Karyn Kupcinet

I always thought that if her father, Irv, with all of his connections to showbiz and other important people couldn't get some pertinent info about the murder then the police wouldn't have much success either.

She did get to ride the massive member of actor Andrew Prine for a while, but apparently was too fucked up mentally to keep him interested. Allegedly, an abortion was performed at one point.

I am fascinated by this case

I am too, R2.

This case drives me crazy. There are no answers same thing with the Dorothy Killagan

Me three, r2 and r3.

Loved the involvement of the incredibly hot Mark Goddard of "Lost in Space" fame... and that it took place during the last gasps of old Hollywood before the hippies took over.

Her parents always thought Prine was the killer of their daughter. I talked with her niece once who believes it was the neighbor downstairs David Lange, brother to Hope.

I obviously have no way of really knowing, but I always assumed it was probably the late David Lange.

Just based upon what I've read of his bizarre behavior at the time.

[quote]Dorothy Killagan

Oh, DEAR!

Karyn was terrified of Essie's enormous bouffant which required at least a case of White Rain to maintain.

She had the worst screen name of all time. Why didn't she change it?

Maybe she was killed because it's so awful.

R6, R7, Are you saying that David Lange was a paid hit man, or that he killed her for an unrelated reason.

James Ellroy's book CRIME WAVE, which has a mix of fiction and nonfiction stories set in L.A. (if I remember correctly), has a lengthy chapter about the Karyn Kupcinet murder, with lots of well-researched and dishy information.

There were some weird notes found in her apartment, and she'd complained to her friends that she seemed to have a stalker. Police spent a long time on that lead before concluding she might have written the notes herself for attention, and the murder was unrelated.

This picture of her is the most exotic -- there are lots of others showing a conventionally attractive Midwestern brunette obviously influenced by Jackie Kennedy's style. But the more you look at her, it's clear she wasn't conventionally pretty (at least not enough for Hollywood), but really interesting.

I bet she would've turned into an insanely decadent hippie chick.

KUPCINET'S murder was either a crime of hate or a crime of passion; it was in all likelihood not a pay for hire murder.

More Karyn weirdness...

For years some thought she had come out to Hollywood earlier and taken bit roles in tiny pictures, the most famous of which was the original Little Shop of Horrors (as one of the teen girl fans). That actress was listed in the credits as "Tammy Windsor," and had a couple of other tiny roles before vanishing entirely around the time Karyn moved to Hollywood from Chicago.

Karyn is still listed on some websites in the credits of Little Shop of Horrors.

Apparently "Tammy Windsor" was a different woman entirely, and the connection was made up by a writer who saw Little Shop and assumed it was Karyn under a pseudonym. The Kupcinet family has debunked the rumor, but still: no one knows what happened to Tammy Windsor, who vanished after making a few pictures.

"Earl Holliman and his girl friend."

I'll just leave that there.

She kind of looks like Liz Taylor in r12's link

Something I've noticed is that the press for closeted actors always seemed to have some kind of bizarre, convoluted story to go along with it. Holliman's is no exception.

Yeah, Lynn Loring was the woman who weekended in Palm Springs with Kupcinet, Prine & Holliman. She later married Roy Thinnes.

Who??

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[quote]R18

More importantly, Loring later became the president of M.G.M./United Artists television devision. That photo from the fall of '63 shows her (LL) pre-nose job and still with her babyfat. A few years later she really turned into a beauty !

Here's Lynn Loring and Roy Thinnes.

But back to Karyn, I was reading an article about the murder which mentioned that if you google pictures of Prine nude, you'd see why she was obsessed with him... and boy were they right!

This article also says Lange "jokingly" told friends he'd killed Karyn! Lange sounds like a psycho alkie.

Here's a VERY long cover feature from Chicago magazine on Karyn's father, Irv Kupcinet, who was one of the city's best-known columnists in the 1950s. Fascinating and lots of info in there about Karyn's death.

Chicgo, what about Sharon Percy, daughter of the late Senator Percy

[quote]R26

That one has puzzled us since it happened. Her step-mother, who was the only one who saw the attacker lives here in Maryland now. Valerie's twin is married to Rockerfeller.

r12 There's a little bit of a Bobby Gentry/Barbara Parkins there too.

