short was released in 1928. Their first talkie was released a short time later. George Arthur had distinct British accent. Karl, however, had a thick guttural Danish accent which made his English hard to understand. Five films later, Karl lost his contract with MGM and suffered a nervous breakdown. After some much-needed rest, Dane & Arthur made a few shorts for Paramount and RKO and set out for a short vaudeville tour.
In November 1931, after the tour, Karl and some friends formed a mining corporation. The venture failed. Karl headed back to vaudeville with a solo comedic act. His act was panned by critics and was short lived.
By the summer of 1933, unable to get a movie contract, a desperate Karl had given up on films and turned again to mining. He spent three months driving up and down the West Coast trying to find a good mining deal and ended up losing $1,100 when various ventures never took off. Deeply depressed and broken down, Karl took on several jobs including mechanic, waiter, and carpenter. He was unable to hold any of these jobs. In late 1933, Karl purchased a hot dog stand outside MGM Studios, where just five years earlier he was a huge and productive star. The business failed, as it was shunned by his former friends. Karl tried to find work with his former studio as an extra or carpenter but was turned away. He was seeking a job that would pay $5 a day.
On April 13, 1934, Karl was pick pocketed of all the money he had — $18.
On April 14, 1934, Karl didn’t keep his movie date with a young woman named Frances Leake. A worried Frances arrived at Karl’s apartment. After receiving no response at the door, Frances got his landlady to unlock his apartment door. Inside the tiny unit they found Karl, slumped in a chair, a revolver at his feet and surrounded by his scrapbooks filled with rave reviews and studio contracts. There was also a note which read, “To Frances and all my friends — goodbye.”
Karl had shot himself in the head.

By the time she was six, Anissa (pronounced “ah-NEESE-ah”) Jones was hawking cereal in her first television commercial. A couple of years later, in 1966, Anissa’s acting talents caught the attention of two television producers who were preparing a new television sitcom called Family Affair. They felt Anissa would be perfect in the role of Elizabeth “Buffy” Patterson-Davis. Originally to be an older sister to Johnny Whitaker’s character Jody, upon Brian Keith’s (Uncle Bill) insistence, the role was rewritten to be Jody’s twin sister. Anissa played Buffy for the show’s entire 138-episode run. Her schedule was grueling, often requiring her to either work on the show or for show publicity all year round and sometimes seven days a week. But in June of 1969, Anissa’s hard work payed off. The show was number one in the ratings turning Buffy and Jody into household names. Buffy’s doll, Mrs. Beasley, became the best-selling doll in America during the show’s run.
Anissa’s fame continued to grow. She appeared in several television productions including guest roles in Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In and To Rome With Love. She, along with Jimmy Durante, presented the 1967 Emmy Award to The Monkees, for Best Comedy Series. She also starred alongside Elvis in her only movie, The Trouble with Girls. Numerous merchandising deals came her way. There were Buffy paper dolls, Family Affair coloring books and lunch boxes, a Buffy line of children’s clothes, and a Buffy Cookbook in 1971, all prominently featuring Anissa.
Anissa’s younger brother, Paul almost always accompanied her to the studio. Anissa was very fond of her brother. As the star of a hit TV series, Anissa would quite often receive gifts. She demanded that an identical one for her brother accompany any gift she received and if two gifts were not received, she would give hers away.
Family Affair was canceled in 1971, after five seasons. Anissa was thrilled that the show’s run was over, as it meant she could go to school and hang out with her friends. In 1972, Brian Keith contacted Anissa, offering her a role in his new TV sitcom. He assured her she could have the part without an audition. She graciously turned him down. Later in 1972, she auditioned for the part of “Regan MacNeil” in The Exorcist, a role she lost to Linda Blair. Anissa did not want to continue her show business career.
With a deteriorating mother-daughter relationship, Anissa, along with her brother Paul, moved in with their father. After their father’s death, Anissa and Paul were forced to move back with their mother, but Anissa often spent much of her time at a friend’s house. This infuriated her mother so much, that she reported Anissa as a runaway. Anissa was picked up and spent some time in juvenile detention. Upon her release, she began drinking and using drugs.
Hoping to make ends meet until her eighteenth birthday when she would receive royalties from Family Affair, Anissa took a job at Winchell’s Donut Shop in Playa Del Rey, California. At eighteen, Anissa received her $70,000 trust fund and $107,800 in US Savings Bonds from her Family Affair earnings. She and Paul got an apartment together. Anissa bought herself a new Ford Pinto and her brother a loaded Camaro that cost twice as much as her own car. With her newfound freedom, her new wealth and more drugs than she knew what to do with, Anissa began partying hard.
On August 28th, 1976, while attending a party at a friend’s house, Anissa ingested huge doses of the barbiturate Seconal (the drug of choice for Jimi Hendrix, Judy Garland, Charles Boyer and Marilyn Monroe), phencyclidine (PCP), cocaine and methaquaalone (Quaaludes). During the night, her boyfriend checked on her and she was fine. In the morning, her friends found an unresponsive Anissa and called the paramedics. Anissa was declared dead from what the San Diego County coroner called one of the most massive drug overdoses he’d ever seen.
Anissa was eighteen years old.

