Customer Reviews

The Killing of the Unicorn: Dorothy Stratten, 1960-1980

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Ordinarily, an ineptly written biography is bad because: 1) the author whitewashes the subject's life and treats the subject as a saint, or 2) the author has a personal grudge and uses the book as fuel for his anger, which results in dubious "fact" reporting. In this case, we get the worst of both worlds. Bogdanovich has taken it upon himself to tell the "real" story of Dorothy Stratten--that is, his reality-impaired version of it. As a result, one half of the book consists of Peter rhapsodizing endlessly over Stratten's beauty ("an angel in the shape of Aphrodite"), her kindness, and in general, her sainthood. The poor girl is not even allowed one moment in which she is permitted to be a mere human being; the only traces of Dorothy in the book are found in her poems. However, this is mere trivia compared to the other half of the book, which consists of Bogdanovich's angry diatribe against Hefner, who exploited Stratten by peddling nude pictures of her, and somehow this caused her murder(?). Apparently Paul Snider, the small-time hustler who married Stratten, and later murdered her, is so small-time that he can't take the majority of the blame for his crime.

This is just one example of the muddled logic that encompasses Bogdanovich's retelling of the Stratten tragedy. A lot of the book falls into the "too much information" category, not to mention the "glass houses" category. For instance, why is it "exploitation" when Hefner publishes nude photos of the 21-year-old Cybill Shepherd from the movie that was DIRECTED BY PETER BOGDANOVICH, but Bogdanovich is an "artist"? Why is it "sleazy" for Hef to publish centerfolds of Stratten, but Bogdanovich can describe every last detail of his sex life with her, and it's a "sensitive" portrayal of her? Why is everyone at the mansion willingly participating in old Hef's sleazy orgies, but Peter was somehow "tricked" into it? (And while we're on the subject, explain "how" one is tricked into it.) Why are all the men who drool over Stratten's beauty and make passes at her scorned as "wolves" by Bogdanovich, but when Peter himself makes his move (by which time Stratten is married) he is somehow the Noble White Knight in Shining Armor who has come along to save her from her loveless marriage? And lastly, why is it that everyone who comes in contact with Stratten is so "possessive" and "demanding" and that all-purpose word, "exploitative", but Bogdanovich's constant hovering, coaching, directing and dictating is acceptable? At one point in the book, he loses sight of her for one second and by his own admission, "reacts as though she had been kidnapped". This type of possessiveness is downright pathological.

The truly frightening part of the book (and also the most unintentionally amusing) is that Bogdanovich, Hefner and every other Mansion regular in the book revile Snider, because he is--you guessed it--sleazy, exploitative, and has the personality of a pimp. Apparently "pot calling the kettle black" is a relative term here. Bogdanovich, without any apparent sense of irony, observes that Snider was as out of place as a "carnival barker at a ballet". This in a group of people that includes Al Goldstein, the publisher of "Screw" magazine. Observant readers will soon realize, sadly, that Snider's greatest sin among the Hef Hangers-On was NOT being pimp-like, but being small-time. Indeed, Bogdanovich's blatant overtures to Dorothy Stratten, as well as his decision to cast her in his "closed-set" movie, indicate only too well how inconsequential Snider's status was as "Mr." Stratten.

In any case, the book is not the story of Dorothy Stratten; it's the story of Peter Bogdanovich's bitterness, selfishness and guilt over his part of the tragedy. He is not one to admit his guilt feelings, however; he turns it outward on his former friend Hefner and makes outrageous accusations that are completely unproven. For that matter, even Stratten's own journal contains no revelations of the sort that Peter is claiming. No matter; the point he wishes to make is that he tried to SAVE her from this virtual prison, but poor Dorothy became a victim anyway BECAUSE OF HEF. At this point, it becomes difficult, if not impossible to sympathize with Bogdanovich, since he is so insistent on blaming everyone else in the tragedy, while conveniently ignoring his own transgressions. This is definitely one biography that shouldn't have got past the stage of being in Peter's private journal. Peruse only at your own peril.

I did enjoy this book even though I thought it was hypocritical and biased. The reason I read it was due to my interest in Dorothy Stratten from the Pulitzer prize winning "Village Voice" article about her life & death by Teresa Carpenter. I also remember way back when she was a rising star, the infatuation of my teenage brother with her (along with many other males). At the time, she was the biggest thing to ever hit Playboy. Not since Pamela Anderson Lee, has a Playboy Playmate stirred such promise for a successful career. However, I think this biography is somewhat hypocritical and another reviewer here points that out as well.

