Karyn Kupcinet (born Roberta Lynn Kupcinet; March 6, 1941 – November 28, 1963) was an American stage, film, and television actress. She was the daughter of Chicago newspaper columnist and television personality Irv Kupcinet, and the sister of television director and producer Jerry Kupcinet.
Kupcinet's father publicly dismissed the theories linking his daughter to the president's death. In 1992, after NBC's Today program briefly referred via a caption to her alleged connection to the assassination, Irv Kupcinet described the broadcast as "an atrocious outrage" and "calumny". Karyn Kupcinet's death remains officially unsolved.
Early life
Karyn Kupcinet was born Roberta Lynn Kupcinet in Chicago, Illinois, to Irv Kupcinet, a sportswriter for the Chicago Daily Times, and his wife, Esther Kupcinet (née Solomon). Her younger brother, Jerry Kupcinet, was a director and producer in television. She was of Russian Jewish ancestry.[1] She acquired the nickname "Cookie" during her childhood. Kupcinet made her acting debut at age 13 in the Chicago production of Anniversary Waltz and went on to attend Pine Manor College for a semester, eventually studying at the Actors Studio in New York City.[2]
Kupcinet's last onscreen appearance was on Perry Mason in the role of Penny Ames, in an episode entitled "The Case of the Capering Camera". The episode aired on CBS on January 16, 1964,[5] nearly two months after her death.
Telegram sent to Karyn by her mother on eve of a performance on stage in Dayton, Ohio.[6]
Kupcinet worked as a model and stage actress before she arrived in Hollywood. Her mother Esther "Essee" Kupcinet lived vicariously through her daughter. It was she who started her on that path; she wanted to create a star.[7]
While still in diapers, Essee began to groom Karyn for stardom. “This is the child who was supposed to live out her dream,” said Peggy Schatz, friend of the family.[8]
She made her debut on the public stage at just five and a half months old as a model, her mother arranging for her to appear in baby clothing and accessories advertisements. In the years that followed Karyn's modelling career continued steadily, she appeared in advertising campaigns in national newspapers, magazines and then TV commercials. Family cook John Clark said in an interview ”the girl was talked into being an actress by her mother”, before she could read her governess took her to acting lessons when Essee had other plans and read the scripts to her, Karyn would memorise it and perform little shows on cue for family and friends. At just three years of age she made her entry into theatre with appearances in several 'Little Theatre' productions, designed to groom children to be future stage actors.[2]
She made her professional acting debut in 1955 at age 13 in the Chicago production of 'Anniversary Waltz' by Jerome Chodorov. understudy of rising star Carol Lynley (1942-2019), also making her debut in that play.[9]
She attended the Francis W. Parker School in Chicago, starring in the school production of Pygmalion and graduating in the class of 1958. Her year book describes her as a fan of the musical Summer Stock and a future actress who is at home on the stage. She studied at Pine Manor College, was invited to join the production of Wozzyck with the Harvard University Drama Club before heading to New York to study at the Actor's Studio under Lee Strasberg, Herbert Bergoff, Marc Daniels and Martha Graham.[10]
James Alex Productions program for 'Father of the Bride".[6]
When she left for California at age 20 to try her hand at motion pictures she already had a substantial body of professional acting work under her belt, having appeared in; 'Apollo of Bellac' - 'The Royal Family' with Linda Darnell. 'The Chalk Garden' with Penny Wood. 'Jenny Kissed Me', 'Time of the Cukoo' and appeared opposite Darren McGavin in the 1956 season of 'Picnic' for which she received rave reviews. She loved the stage and would prove her mettle starring in a production of 'Father of the Bride', appearing for 15 gruelling weeks in Florida opposite veteran actor Pat O'Brien.[11]
It was reported that she originally appeared on screen as Tammy Windsor and officially as Karyn Kupcinet in the movie 'The Ladies Man' (1961) starring Jerry Lewis. That is not true, Tammy Windsor was a different person all together. Before her career was tragically cut short Karyn made a great start, she appeared credited and unaccredited in 31 movies, television shows and TV commercials. She also boosted her image and supplemented her income modelling and appeared regularly on stage, stage was her forte, 1962 was a busy year; she appeared in the Laguna Beach Summer Theatre production of 'The Miracle Worker'. Reprised her role as Kay in another production of "Father of the Bride" and also appeared that year in 'Sunday in New York' back home in Chicago.[2]
Edgewater Beach Playhouse Stagebill for 'Sunday in New York', one of her most successful performances.[6]
Personal life
By 1961, Kupcinet was living in Hollywood and getting positive reviews for her acting.[12] She had a relationship with Skip Ward, whom she met on the series in which they both appeared.
