Unpacking the stranger-than-fiction true story of Rodney Alcala, a.k.a "The Dating Game Killer."
Pitch Perfect star Anna Kendrick, known for her bubbly personality on and off screen, has moved into decidedly different territory with her directorial debut, Woman of the Hour. The true-crime thriller, which Entertainment Weekly covered in our Fall Movie Preview, dramatizes the stranger-than-fiction inclusion of serial killer Rodney Alcala on The Dating Game, a popular game show hosted by Jim Lange that premiered in 1965.
Many of us are familiar with Alcala because of his outrageous nickname, "The Dating Game Killer," but few know the many strange twists and turns of the case. Even Kendrick wasn't fully aware of how intricate and frankly bizarre Alcala's reign of terror was until she boarded the project as director and star.
"Really, what we've heard is once upon a time, there was a very violent, dangerous murderer who went on The Dating Game," she told EW. "But once I signed on to direct and I got to dive into some research and make tweaks, to me, the fact that he went on The Dating Game is the least interesting part of the story."
Ahead of Woman of the Hour's Oct. 18 debut on Netflix, here's the macabre and disturbing true story of Alcala's life and crimes, which inspired Kendrick's film.
Set in 1978 Los Angeles, Woman of the Hour sees aspiring actress Cheryl Bradshaw (Kendrick) selected as a contestant on The Dating Game, in which she must pick one of three eligible bachelors to accompany her on a date. The catch is that the men are hidden from view and she has to make her choice based only on their verbal answers.
As the sexist host (Tony Hale, playing against type) lasciviously guides her through each round, Cheryl finds herself unexpectedly drawn to a contestant named Rodney Alcala (Station Eleven's Daniel Zovatto), a photographer living a grisly double life.
Yes, for the most part. While certain elements and details, as well as the names of two key characters, have been altered, Woman of the Hour hews pretty close to the facts. Bradshaw was a real person who appeared on The Dating Game in 1978, where she chose Alcala to accompany her on a date despite the crew, and Bradshaw herself, sensing a few red flags.
He competed in the midst of his crime spree, despite having already served time for raping and beating an 8-year-old girl. On the innuendo-laden show, Alcala was introduced as a "successful photographer who got his start when his father found him in the darkroom at the age of 13, fully developed." Footage of his appearance would later be presented in one of his trials.
While many of the characters' names are unchanged from their real-life counterparts, there are two notable exceptions. Hale, playing a version of Lange, is dubbed Ed Burke in the film; and a character based on one of Alcala's victims who testified against him, Monique Hoyt, is named Amy and played by Autumn Best.
Rodrigo Jacques Alcala Buquor, a.k.a. Rodney Alcala, was born on Aug. 23, 1943, in San Antonio, Tex. He spent part of his childhood in Mexico before his family moved to Los Angeles. Alcala joined the army at age 17 but was discharged in 1964 following allegations of sexual misconduct and a nervous breakdown.
He graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1968 with a fine arts degree, but soon fled to New York after a witness connected him to the brutal rape and beating of 8-year-old Tali Shapiro, whom Alcala had targeted while she was walking home from school.
In New York, Alcala adopted the alias "John Berger," studied film under Roman Polanski at New York University, and worked as a photographer, security guard, and camp counselor. It was during this period, on June 12, 1971, that Alcala murdered his first confirmed victim, 23-year-old flight attendant Cornelia Crilley. She was bitten, sexually assaulted, and strangled to death, all of which would become signatures of Alcala's crimes.
That same year, Alcala was added to the FBI's 10 Wanted list for his involvement in Shapiro's assault. After two campers recognized his picture on a poster, Alcala was arrested and served 34 months in prison, after which he continued to target young women and girls across the United States.
Though his exact number of victims remains unknown, authorities have estimated that Alcala may have killed up to 130 people in the 1970s, according to the Associated Press, with several happening before his appearance on The Dating Game in 1978.