From these writings, Peter Bogdanovich accuses the Playboy sex machine and Hugh Hefner of being a driving force in her death. I disagree, I think she was just discovered by the wrong person in the form of her sleazy future husband and murderer, Paul Snider. I wish a reputable modeling agency would have discovered her instead, not only would she probably still be alive, but I think she had the star quality that would have made her a huge celebrity. All of this would have come without the stigma of having posed nude for men's magazines; Bogdanovich points out that this leaves a blemish on you even after death. It is no wonder that even though she's been dead for nearly two decades, Playboy and others are still peddling her naked pictures. I appreciate that Bogdanovich did not publish any of these photos of her or Paul Snider out of simple respect. The photos of her that do reside in this book are when she has a most natural and angelic appearance, without the tons of makeup and hair bleach regulary used by Playboy. The cover photo is exemplary of this. It is sad to think what could have happened if a reputable modeling agency discovered her.

Although I thought Bogdanovich tried to respectfully preserve her memory, I think he exposes some pretty intimate sexual moments which is not in the best of taste. Also, what made him think that he was any different than any of the other male "Hef regulars" at the Playboy mansion that came on to her as well? He just succeeded where they didn't. Perhaps an 18 year old girl would respond to a man more than twice her age if he was rich, powerful and giving her a starring role in his upcoming movie. I do think he was madly and pathologically in love with her from these writings. However, I will also give him credit for trying to provide the essense of who she was. He made me realize that she was not just another blond bimbo posing nude for Hefner, but a very sensitive, shy, bright and unique young woman with an ethreal beauty that put her in extreme situations of great limelight to exploitation and eventually death.

It's really a shame that Dorothy's entire life was spent searching for a father figure: she found plenty of them--Hef, Peter, Paul. She never had a chance to find herself. I am sure Peter loved her, in the way he could possibly love a little girl, so perfect and beautiful and adoring, but not yet a woman. Peter Bogdanovich is narcissistic and egotistical. Dorothy didn't need another man to mold her and make her the perfect woman. She needed to get away from all of them and discover HERSELF. Who SHE was. Spend time with her family--the sister who had her taken away too soon and then marries her sister's lover. The tragedy the Stratten family has endured is palpable, but I believe Peter Bogdanovich had as much a part in her death as Paul did. He was the lover who enraged Paul. Not that there had to be one--Paul had made up his mind any number of scenarios that Dorothy had no control over--and that weren't true. But instead of letting her get on with her life, Peter instantly sweeps her up into a romance she wasn't ready for and it probably cost her her life. She was manipulated her whole adult life for the pleasure of men. I'm sorry she never knew, as I have now, an adult, healthy loving relationship. I think about the horror she went through that last night of her life, and wonder how these "men" can wash her blood off their hands.

This is a truly laughable biography of a poor girl who was used by all the men in her life: her husband, Hugh Hefner and Peter Bogdanovich.

Peter Bogdanovich was a struggling Hollywood "player" when he met Stratten. His career was nosediving, but he was still considered a director who could potentially come up with a money-making movie project. He was a regular at the Playboy mansion and Hugh Hefner was a good buddy of his. Bogdonovich's taste in women ran toward the puerile; blonde ingenues were his weakness. He dumped his first wife Polly Platt, who played a major part in his most successful films, for the vapid Cybill Shepherd. He made several amazingly bad movies starring Shepherd before she dumped him for a used car salesman (I'm not kidding). At loose ends, he sought respite at the Playboy mansion, partying and having sex with the endless supply of women that congregated there in hopes of snagging a rich, famous man as a boyfriend or husband or stepping stone to "stardom."