Eight years later, her brother, Paul, also died from a drug overdose.

Press the “play >” button below to hear Angel and The Reruns’ back-handed tribute to Anissa, “Buffy Come Back”!

On Tuesday, I saw this girl on the train.

Jerzy Kosinski walked a fine, sometimes blurred, line between bullshitter and storyteller. Kosinski was born Josek Lewinkopf in Poland in 1933. As a child during World War II, he avoided the Nazis by using a false identity. He lived with a Roman Catholic Polish family in eastern Poland under the name, Jerzy Kosinski, an assumed name given to him by his father. A Roman Catholic priest issued him a forged baptismal certificate. In 1957, Kosinski emigrated to the United States by forging letters from Polish authorities guaranteeing his loyal return, which were needed for leaving the country at that time. Once in the United States, he graduated from Columbia University. He was a lecturer at Yale, Princeton, Davenport University, and Wesleyan. In 1965, he became an American citizen.
His 1965 book The Painted Bird garnered mixed reviews. A story of a child during the Holocaust, Kosinski always insisted it was based on his own experience. However, when the book was translated and published in Poland, the family he had lived with took great exception to the abuse that was described in detail. Kosinski claimed “poetic license”.
In August 1969, Kosinski was invited, by his friend Wojciech Frykowski, to a small get-together in Los Angeles. Coming from New York, Kosinski’s luggage was lost by the airline. He phoned Frykowski, told him of this mishap and explained he would have to miss the party. The party was given by Sharon Tate and everyone there was murdered by intruders under the orders of Charles Manson.
He won the National Book Award in 1969 for Steps. In 1975, Chuck Ross, a Los Angeles freelance writer conducted an experiment with Steps by sending 21 pages of the book to four publishers under the pseudonym Erik Demos. The book was turned down by all of them including Random House (which originally published Steps) and Houghton Mifflin (which published three of Kosinski’s other novels). His 1971 book Being There was made into an Academy Award nominated film starring Peter Sellers.
A 1982 Village Voice article accused Kosinski of plagiarism. The article alleged that a great deal of Kosinski’s work was lifted from Polish manuscripts, virtually unknown by American readers. Kosinski always maintained that he loved to tell outrageous lies, particularly to the rich, intellectual and famous. They were so eager to be entertained, he explained, that they willingly suspended disbelief, and they were so confident of their superiority that they deserved to be played for fools. The truth of the Village Voice charges remained a matter of debate.
In addition to his writing, Kosinski appeared 12 times on The Tonight Show during 1971-73, posed half-naked for a New York Times Magazine cover photograph by Annie Leibovitz in 1982, and presented the Oscar for screenwriting in 1982. He also played the role of a Bolshevik revolutionary in Warren Beatty’s film Reds.
On May 3, 1991, despondent over a prolonged period of writer’s block, coupled with an irregular heartbeat as well as severe physical exhaustion, Kosinski took a fatal dose of barbiturates and washed it down with a rum and Coke. He then twisted a plastic shopping bag around his head and taped it shut around his neck. He was found dead in the bathtub in his New York apartment.

