Mineo Monday

Actor Sal Mineo is typically remembered for his role of Plato, the young boy seeking a father-figure who latches onto James Dean’s character in “Rebel Without a Cause” (1955).



Along with Natalie Wood’s character, the three form a somewhat dysfunctional family, with Mineo and Wood competing for the affections of Dean. They bond one night at an abandoned mansion, as they secretly hope to all find what they have been missing throughout their already troubled lives.



Sharp-eyed viewers will recognize the mansion as the same one that Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) lived at in “Sunset Boulevard” (1950) with her ex, Max (Erich von Stroheim). The Getty mansion has long since been dozed.



But I digress…

While the censors of the 1950s would not allow any hint of Mineo’s character being gay, the actor’s performance made it very clear. In real life, Sal Mineo, he was quoted as saying, “I got a girl in every port — and a couple of guys in every port, too.” His life was tragically cut short in 1976 at the age of 37 during what was most likely a botched robbery. When it comes to celebrity deaths, no site is better than Scott Michael’s. During my last visit to Hollywood, I decided it was time to visit the spot where the murder took place. I texted Michael’s to narrow down the actual spot at Mineo’s West Hollywood apartment complex (known as the Hollyview Manor at the time) and within seconds, I received the photo below.



That’s a true friend. Below is how it looked the day I visited.



Michael’s pointed out to me that the odd sloping concrete shown in my photo:



…matches the one from the crime scene photo shot the night Mineo was murdered in the back alley of the complex:



This shot of a policeman looking for evidence was shot in the front of the building:



How the complex looks today:



Edited from Scott’s site:

Sal was renting an apartment in West Hollywood, at 8569 Holloway. Marvin Mitchelson, the famous lawyer, owned the building. On Thursday, February 12, 1976 at about 11:30 p.m., Sal returned home from the Westwood playhouse, where he was rehearsing the play, “P.S. Your Cat is Dead.” He parked his blue Chevelle in the garage, and just as he exited the garage a man with a knife confronted him. Mitchelson’s mom and neighbor Raymond Evans heard Mineo scream, “Help! Help! Oh my God!” Evans rushed to the scene and found Sal lying in a pool of blood trailing 10 feet to the sewers. Evans saw that Sal was losing color in his face and tried giving him mouth to mouth. The Sheriff arrived and found Sal in the fetal position. They turned him on his back, cut open his jacket and shirt to attempt resuscitation, but the stab wound was fatal. After 5 or 6 minutes of gasping, Sal was dead at 37. He was stabbed in the heart.…The case was still unsolved for a year and a half, until a Michigan prison inmate Lionel Ray Williams did a bit of bragging to fellow prisoners that he had killed the star. They pimped on him, and in 1979 Williams was convicted. He is serving 51 years to life. All for a random, botched robbery. Now he’s out – released after serving about 25 years.



A shot of Williams:



While searching on the web for more info about Mineo’s murder, I discovered a documentary film had been made that professes William’s innocence, saying that his incarceration was based on racial motivations rather than the truth. Documentary filmmaker Letitia McIntosh interviewed Williams himself, who claims he didn’t know Mineo and that it had to be somebody else. What McIntosh leaves out is that Williams confessed to numerous people (including a girlfriend and wife) to killing someone famous that night. If you can stand the staccato prose of James Ellroy, you can read his compelling account here.

What do I think? I wasn’t there. Not my circus. I just take photographs.

See more photos at my main website.