What is truly infuriating about this book is how Bodanovich portrays himself and his brief affair with Stratten. He sees himself as the rescuer of this poor damsel who is coerced into posing nude by her sleazy husband and pushed into having sex with a man she considered a father figure (Hefner). Actually Statten publicly stated that she had no problem with posing for naked photos and was very fond of Hefner. He goes on about how awful Paul Snider and Hugh Hefner are, but he is cut out of the same nasty piece of cloth. All three of them exploited and used women for their own gain; Snider with his wet t-shirt contests and nude photos of his wife, Huge Hefner with his magazine centerfolds and Playboy clubs with women parading around in cottontails and bunny ears, Bogdanovich filming Shepherd in an uncomfortable nude scene. All three made their living by selling women's bodies. Except that Snider was, as it's been noted, "small time", which earned him utter contempt from the likes of Hefner and Bogdanovich, who looked down on him as a "pimp" and a "hustler." Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

Bogdanovich paints a fairytale of two utterly smitten lovers, himself and the lovely Dorothy. Actually it was a lot more lukewarm than that, at least on Stratten's part. After seeing her rollerskating in a skimpy lime green outfit, Bogdanovich decides that this the girl meant for him. He gave her his phone number, telling her he could give her a part in movie. She ignored him for a year. They eventually crossed paths again and he said he would give her a substantial role in a real movie with real movie stars. What young girl would pass up a chance to be a movie star? She played "the girl" role in "They All Laughed", which co-starred John Ritter as her love interest (he was ridiculously made-up to look like the homely Bogdanovich). Eventually the passive, easily led Dorothy became involved with the big shot director. Bogdonovich insists that it was true love for them both, but some people who knew Stratten beg to differ. One acquaintance of hers claimed that Stratten was not smitten with the much older, unattractive Bogdanovich ("he's okay", she said of him) and that she was just "along for the ride." I think that's probably a lot closer to the truth than Bogdanoviche's rosy picture of moonbeams and starlight and earth-shattering sex.

Dorothy Stratten, as depicted in the book, is not to be believed. She is PERFECT; incomparably beautiful, kind, loving, gracious, with an adorable sense of humor. She possesses a keen intellect and a fetching vunerablity and great reserves of untapped talent and potential (which Bogdanovich no doubt intends to bring to the surface). She's only twenty but seems to have the depth and maturity of someone much older and more experienced. Her only flaw is that she's TOO good, almost saint-like. It's sad to see this tragic young woman made out to be some kind of superhuman goddess of love and perfection. She wasn't. She was an ordinary human being (except for her extraordinary beauty) and no doubt was a more interesting and complex personality than Bogdanovich's view of her. In this book she's nothng more than a golden-haired earth angel.

A lot of this book is pure fantasy on Bogdanovich's part. He's dishonest about himself and he's delusional about Stratten. You expect truth in a biography; you're not going to get ANY in this one.

After Stratten's death, Bogdanovich remained fixated on her. He called himself a "widower (he and Stratten were never married) and developed an unhealthily close relationship with Stratten's little sister Louise. At first Bogdanovich denied that they were nothing more than friends, but eventually he MARRIED Louise and paid for plastic surgery so that she would more closely resemble Dorothy. Sick. They divorced after 13 years of marriage.

Maybe someone someone will write a fitting tribute to Dorothy Stratten that reveals what she and her life was really like. But don't go to this book for any insight or answers. You won't get any. All you'll get are the distorted remembrances of a very strange, unlikeable man.

On the positive side, I think anyone with even a passing interest in the story of Dorothy Stratten would find this to be an interesting page-turner, but not for the reasons they might think prior to reading it. You won't get to know Dorothy (barely out of her teens when she died) any better than her middle aged lover, Peter Bogdonanovich, did -- which apparently wasn't very well at all. What you will find is a compelling example of what bizarre effects the horror and grief of violent murder will have on the minds and perceptions of the people close to the victim. You can really sense how infactuated Peter was with Dorothy, and how her death damaged him -- to the point of courting (and later marrying) Dorothy's underage little sister.

So damaged is he, that when he wrote this book only a few years after the 1980 tragedy had occurred, he has taken to placing blame in very strange places, searching for importance and meaning in bizarre ways (several days before Dorothy's death she hugs a dog, and this is somehow a moment of premonition and great meaning??), and making his subject into a deity-like figure of pure perfection. Even the title of the book is an example of how Bogdanovich now views his dead trophy-girlfriend in totally unrealistic and mythical terms. She isn't allowed to be a human being with faults and feelings. In fact he goes so far as to say that her only fault is that she was too kind, too beautiful. It's laughable, rather sad -- but ultimately compelling to witness how Bogdanovich deals with his guilt and grief.