My illustration is being used HERE on the Library Thing website’s page for Jerzy Kosinski.

Mary Bickford Dunn was born in 1898 in Ontario, Canada. After her father died, she moved to Los Angeles with her mother and sister. While working as a secretary, the attactive Marie applied for and landed an acting job at the Hollywood studio owned by Mack Sennett. Sennett dubbed her “the exotic French girl,” and rechristened her “Marie Prevost.” Prevost joined his gang of infamous Sennett Bathing Beauties. Marie was in good company with other Sennett Beauties including future screen legend Gloria Swanson, Mabel Normand (who is credited with throwing the first custard pie in movies, it’s target being Fatty Arbuckle), and future Mrs. Clark Gable, Carole Lombard.
Marie’s star was rising fast. She showed the studio heads that she was more than just a pretty face and was given roles that allowed her to display her smart, comic timing. Often playing roles just short of risqué, her characters always turned out to be good girls by the end of the pictures. Marie worked with some of the greatest directors of the time, including Frank Capra, Cecil B. DeMille, Mervyn LeRoy. She was one of the busiest and most popular actresses of the 1920s. In 1926, while traveling in Florida, Marie’s mother was killed in a car accident. Her mother’s death hit her hard and she drowned her depression in alcohol.
Marie continued working, but the alcohol started to affect her physical appearance and she started to put on weight…and the studios began to notice. She found herself sliding down the Hollywood ladder. In the early 1930s she was able to find work, often portraying the wisecracking best friend. But, the girl who had once been a major player was reduced to bit roles with few lines.
A star just a decade earlier, Marie was now in her mid-thirties and considered a has-been. By 1934, she had no work at all and her financial situation deteriorated dramatically. The downward spiral became greatly aggravated when her weight problems forced her into repeated crash dieting in order to keep whatever bit part a movie studio offered. Her “crash diets” consisted of large amounts of alcohol and no food.
On January 23, 1937, police were called to a rundown apartment building in Los Angeles after neighbors complained of a continuously-barking dog. Inside, they found Marie dead on her bed. Her dog, without food or water for days, had chewed up her arms and legs in a futile attempt to awaken her. With the combination of alcoholism and self-imposed malnutrition, Marie had starved herself to death.

In the summer of 1961, eighteen-year-old Richard Manuel joined Ronnie Hawkins’ backing group, The Hawks, along with Levon Helm on drums, Robbie Robertson on guitar and Rick Danko on bass. Garth Hudson joined the band around Christmas time. After two years, Manuel along with Helm, Robertson, Danko, Hudson and saxophonist Jerry Penfound left Hawkins and became Levon Helm Sextet, then later changed to the Canadian Squires, and eventually to Levon and the Hawks. They came to the attention of Bob Dylan. The group of musicians became Dylan’s backing band and Albert Grossman, Dylan’s manager, became their manager.
In 1968, they signed a 10 album deal with Capitol Records. Their first album was released under the name “The Band”, the name they would go by for the rest of their career.
The shy and insecure Manuel was the first of the group to succumb to the temptations of the 1960s lifestyle. Already considered by most friends and associates to be an alcoholic, it was not long before Manuel added Tuinal, Valium, heroin, and cocaine to his addictions. Through the 60s and 70s, Manuel’s drug abuse grew worse. He routinely drank and drugged himself into a blank stupor. At the peak of his alcoholism, Manuel was polishing off eight bottles of Grand Marnier a day. By 1976, he had been divorced and had become a shadow of his former self, usually too drunk to play. In The Last Waltz, Martin Scorsese’s documentary of The Band’s last concert, Manuel looks older than his age of 33, and even sits out of some of the songs. It was clear that he was shy, insecure, and inebriated.
In 1978, Manuel moved to Garth Hudson’s ranch outside Malibu, drying out and eventually remarrying. In 1983, The Band reformed without Robertson. They were relegated to B-List venues and became a “play-your-hits” band, usually opening for bands with far less performing experience. Manuel sank into a deep depression immediately following the 1986 death of manager and friend Albert Grossman.
On March 4, 1986, after a gig at the Cheek to Cheek Lounge outside Orlando, in Winter Park, Florida, Manuel seemed to be in relatively good spirits. Ominously, after the show, he thanked Hudson for “twenty-five years of incredible music”. The Band returned to the Quality Inn, down the block from the Cheek to Cheek Lounge, and Manuel talked with Levon Helm in Helm’s room. Around 2:30 in the morning Manuel returned to his room where his wife was already asleep. Sometime during the night, Manuel finished a bottle of Grand Marnier and a vial of cocaine, looped his belt around his neck and secured the other end to the shower-curtain rod, and hanged himself.