In December 1962 she filmed a guest-star appearance on The Wide Country and had her first meeting with one of the series' stars, Andrew Prine,[13] and began dating him.[2][13] However, the relationship was problematic due to Karyn wanting to make the relationship exclusive. Prine was newly divorced and was dating other people. After Kupcinet underwent an alleged abortion in July 1963, the relationship cooled further and Prine continued dating other women. In turn, Kupcinet began spying on Prine and his new girlfriend.[2]
One afternoon upon returning to his residence with a girlfriend, they heard noises in the attic and called the police. The authorities discovered Karyn Kupcinet in the attic, stalking Prine and his friends.[citation needed]
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department later determined Kupcinet had delivered threatening and profane messages, consisting of words and letters she had cut out of magazines, to Prine and herself.[2] When Prine told her by telephone about anonymous messages that had been Scotch-taped to the door of his Los Angeles house,[13] she said she had received them as well.[2] They met to show the messages to each other; she seemed puzzled.[2] Soon after her death, investigators for the sheriff's department found her fingerprints on the papers and the Scotch tape.[2] They notified the police.
Kupcinet had longstanding issues with weight, which started after she began taking diet pills in high school. The pressure to stay thin intensified after Kupcinet arrived in Hollywood, and she soon began abusing diet pills along with other prescription drugs.[2] A Los Angeles Times interviewer, assigned to help Kupcinet promote The Gertrude Berg Show in March 1962, noted her talking exclusively about food and her weight.[4] Kupcinet had also been arrested for shoplifting.[14]
"It's terribly difficult to keep your head clear in a town where the largest exports are make believe, fantasy and unreal reality. ...it's an emotional industry, buying emotions, moulding emotions, selling emotions. It's a women, a bitch wearing cheap clothes, too much make-up, costume jewellery and rented furs. It's a town where actors pour their life blood into it and then kill themselves because of it.” -- Karyn Kupcinet's diary.
Death
On November 28, 1963, Kupcinet had dinner with future Lost in Space cast member Mark Goddard and his wife, Marcia Rogers Goddard, at their house on Coldwater Canyon Drive in Beverly Hills.[15] The Goddards expected her to arrive at 6:30 pm, but she showed up in a taxicab an hour late.[citation needed]
The couple later reported that Kupcinet only toyed with her food during the meal and avoided eating. Marcia told Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies that "her lips seemed numb. Her voice was funny. She moved her head at odd angles."[16] The Goddards also noticed that Kupcinet's pupils were constricted. When Mark confronted Kupcinet about her behavior, she began to cry and put her arm around him.[17] At one point during the meal, she told an unsubstantiated story about a baby that had been abandoned on her doorstep earlier that day.[16] At 8:30 pm, a taxicab arrived to take Kupcinet home, and she promised to telephone the Goddards.[18]
Kupcinet apparently went straight home after the dinner. She was visited by freelance writer Edward Stephen Rubin shortly afterward. The two were then joined by actor Robert Hathaway around 9:30 pm. Rubin and Hathaway told detectives the three of them watched television, including The Danny Kaye Show, and drank coffee until Kupcinet fell asleep next to them on the couch. She later awoke and went to her room. Rubin and Hathaway either turned the television off or simply lowered the volume (three days later it was still playing with a low volume) and made sure the door was locked behind them before departing at about 11:15 pm. Hathaway said that the two men returned to his place and were later joined by Prine, who was also Hathaway's neighbor. The trio watched television and talked until around 3:00 am.[19]
The Goddards went to Kupcinet's apartment on November 30 after she failed to telephone the couple as promised. Mark later stated that he had a "funny feeling" that something was wrong.[2] Upon entering the apartment, the couple found Kupcinet's nude body lying on the couch. Mark initially assumed that she had died from a drug overdose; upon searching the apartment, investigators from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department found prescriptions for Desoxyn, Miltown, Amvicel, and other medications.[2][13] They also found a note written by Kupcinet that reflected in some detail her emotions regarding issues in her life and people she admired.[20]
Coroner Harold Kade concluded that due to the fracture of the hyoid bone in Kupcinet’s throat, she had been strangled. Her death was officially ruled a homicide.[21]
Investigators from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department determined that the story Kupcinet had told the Goddards about an abandoned baby on her doorstep, which she had also told Prine by telephone, was false.[16] Neither the sheriff's office nor the Los Angeles Police Department had received a report of a baby found abandoned anywhere in Kupcinet's apartment building on the day before or after the murder.[16]
The Los Angeles Sheriff's Office told FBI director J. Edgar Hoover that they felt Karyn had been taking a shower immediately preceding her death and had likely answered a fateful knock at the door, given the late hour and fact she opened the door indicated that she knew and trusted that person.[22]
Theories
Irv Kupcinet opinion on Karyn's death
When questioned by law enforcement, Andrew Prine reported talking with Kupcinet by phone during the day on Wednesday. Others in the Hollywood community were questioned as well as both Rubin and Hathaway, the two men who had possibly been the last to see her alive, who were friends of Prine's. They were also eventually named as suspects.[23][24][2]
David Lange (1936-2006 ) pictured in early 1963 at a Hollywood party.