On the negative side, how disrespectful was it to take what should have been a final ode to Dorothy -- by all accounts a young woman deserving of a proper eulogy and rememberance -- and turn a majority of it into a pathetic transparent diatribe against, not her rapist, torturer and killer, but Playboy magazine?! Give us a break. This isn't a non-fiction biography at all, it's a petty personal attack and vendetta against Hugh Hefner and his publication. It's a misguided attempted to take the savage and disturbing actions of a jealous, coked-up, suicidal madman, and place their blame onto a magazine. More than that, it is a Dworkin-like attack not only on Playboy, but on the very concept of imagery of a sexualized nature. In this book, naked pictures of women are to blame for everything, regardless of the facts of the case. It is the equivalent of blaming Marvin Gaye's death (at the hands of his father) not only on his record company, but on the very artform of music itself.

Most of us work for a living, and most of us whore ourselves out -- selling our time, our skills, our ideas, and our muscles. Dorothy was just like any of us, but she sold her beauty. What Bogdanovich doesn't realize is that he could have picked anyone who has died -- especially in tragic circumstances -- and pasted together a similar theory to make it seem like their choice of vocation is somehow related and culpable in the blame of their demise. It doesn't neccessarily make it so. Sometimes terrible, terrible things just happen to good people. R.I.P. Dorothy.

It has been days since I finished this book, and from time to time, I find my mind drifting back to it: not only its events but the concepts and lessons it provokes. Three points I would like to make: the love story, the Hefner/Paul parallel, and the lesson of time.

I was prompted to read this book after watching a television "Biography" on Dorothy Stratten--most particularly because of the parade of people who came on screen and talked about how incredible it was to witness the birth and growth of this great love affair (everyone from John Ritter to Hefner's closest assitant had a praise for Dorothy and Peter's love). I was impressed by and curious from their words.

The book was an explosion of what I had heard on TV and satiated my curiosity--this love story touched me to the core. The writing of this book was one means to help Peter deal with the pain of Dorothy's loss. He takes us back in time to re-live, minute by minute, the intricacies of their daily lives and love. Re-living this experience and sharing was important for Peter and a gift and a priveledge for the reader. In this light, the details of their physical intimacy continued to include us (the reader) in the story. I would have felt rudly cut out or jolted out of the story if we missed the full unfolding of their daily lives.

Peter may have "idolized" Dorothy on these pages, but Peter and Dorothy were still in the stage of their relationship/romance where it is natural to idolize your partner and your love. I can see, given the nature of the two people involved, that their love would have very likely continued to grow through the various stages of relationship maturation. I sensed their true love.

Here, I would like to share the most important lesson from the book--the lesson of time. But, first, I would like to get one observation out of the way. The Paul/Heffner parallel.

Most interestingly, I think there is a parallel between Hefner and Snyder's psyche's. In many ways, at a point in time, these men were "cut out of the same mold", the difference being that Hefner had the capability to channel his energies into creating a media empire. Had Hefner been the product of a different environment and gene pool, he could have turned out to be a "Paul Snyder". This is my observation from information from a particular time period--I do not mean to judge Hefner. I think that Hefner is a very intelligent man, and perhaps has grown, and therefore outgrown, some of the attitudes and feelings that motivated his overtly luscivious, objectifying, behaviors toward women in the earlier years. (Lust is wonderful in presence of love, but in the presence of hate, it is ugly). I think a great majority of women, at some point in their lives, run across a man who does not know how to love, or is afraid to love a woman for all her complexities and differences, and consequently treates her like a heartless object. Could this be a reality that most men have to pass through?

Final Point, the lesson of time: I cried deeply at the end of the second chapter. Two years ago I (age 29) fell in love with a man (age 48), we are inseperable, the color of the world changed, I was alive and growing. We are still together today, more deeply in love than ever. Peter's words and some of his experiences with Dorothy were an echo that resonated through me. To read and feel, all while knowing what will happen--death, loss--was heart wrenching. In my empathy I put myself in their shoes, on both sides. What if tomorrow one of us were gone? Would we be happy with how we are spending *each minute* today? Or are we walking through life with a visor on, sheilding us from our own mortality? Are we wasting precious minutes? What a crual joke! The saddest thing, is to re-live the moments with Dorothy and Peter where they were just not thinking that life would end. Realistically, we cannot think of our mortality every minute, but becoming more aware of it now and then, will help all of us live our lives more truthfully. But we need to become in touch with the reality that life could end in an instant. Even if tomorrow, just driving down the road. It happens every day to people. This book does a good job of reminding us of that. The lesson of time--cherish every moment now, while we are alive with the ones we love.