Luckily, she did not. Though she was charmed by his snappy (and crude) answers, Bradshaw felt deeply unsettled by her choice once she met Alcala face to face. "I started to feel ill," she said in a 2012 interview, per Newsweek. "He was acting really creepy." The show awarded them free tennis lessons and a trip to Magic Mountain, but when Alcala suggested they meet the following day, she turned down his offer. "I didn't want to see him again," Bradshaw said.
As it turns out, other people on The Dating Game's set had been similarly unsettled by his presence. Producer Ellen Metzger remembered getting a telephone call from Bradshaw essentially asking permission not to go on a date with Alcala. "She said, 'Ellen, I can't go out with this guy,'" Metzger told 20/20. "'There's weird vibes that are coming off of him. He's very strange. I am not comfortable. Is that going to be a problem?' And of course, I said, 'No.'"
Metzger's own husband, Dating Game executive producer Mike Metzger, had an odd feeling about Alcala during the casting process. "No darn way was this guy going to be on my show," Mike thought at the time, "because I thought he had a strange personality. He had a mystique about him that I found uncomfortable."
Unlike real life, Woman of the Hour concludes with an encounter between Bradshaw and Alcala in which she learns the extent of his dark impulses.
In June 1979, Alcala killed his final confirmed victim, 12-year-old Robin Samsoe, whom he abducted as she walked home from a ballet class. Authorities released a sketch of the suspect in Samsoe's murder, which led to Alcala's final arrest on July 24, 1979, after his own parole officer recognized him in the drawing and tipped off the police.
In 1980, Alcala was found guilty of killing Samsoe and sentenced to death, but California's Supreme Court overturned the verdict in 1984 after ruling that jurors had been improperly informed of his criminal history. Alcala was retried in 1986 and once again found guilty and sentenced to death.
In 2001, a United States district court overturned Alcala's second conviction after his lawyer filed a habeas corpus motion alleging improper counsel, amongst other things. Alcala's third trial began in 2003, at which point forensic science had advanced exponentially. Through DNA left at the crime scenes, Alcala was connected with the murders of Jill Barcomb, Georgia Wixted, and Jill Parenteau.
He was also tied with Charlotte Lamb's murder after her DNA matched a pair of earrings found in his storage unit. Alcala was accused of taking jewelry from several of his victims, including a pair of gold ball earrings from Samsoe which were also recovered in the unit.
Prosecutors joined Samsoe's case with the four new murder charges for Alcala's third trial in February 2010. During the proceedings, he acted as his own attorney and played a clip from his appearance on The Dating Game in an attempt to convince the jury that the gold earrings were his and not Samsoe's.
Alcala was convicted on all five counts in March 2010 and sentenced to death for a third time. In 2012, he was also convicted in Manhattan for the murders of Cornelia Crilley and Ellen Jane Hoover, receiving a sentence of 25 years to life.
Alcala served the remainder of his sentence in Corcoran, Calif. While on death row, Alcala died of natural causes on July 24, 2021, at age 77.
Bradshaw has understandably kept a low profile since her appearance on The Dating Game. According to Rolling Stone, she granted an interview to the Sunday Telegraph in 2012 in which she admitted she went on the show in a genuine effort to find love.
Kendrick told Netflix's outlet Tudum that she was drawn to telling Bradshaw's story, not to mention playing her, because the idea of a woman following her gut instinct rather than trying to be polite resonated deeply with her. "I love the fact that it isn't as simple as, 'Oh, she asserts herself and everything works out great,'" Kendrick said. "Because this is the bargain we're making every day: How much do I live authentically, and how much danger does that actually put me in?"
Kendrick echoed similar thoughts while speaking to EW, saying it's rare for most people to have the foresight Bradshaw did when it came to Alcala's character. "More often than not," Kendrick said, "there is nothing you can do, no matter how smart you are, no matter how careful you are, to protect yourself from someone who wishes to harm you."
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