In 1988, Kupcinet's father published a memoir in which he revealed that he and his wife Essee believed that Prine had nothing to do with their daughter's murder.[25] He was suspicious of a person, still alive when he wrote his memoir, who had no connection to Prine.[25]
The body of Karyn Kupcinet is taken away by the L.A. County Coroner as horrified neighbours watch on, behind the drawn curtains of the ground floor apartment the sad procession passes hides David Lange, who investigators believe murdered Karyn three days earlier.[26]
Although public suspicion fell on Andrew Prine there was a more compelling suspect to Karyn's parents, that evidence pointed to another, actor/producer David Lange (1936-2006). “Essee and I thought it pointed directly at David Lange, who had been a friend of Cookie's. But he was best known in Hollywood as a heavy drinker, a hanger on, and a go-fer. One day he told Cookie he was looking for an apartment and asked her is she knew of any availabilities. She inquired in her building and learned an apartment was vacant. It was on the first floor and he moved in. Cookie lived on the second floor. This juxtaposition became important on the night her body was discovered … Lange's behaviour that night made him suspect. He was in the bedroom of his apartment with a girl friend, who later told police that they 'heard some sought of commotion outside the apartment and it sounded like a lot of people were running up and down stairs'. Lange, she said, ignored the excitement and did not leave the bedroom to see what was happening. She also added that a short time later someone knocked on the door. He answered it, she said, 'and came right back to the bedroom and made no comment.' Police suspect the unidentified caller had informed him of Karyn's death, but he chose not to appear on the scene because he already knew what had happened. That enabled him to stay clear of the authorities.[27]
“If that behaviour was suspect, there also was a 'confession.'” Irv Kupcinet continued, “The police report includes a statement from a friend of Lange who reported that he told her that he was the person who killed Karyn. Essee and I pressed the sheriff's police to pursue such a revealing statement, but their response was that they had tried with no success because Lange by this time had moved into the house of his sister, Hope, and she had retained attorneys who refused to let him answer any questions... The police subjected Lange to a polygraph test, which proved inconclusive. But no follow-up was done.” [28]
Alleged connection to JFK
Kupcinet's death was first mentioned in connection with the John F. Kennedy assassination in 1967 by researcher Penn Jones Jr. in the self-published book Forgive My Grief II.[28] Jones cited an Associated Press wire service story about an unidentified woman who placed a phone call from the vicinity of Oxnard, California, about fifty miles northwest of Los Angeles, twenty minutes before the assassination occurred in Dallas, Texas, claiming this woman was Kupcinet.
Jones alleged that "Karyn Kupcinet" had attempted to warn someone of the impending assassination after being given this information by her father Irv, who himself had allegedly been given advance notice by Jack Ruby, the Dallas nightclub owner who fatally shot Kennedy's accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. Jones speculated that Irv may have met Ruby in Chicago in the 1940s.[20] Jones speculated Karyn had been murdered by representatives of the Italian-American Mafia as a message to her father to remain silent about why Kennedy and Oswald had been shot.[29]
Irv Kupcinet denied that he or his daughter had prior knowledge of the assassination or of Oswald's death. This was supported by Kupcinet's friends, including Prine, actor Earl Holliman, and Holliman's then-girlfriend, all of whom traveled to Palm Springs with Karyn on November 22. Kupcinet reportedly seemed upset about media coverage of the shootings while in Palm Springs.[20] She did not reveal any foreknowledge of the events.[20]
In 2013, the Ventura County Star commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination with a long article about the unknown woman who had formed the basis of Penn Jones' conspiracy theory.[30] Citing FBI documents that were declassified decades after the assassination, the Star claimed that two telephone operators with General Telephone Company who listened to the unknown woman gave the FBI a description of her voice.[30] FBI agents questioned the two operators several hours after the assassination.[30] Their description of the woman's voice did not match Kupcinet's, especially in regard to her age.[30] The Star added that the two operators believed the woman on the phone was "mentally disturbed".[30]