[quote]R28

That's just the coloring & the heavy liner, brow pencil of the era. Karyn was nowhere near the beauty that Parkins was.

Poor girl felt her tall elegant mother made her feel guilty about the fact that she was prone to be 'pudgy' so she lived off of diet pills. The 5'2" princess had her nosed 'bobbed' while still in her teens since she naturally had rather jewish looking nose. (Lots of jewish girls as well as non-Jewish girls who could afford it were having nose jobs). Karyn also did not have the best looking teeth. In her better looking photographs her mouth is closed. Look at her in the attached image where she looks more like a jewish American princess than a beautiful starlet. Yes she was pretty but from what I've read & the images, films, tv that I've seen of her, I honestly don't think she was going to have any major career in Hollywood.

Poor Irv -- he was a good guy

Essie was a little scary--tough broad. Irv was a bit of a blowhard. But they did support the arts in Chicago.

I had never heard of her till this thread. Now I've ordered the Ellroy book. Thanks, DL!

Fascinating. Never heard of her before either.

By the way, James Ellroy has an outlier theory that it wasn't suicide, but that Karyn was drunkenly dancing around the apartment, fell, and hit her throat on the edge of the coffee table just so in a one-in-a-million accident. He goes into a lot of detail, but I didn't find it convincing; I think David Lange did it.

The Kupcinets always claimed to know who did it but said it couldn't be proven in a court of law, and they never gave up the name.

"But back to Karyn, I was reading an article about the murder which mentioned that if you google pictures of Prine nude, you'd see why she was obsessed with him... and boy were they right!"

Even the horse seems impressed.

Believes Andy Prine murdered Karyn

Why would Goddard pay for her abortion?

If you had Irv and Essie for parents, you would welcome an early death. And believe me, I met them both on multiple occasions. He was a freeloading windbag and she made Leona Helmsley seem like Cruella deVil by comparison.

And WEHT R6, Kelt? Maybe you don't want to know.

You're right, we don't want to know what happened to Kelt, that racist scum.

Prime didn't have much of a career. He did a few TV shows and disappeared after a few years.

My mother's best friend from high school is married to Mark Goddard.

Back in the '90s, I was working at the Paley Center (then the Museum of Television & Radio) and we did a Lost in Space event.

I went up to Goddard and introduced myself as the son of his wife's friend. He was nice enough. And there was an open bar.

Cut to a couple hours later. After screening the unaired pilot of Lost in Space Goddard was drunk off his handsome ass. He literally fell out of his chair.

I wish I knew enough at the time to ask him about Karyn Kupcinet.

[quote]she made Leona Helmsley seem like Cruella deVil by comparison.

This doesn't make sense. Aren't you trying to say she was WORSE than Leona Helmsley?

Prine's career was definitely affected by his association with the Kupcinet murder.

I love the story of Mark Goddard, still daddy-handsome in his fifties, drunk enough to fall out of his chair at a screening of "Lost in Space." Thank you, r42!

Bump

I love that Mark Goddard went back to school to become a teacher.

Andrew Prine and Brenda Scott were married three times in the 60s. What was the deal with that? Was one - or both - unstable?

Prine's career was wrecked by the Kupcinets, especially Essie, who pretty much had him blacklisted.

Those letters were what gave the case that extra oddball factor that made it more than some standard unsolved murder. Wasn't there some supposed tie in to the JFK assassination with Karyn's death too ? Valerie Percy was an odd case too.

Essie smothered her with her Ann Miller wig

Mark Goddard was always good at playing the good guy. Why was he so nervous in the True Hollywood Story talking about Karyn? Talk about body language.

R18 Roy Thinnes--hotness itself, for a while

Mark is a very nice man, have met him numerous times. But R42, hunty, you should have helped him to a private room or area, removed his slacks, and had a trouser treat. I bet he is 9 inches with a beautiful thick black bush. I'd still do him, saw him on tv the other day.

R42 "I wish I knew enough...to ask [Goddard]..."

That would have gone over big.