A Woman in the Game: Anna Kendrick’s first film
After having had a successful career as an actress, Anna Kendrick steps behind the camera for the first time for the Netflix film A woman is at stakewhich has just arrived on the streaming platform. In it she plays Cheryl Bradshaw, a young woman who participates in the American version of “Tournez Manège” in the 1970s.
It was on set that she met Rodney Alcala (played by Daniel Zovatto), one of the participants, on whom she had a crush. This story is based on the sordid the true story of serial killer Rodney Alcalawho actually attended this show, and met Cheryl.
The true story of Rodney Alcala
Rodney Alcala, born August 23, 1943 in San Antonio, Texas, is one of the most famous serial killers in the United States. He left behind a string of crimes spanning decades. Alcala grew up in a Hispanic family before his father abandoned her, prompting his mother to move with him and his sisters to Los Angeles. Brilliant student, gets a scholarship to study film at UCLAbut his intelligence hid a deeply disturbed personality.
In 1968, Alcala was arrested for the first time after kidnapping and assaulting an eight-year-old girl, Tali Shapiro, in Hollywood. A witness who reported the crime to police helped save the child, but Alcala managed to escape before his arrest. He then lived for several years under an assumed name in New Yorkwhere he studied cinema at New York University (and is even said to have been a student of Roman Polanski). Despite apparent rehabilitation, Alcala continued to stalk victims.
His murders followed an often similar pattern: he seduced women, promised them artistic portraits, and then violently killed them, sexually assaulting them before or after their deaths. Alcala had a cruel modus operandi, sometimes torturing his victims before finishing them off. Investigators discovered it hundreds of photographs of unidentified women and girls in a storage compartment belonging to Alcala, suggesting he may have committed many more crimes than he has been charged with.
Rodney Alcala was arrested in 1979 for the murder of Robin Samsoe, a 12-year-old girl who disappeared in California. Witnesses saw Alcala talking to him shortly before he disappeared. He was sentenced to the death penalty in 1980, but his convictions were repeatedly overturned due to procedural flaws, prolonging his stay on death row. It was only in 2010 that he was finally found guilty of five murders and sentenced to death again. Investigators were able to link Alcala to several other murders using DNA, including victims in upstate New York.
In prison, Alcala exhibited bizarre behavior, including showing up at trials, asking strange questions of witnesses and incoherently defending himself. Despite his death sentence, he died of natural causes on July 24, 2021 at the age of 77, in a California prison.
The real images of his participation in the Tournez Manège
In 1978, Rodney Alcala participated in the television program “The Dating Game” (the American equivalent of “Tournez Merège”), while already in the midst of a series of murders. This participation is often cited as one of the most concerning aspects of his public personalitybecause it shows how charming and charismatic he could appear while leading a double life as a serial killer.
In the show, Alcala presents himself as a professional photographer, passionate about nature and travel. He is one of three candidates selected to answer Cheryl Bradshaw’s questions, a young woman come looking for love. His way of speaking and his ease in front of the cameras immediately made him popular with the public, and in the end he won the match.
Actual images from the show can be seen below:
However, what is striking is that Cheryl Bradshaw, despite choosing Alcala at the end of the show, ultimately decides not to continue with him after feeling deep concern. In subsequent interviews, Bradshaw said that she found Alcala “creepy” and that he made her feel uncomfortable during their initial interactions backstage. Intuitively, she refused to date him, a decision that many believe probably saved her life.
Source: Cine Serie
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