Finding the brief life of Dorothy Stratten (and her grim death) interesting, The Killing Of The Unicorn was a supposedly controversial book title I had often heard mentioned in connection with the story. The opinions of this were so mixed that eventually I decided I wanted to read it for myself.
Sadly, what many others have said regarding the weaknesses of this book I also found to be true after finishing it. Perhaps the biggest surprise I encountered was that despite being romantically involved with her, filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich was unable to provide a compelling (or at times even human) portrayal of what she was like. I can speculate the reasons for this were two-fold:
1) They were together for such a brief time.
2) The sudden and violent nature of her death clouded his perceptions.
I don't doubt that Bogdanovich fell head-over-heels for Stratten. I also don't doubt he was wracked with grief over her death. THOSE two emotions he conveys quite well. I think the problem is that those very two emotions don't make for a good mindset in writing a balanced portrayal of what she was like and what happened, despite his actually being there. It's as if Bogdanovich in his shock put Stratten and his love for her on an angelic pedestal, where she was some type of creature sent from heaven with the sole purpose of being his lover, and neither she nor he could do any wrong and virtually EVERYBODY else was out to exploit Stratten in some way.
It may be simplistic to say, but the strongest sense I get from the book is that Bogdanovich in his mourning was understandably looking to make sense of her death and resolve for himself the reasons why it happened. Out of this came to desire to assert blame. While Snider was the ultimate cause, the trajectory of events in Bogdanovich's mind also lays a certain amount of guilt at the feet of Hugh Hefner and Playboy. Now, I'm no Snider or Hefner apologist, but IF one subscribes to the theory that Stratten WAS exploited down the line, it would seem to me that the cast of characters in her exploitation also includes Bogdanovich. A rather blunt and harsh thing to say, but from Snider to Hefner to Bogdanovich the common thread is that all three men were interested in Stratten for what they could get from her in the sense of using her image and body for money-making and sexual purposes. Bogdanovich removes himself from that trio, aspiring to elevate himself to a higher, purer realm. While he probably did love her, that doesn't mean his love wasn't wrapped up with his own sense of self-gratification.
Another quality that struck me was how Stratten in Bogdanovich's mind was some guileless, naive young woman surrounded by evil people, and how ill-equipped she supposedly was in dealing with people out to use her. The more I read about Stratten from other sources, the more I come to an odd realization that perhaps toward the end of her life, she wasn't quite as dim-witted as her posthumous image claims her to be. Seemingly she was smart enough to do some trading up of her own, as the Snider to Hefner to Bogdanovich series of encounters suggests. Maybe she came to the conclusion that as others may have wanted to use her for their desires, she was also able to do the same to others for herself, and perhaps her own reasons for getting involved with Bogdanovich had a bit more to do with that mentality than he may have cared to realize. Was it necessarily a given that after her work on the film They All Laughed was complete she and Bogdanovich were gonna live happily ever after in Stratten's mind?
Also, for a book that deals with Dorothy Stratten's life, to Bogdanovich it seems as if her life began when he and she met, since 19 of her 20 years alive are glossed over so quickly that it is as if she didn't even exist until 1979. A very self-centered way of viewing someone else one cares for.
For the reader, Bogdanovich would have been better off telling his story to someone else who could have then done some research of their own and written a more objective account. It kind of ties into the selfishness of Bogdanovich that he was determined to tell his story and his views of Stratten in book form at the expense of everything else, including the potential readers of the book. While the cult of Stratten fans who feel everything she did was spectacular will find a story here to prop up their viewpoint, those looking for a dose of reality and humanism may want to give The Killing of the Unicorn a pass.

In The Killing of the Unicorn, the life of Dorothy Stratten is told extraordinarily subjectively by her one-time lover, Peter Bogdanovich. Bogdanovich published this tribute to the young, beautiful Stratten in 1984, four years after her murder, and then promptly married Stratten's younger sister Louise, who is 29 years his junior. The prose is colored by Bogdanovich's blind, revisionist devotion to the deceased model/actress and his extreme anger at Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner.

