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10 Positively Chilling Stories About Old Hollywood Stars
In 1981, West Side Story star Natalie Wood drowned after (officially) falling off the yacht owned by her and her husband, actor Robert Wagner. But despite her death being ruled accidental, many have speculated for decades that she was, in fact, murdered.
Aboard the boat were her husband, Robert Wagner, as well as actor Christopher Walken, who has remained quite mum about the situation. In a rare 1997 statement, Walken maintained that "What happened that night only she knows, because she was alone.' In 2011, the case was reopened, and in 2018, Robert Wagner was named a person of interest in the case. At the time, Lieutenant John Corina of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department said that he thinks Wagner has, "constantly changed his story a little bit. And his version of events just don't add up.' But as of 2025, the case still hasn't been closed.
Actress Lana Turner, ever-scandalous, was married no less than seven times; but her most famous relationship was with a boyfriend, Johnny Stomponato, who was murdered on the night of the Oscars in 1958 by none other than Turner's own daughter.
Johnny Stomponato had a history of mental and physical abuse. That night, Turner attempted to end the relationship, and things terrified 14-year-old daughter, Cheryl Crane, was listening to the entire fight. She ran to retrieve a knife from the kitchen.
In her later memoir, Crane wrote that Stomponato "was coming at her from behind, his arm raised to strike. I took a step forward and lifted the weapon. He ran on the blade. It went in. In! For three ghastly heartbeats, our bodies fused. He looked straight at me, unblinking. 'My God, Cheryl, what have you done?'"
Stomponato's death was ruled a justifiable homicide.
The mysterious death of celebrated director William Desmond Taylor is referred to by some crime fans as "Hollywood's first murder mystery." In 1922, Taylor was discovered dead in his apartment with a bullet in his back. The case remains unsolved.
The scandalous story dominated Hollywood, but a suspect could never be nailed down. As the New York Times put it 70 years later, "Was the murderer a seduced virgin, her jealous mother, the gay butler, the drug-addicted actress, the blackmailing secretary, or someone from William Desmond Taylor's mysterious past?" A little over 100 years after the murder, it seems that Taylor's case will forever remain cold — but that doesn't mean that modern imagination isn't still infatuated by it. In fact, just a few years ago the case was the subject of a popular BuzzFeed Unsolved video!