In March 1916, eight-year-old Peg Entwistle came to America with her father and her uncle, both stage actors. In 1922, her father was killed by a hit-and-run driver. Peg and her two half-brothers were taken in by their uncle. 1925 brought Peg her first acting role, a walk-on part in Hamlet. This led to the role of “Hedvig” in Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck, a role that a young Bette Davis cited as the reason she became an actress. Davis praised Peg Entwistle as her major influence for her entire career.
Peg performed in ten Broadway plays as a member of the Theatre Guild between 1926 and 1932. She worked with such Braodway notables as George M. Cohan and Dorothy Gish. Peg continued to appear in plays until May 1932, when she was brought to the West Coast by producers Edward Belasco and Homer Curran to co-star with Billie Burke in the play, The Mad Hopes. It was staged in preparation for a Broadway opening. The Mad Hopes opened to rave reviews. The theater had 1,600 seats, but the house was standing-room only. The play was a hit and, as scheduled, closed on June 4, 1932 to head to Broadway. Peg was set to return to New York, but RKO Pictures called her for a screen test. On June 13, 1932, Entwistle signed a contract for a one-picture deal with RKO and reported early in July to shoot her part as “Hazel Cousins” in Thirteen Women. The film received poor reviews from test screenings. The studio eliminated scenes deemed unnecessary, cutting back Entwistle’s screen time greatly. Her career was at a stand still after that. She did lots of auditions, and hung around her uncle’s house, waiting for work, and trying to save enough money to go back to New York, but couldn’t even manage train fare.
On September 18, 1932, Peg told her uncle that she was going to walk up Beachwood Drive to the drug store, and then to visit friends. Instead, she made her way up the southern slope of Mount Lee, near her uncle’s home, to the foot of the Hollywood sign. After placing her coat, shoes and purse containing the suicide note at the base of the sign, she made her way up a workman’s ladder to the top of the “H” and jumped. Her body was found in the 100-foot ravine below two days later.
The note in Peg’s purse read: I am afraid, I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain. P.E.”
The LA Times published the letter in hopes that she would be identified. She was dubbed “The Hollywood Sign Girl.” Her uncle recognized the initials and identified her body in the morgue. The cause of death was listed by the coroner as “multiple fractures of the pelvis and probably did not die quickly.”
Several days after her death, Peg’s uncle opened a letter addressed to her from the Beverly Hills Playhouse; it was mailed the day before she jumped. It was an offer for her to play the lead role in a stage production—in which her character would commit suicide in the final act.
Peg Entwistle was 24.

This illustration stirred up anger in at least one viewer. Read all about it HERE. Oh, the shit you have to put up with as an artist.