The central thesis is Bogdanovich's animosity towards Hefner, who Bogdanovich holds responsible for ruining Stratten's career and causing her death. Bogdanovich and Hefner tangled early on when Playboy published nude photos of Bogdanovich's wife and Last Picture Show star Cybill Shepherd. Bogdanovich was paranoid at the Playboy mansion that everyone was mocking his divorce from Shepherd and celebrating Hefner's victory. He outright blames Hefner for his divorce. When he met Dorothy Stratten, he was convinced that she and the other Playmates were virtual prisoners to the whims of Hefner, dying their hair and changing their appearance to appease him. He is convinced that she looks miserable in her Playmate of the Year pictorial, because she was under the control of Hefner and her husband, Paul Snider.

Dorothy Stratten began an affair with Bogdanovich on a New York movie set while she was married to her first husband, Paul Snider. Opinion on Snider is unanimous: he was a hustler who used Stratten as his meal ticket out of Canada into Hollywood. Snider became obsessively controlling as Stratten's career took off, ultimately kidnapping, torturing, and murdering his wife when she announced she was leaving him.

What Bogdanovich fails to see, in his rosy re-casting of Stratten as his one true love, an angel on Earth, is that he, too, contributed to her demise. Bogdanovich writes that their meeting was destined and he claims to have had a vision of her death. He excuses his other dalliances at the Playboy Mansion and casts himself as a pure being who tested Stratten to make sure she was leaving Snider for the right reasons. He fails to realize that he, too, was another man, like Snider and Hefner, controlling Dorothy Stratten. He fails to notice that his book is not about Dorothy, but about him, and his vision of who he wanted Stratten to be. When he published in 1984, one would think that a man this heartbroken might never remarry or look at another woman--but, surprise!, he married his lover's sister just a few years later.

This book is not a good biography of Dorothy Stratten, but it is an excellent primary source on a twisted love triangle of obsession and death. Read this as a companion to the impartial Village Voice article about Stratten, and to the lawsuits Hefner has brought against both Bogdanovich and the makers of the movie Star 80 for their portrayals of him.

I just finished this book and it touched me very deeply. Dorothy's story has always touched me deeply since I first heard of it.My heart breaks for Dorothy. This young woman was taken under terrible circumstances way too early. Its sad that 20 years of life was all that she was able to live.She seemed to have a love for life.It also saddens me to know that few people seemed to ever really look beyond her beautiful exterior and get to know the real Dorothy inside-the kind, good natured girl who loved to read and write poetry.This book is the ultimate love story. And Peter's love for Dorothy is epic.I don't think he has ever gotten over her.The part of the book where Peter was notified of Dorothy's death is heartrending and will never leave my mind.I have to say though that I don't agree with all of Peter's beliefs and conclusions.Peter seems like a nice guy , but maybe in his grief he lashed out.I guess when you suffer such grief over the loss of someone you love so much, its easy to feel that many people are to blame in some way.I think the one ultimately responsible is Paul Snider because he pulled the trigger. I don't believe or agree that Hugh Hefner or Playboy are culpable at all for Dorothy's tragic death.Sure, maybe her being in Playboy helped lead up to the circumstances of Paul killing her, but he could have snapped and killed her anyway even if she hadn't been. Who knows? Paul had his own obsession with Dorothy right from the very beginning.Paul Snider was the one who approached Playboy about Dorothy , not the other way around. There are allegations in the book that Mr. Hefner once pressured Dorothy into a sexual encounter, but from what I understand , the source of the story- actor Patrick Curtis has since recanted it.Its hard to discern the true story. I do wonder though why Hefner would have to pressure any woman for sex. It seems like he has always had many woman vying for his attention.
The book is a lovely tribute written with such love about a beautiful , sensitive woman that was taken far too soon. It was a real pleasure to find out more about Dorothy. May we never forget her.

I read this book in less than a week. I am still walking around with a pain in my heart. This is one of the few books that really touched me deeply and made me feel anguish for a person I never met. I feel that Dorothy would have been a famous actress married to Peter if she had lived. She was beautiful, bright, considerate and family oriented. It's amazing since the twenty years since her murder that we now have stalking laws and domestic abuse laws and awareness programs. Had this been in place in 1980, perhaps Dorothy would still be with us.