Regarding Irv Kupcinet's alleged connection to Jack Ruby, the Warren Commission did not find any proof that Irv had interacted with Ruby in Chicago before 1947, when Ruby moved from Chicago to Dallas.[31] The Commission questioned many Chicagoans who had interacted with Ruby.[31] None of them had prior knowledge that he was going to shoot Oswald.[31]
Irv Kupcinet visits the scene of his daughters death. The Daily News. Friday, Dec 6, 1963.[32]
Karyn's death occurred six days after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy as rumours and theories were swirling around possible Mafia involvement, that the Chicago syndicate and Sam Giancana (1908-1975) were part of it due to the Kennedy administrations tough stance on organised crime. Irv Kupcinet had been friends with Sam Giancana, Tony Accardo (1906-1992) and other Mafia dons for decades, as such it isn't surprising that conspiracy theories surfaced linking the two events. It didn't help matters that Kupcinet turned up at the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office with old friend, Mafia lawyer and "fixer" Sidney Korshak (1907-1996) representing him, also handling the release of his daughters remains for burial. It undoubtedly raised law enforcement eyebrows as it did conspiracy theorists, Korshak's other clients included Al Capone - Sam Giancana - Moe Dalitz (Los Vegas syndicate head) and Jimmy Hoffa. It created a frenzy of speculation around Karyn's death and drew them into silly conspiracy theories to kill JFK which Irv Kupcinet hated, not least due to his longstanding friendship with the Kennedy family.[11][2][33]
Media attention
In the early 1990s, during the production and subsequent release of Oliver Stone's film JFK, Irv Kupcinet attacked the movie and the conspiracy theories surrounding it.[20] When the film's box-office success led to a wave of media attention about Kennedy conspiracy theories, NBC's Today program broadcast a list of mysterious deaths, including that of Karyn Kupcinet. Irv responded to the Today broadcast in his column in the Chicago Sun-Times of February 9, 1992:
The NBC Today Show on Friday [February 7] carried a list of people who died violently in 1963 shortly after the death of President John F. Kennedy and may have had some link to the assassination. The first name on the list was Karyn Kupcinet, my daughter. That is an atrocious outrage. She did die violently in a Hollywood murder case still unsolved. That same list was published in a book years ago with no justification or verification.
The book left the impression that some on the list may have been killed to silence them because of knowledge of the assassination. Nothing could be further from the truth in my daughter's case. The list apparently has developed a life of its own and for Today to repeat the calumny is reprehensible. Karyn no longer can suffer pain by such an inexcusable mention, but her parents and her brother Jerry can.[20]
On September 30, 1999, an episode of E! True Hollywood Story, titled "Death of a Dream: Karyn Kupcinet", detailed Kupcinet's life and theories regarding her death.[34]
Legacy
Kupcinet's grave at Memorial Park Cemetery, Skokie'Kups Column' Chicago Sun-Times, Monday., Dec. 9, 1963.Clipping sent by Irv Kupcinet to J. Edgar Hoover in 1963.[22]
Irv and Essee Kupcinet established a playhouse at Shimer College in honor of their daughter.[35] In 1971, Irv Kupcinet and his wife also founded the Karyn Kupcinet International School for Science, a summer research internships program at the Weizmann Institute of Science.[36]
In 2007, Kupcinet's niece, actress Kari Kupcinet-Kriser, and Washburn University professor Paul Fecteau, began work on a book about Kupcinet's unsolved murder and diaries.[37] However the project came to nothing and was abandoned.
^ abLane, Lydia (March 29, 1962). "No Starch, No Sweets". Los Angeles Times. p. C11.
^Kelleher, Brian; Merrill, Diana (1987). "Episode Guide, The Seventh Season". The Perry Mason TV Show Book. New York: St. Martin's Press. pp. 161–172. ISBN978-0312006693.
^John Godl, J. Godl (April 8, 2024). Cookie Crumbs. United States (published 2024). pp. P2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Felsenthal, Felsenthal (July 11, 2007). "The Lost World of Kup". Chicago Magazine. Archived from the original on August 30, 2024. Retrieved August 30, 2024.
^Kupcinet, Irv (1988). Kup, A Man, An Era, A City', Irv Kupcinet's Autobiography (1 ed.). Chicago USA: Bonus Books, Chicago. pp. Who Killed Karyn pages 186–188. ISBN0933893701.
^Shur, Cindy (November 7, 2006). "Remembering Irv Kupcinet". Jewish United Fund. Archived from the original on September 3, 2024. Retrieved February 10, 2022.
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