The story of the YFZ (Yearn for Zion) isolated compound in Texas has been front and center in the news for the past few weeks. One of the most intriguing parts of this story is the women of the community. Since the first pictures of the women surfaced, I know I have been fascinated by their appearance. They all seem to share similar characteristics. They are very soft-spoken. They speak slowly, deliberately and monotone. They all have that same calm and far away look in their eyes.
I have seen several television interviews with some of the women, where they were questioned about their plain, solid-colored, pastel dresses and their plain yet elaborately arranged hairstyles. One woman eerily smiled and said their clothes and hairstyles have no significance, that they make their own clothes and they all like to wear long hair.
I read a conflicting explanation. It said: “the dresses are meant to show modesty and conformity. They go down to the ankles and wrists, and are often worn over garments or pants, making sure every possibly provocative inch of skin is covered. The appearance of unity through uniform dress, however, can belie the jealousy that often arises when the women — who might all look alike to an outsider — find themselves in competition with one another over the affections of the same man. The clothing is also stitched with special markings “to protect the body and to remind you of you commitment.” The report went on to explain the hairdos, saying “the women never cut their hair because they believe they will use it to wash Christ’s feet during the Second Coming. A Biblical quote says a woman’s hair should be her crowning glory.”

It brings to mind the Rado/Ragni lyrics….
They’ll be ga-ga at the go-go
when they see me in my toga
My toga made of blond, brilliantined, Biblical hair
My hair like Jesus wore it
Hallelujah I adore it
Hallelujah Mary loved her son
Why don’t my Mother love me?

Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle appeared in several Keystone Kops shorts in 1913. In 1914 Paramount Pictures offered the then-unheard Arbuckle $1,000 a day, 25% of all profits and complete artistic control of movies he made for them. The movies were so lucrative and popular that in 1918 they offered Arbuckle a 3-year, $3 million contract. In his movies, Arbuckle typically portrayed a bumbling yet well-meaning hero who saved the day by pie-throwing, back-flipping, and generally outwitting his opponent. In spite of his bulky, 250-pound frame, Arbuckle proved to be an able acrobat ― a skill he had perfected during his days in vaudeville. In 1919, Arbuckle was one of the most successful comedians in silent film. Two years later, that would change.
On September 3, 1921 Arbuckle took a break from his hectic film schedule and drove to San Francisco with two friends. They checked into the St. Francis Hotel, decided to have a party, and invited several women to their suite. During the carousing, a 30-year-old aspiring actress named Virginia Rappe became seriously ill and was examined by the hotel doctor, who concluded her symptoms were mostly caused by intoxication.
Rappe died three days later of peritonitis caused by a ruptured bladder. Rappe’s companion at the party, Maude Delmont, claimed before a grand jury that Arbuckle had somehow pierced Rappe’s bladder while raping her. Rappe’s manager Al Semnacker accused Arbuckle of using a piece of ice to simulate sex with her, which led to the injuries. By the time the story was reported in newspapers, the object had evolved into being a Coca-Cola or Champagne bottle, instead of a piece of ice. In fact, witnesses testified that Arbuckle rubbed the ice on Rappe’s stomach to ease her abdominal pain. Arbuckle was confident that he had nothing to be ashamed of, and denied any wrongdoing. Delmont later made a statement incriminating Arbuckle to the police in an attempt to extort money from Arbuckle’s attorneys, but the matter soon spun out of her control. What Delmont did not tell the District Attorney was that as Virginia Rappe lay in pain in Arbuckle’s hotel suite, Delmont had sent a telegram to each of two friends: “WE HAVE ROSCOE ARBUCKLE IN A HOLE HERE. CHANCE TO MAKE SOME MONEY OUT OF HIM.” Her official complaint—with its description of how Arbuckle had dragged Virginia Rappe into his bedroom saying, “I’ve waited five years to get you;” how Rappe had cried for help from behind the locked door and Delmont had banged on the door; how Arbuckle had at last emerged, perspiring from the struggle and she had rushed in to find Rappe naked and bruised and dying—all had been a fabrication. After two deadlocked juries in as many mistrials, the jury at Arbuckle’s third trial deliberated for six minutes and returned a “not guilty” verdict. But it was too late for Arbuckle’s career. By this time Arbuckle’s films had been banned, and newspapers had been filled for seven months with alleged stories of Hollywood orgies, murder, sexual perversity, and lies about the case.
Arbuckle tried returning to moviemaking, but industry resistance to distributing his pictures lingered after his acquittal. He retreated into alcoholism. In the words of his first wife, “Roscoe only seemed to find solace and comfort in a bottle.”
Buster Keaton attempted to help Arbuckle by giving him work on Keaton’s films. Arbuckle also directed a number of comedy shorts under the pseudonym William Goodrich.
In 1921, shortly before his third marriage, Arbuckle signed a contract with Warner Brothers to star in six two-reel short comedies under his own name. The six shorts, filmed in Brooklyn, contain the only recordings of Arbuckle’s voice. Lionel Stander and Shemp Howard appeared with Arbuckle in these successful films.
Arbuckle had finished filming the last of these shorts on June 28, 1933. The next day he was signed by Warner Brothers to make a feature-length film. At last, Arbuckle’s professional reputation was restored, and he was welcomed back into the world he loved. He reportedly said, “This is the best day of my life.” He died that night of a heart attack. He was 46.

Born Albert Van Ecke in Brooklyn, New York, Albert Dekker made his professional acting debut with a Cincinnati stock company in 1927. Within a few months, Dekker was featured on Broadway.
Dekker moved to Hollywood in 1937, and made his first film, The Great Garrick. He returned to the stage and replaced Lee J. Cobb as Willy Loman in the original 1949 production of Death of a Salesman, and during a five-year stint back on Broadway in the early 1960s, he played the Duke of Norfolk in A Man for All Seasons, with Paul Scofield. Dekker appeared in some seventy films from the 1930s to 1960s, but his three most famous screen roles were as a mad scientist in the 1940 horror film Dr. Cyclops, as a vicious hitman in the The Killers, and as an unscrupulous railroad detective in The Wild Bunch, his last motion picture.
Dekker’s interest in politics led to his winning a seat in the California State Assembly for the 57th Assembly District in 1944. Dekker served as a Democratic member for the Assembly during the McCarthy era, and became an outspoken critic of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy’s tactics.
Dekker was married actress Esther Guernini. The couple had two sons and a daughter before divorcing. Their sixteen-year-old son, Jan, had been experimenting for over a year on development of a rifle silencer. In 1967, he died of an accidental, but self-inflicted gunshot.
On Thursday evening, May 2, 1968, Dekker and his fiancée, Geraldine Saunders, attended the opening of Zero Mostel’s new play in Hollywood. After the show, Dekker went home to his rented Hollywood apartment. He and Saunders had plans to go out again on Saturday evening. Saturday night passed and Saunders had not heard from Dekker. Saunders became concerned. First thing Sunday morning, she went to his apartment to find his door covered with notes from friends who were also trying in vain to contact him. She slipped a note of her own under the door. When she returned that evening and found it still in place, she went immediately to the building manager. The manager opened the front door which had been locked but not bolted. Everything seemed to be in order until they tried the bathroom door. It was chained from the inside. They forced it open. Saunders passed out from the sight of what they found.
The 6 feet 3 inch, 240-pound Dekker was kneeling nude in the bathtub, a hypodermic needle sticking out of each arm. A hangman’s noose was around his neck but not tight enough to have strangled him. A scarf was tied over his eyes and something like a horse’s bit was in his mouth. Fashioned from a rubber ball and metal wire, the bit had chain “reins” that were tightly tied behind his head. Two leather thongs were stretched between the leather belts that girded his neck and chest. A third belt, around his waist, was tied with a rope that stretched to his ankles, where it had been tied in some kind of lumber hitch. The end of the rope, which continued up his side, wrapped around his wrist several times and was held in Dekker’s hand. Both wrists were clasped by a set of handcuffs. Written in lipstick, above two hypodermic punctures on his right buttock, was the word “whip” and drawings of the sun. Sun rays had also been drawn around his nipples. “Make me suck” was written on his thorax and “slave” and “cocksucker” on his chest. On his lower abdomen was drawn a vagina. He had apparently been dead since Friday and his awkward position had colored his lower body a deep blood purple. He was 62 years old.
During the brief investigation, detectives noted that there were no signs of forced entry or a struggle. Dekker’s death was eventually ruled accidental. The coroner determined that Dekker accidentally asphyxiated himself while attempting autoerotic asphyxia.