Tell me all about this crazy bitch Patty Hearst

Yes, I was there and can say without fear of contradiction that she was.

You know nuffin bout Tanya

Please we called her "Tonyer".

It's funny. I've always wondered whether she was or whether it was a brilliant defense strategy.

I do believe that Stockholm Syndrome exists. I do believe that someone can become so dependent on their captors and will do whatever it takes to survive.

I've just never truly been certain that was the case with her or whether it was the case of a spoiled rich girl having an epic rebellious phase.

The name Tanya/Tonya just never ends well...

if she hadn't been from a rich family, she would have been locked up for a long time.

LA has a great, little museum (Los Angeles Police Museum) with a permanent exhibit dedicated to the Symbionese Liberation Army. Not so much centered around Patty, but it tells you everything you could ever want to know about SLA. They have a Black Dahlia exhibit, too. If they ever get it together to put a Manson family exhibit, that would complete the unholy trifecta.

Worth checking out if you're ever in that northeast corner of LA.

She's a national treasure and needs to compete on Dancing with the Stars!

I read her book in the 80's as a teenager and was utterly shocked and appalled that this happened to her.

Years later, the more I read and the more unbiased the documentaries I saw were, I began to realize that once she was caught, she finally understood what a disaster she had created for herself .

She backtracked on everything SLA and became the America's favorite victim. She is the only person in American history to have her sentence commuted by one President and then pardoned by another.

White privilege gets you far in this country. Now, she is working hard to shut down any adaptations of her story that she has not sanctioned. Jeffrey Toobin's book American Heiress was in development at Fox and Patty had it killed.

They made her wear a beret and that thing in her hands in not a camera.

I love Patty Hearst and even have op’s pic on a T-shirt.

^^ wass for r10

Patty Hearst was held in a closet for weeks and used as a SEX TOY and CUM DUMPSTER by unattractive Men(black-white),forced to service and swallow nasty 1970's "multi-cultural baby batter". No WONDER she went 'CRAY-CRAY". SMELLY,DIRTY GHETTO BLACK MEN USING HER AS A CUM RAG!!! ALL THOSE SMELLS!!

Thank God that there was a John Waters around to return her dignity to her.

In late April 1974, the police became alarmed about the SLA and the children of Mayor Alioto. There was an airport interview and the reporters asked the mayor to comment. I remember him saying something like "The family knows how to handle these things." Fewer than three weeks later most of the SLA died in an LA shootout and fire. Coincidence? I don't think so.

Jeffrey Toobin’s book was great. I’m old enough to remember it on the news, and Toobin was thorough. There were many times Patty could have left.

I believe Patty was a victim in this.

So is she still rich?

[quote]White privilege gets you far in this country. Now, she is working hard to shut down any adaptations of her story that she has not sanctioned. Jeffrey Toobin's book American Heiress was in development at Fox and Patty had it killed.

I believe that a film based on American Woman, a book that tells the Patty Hearst story from the perspective of a woman who helped her hide in the last few months of Patty's life as a fugitive, has just been made. Chloe Grace Moretz was attached to play the Patty Hears character called Pauline in the book and in the film.

She was right about one thing: her family was a bunch of capital pigs!!

This bitch got to swim in the Hearst Castle pool. Oh boohoo for her

Where’s Bugs?

I am Patty's age & gender, and I was at a University of California in Southern California, and it absolutely blew my mind when it happened, and yet it was a logical next step in the crazy ride California was on. The whole world and all its values seemed upside down. It would be harder to describe if it weren't for what is happening today in The Tippity-Top House.

I was glad I was very, very poor, because it was the coolest thing to be very poor. Your clothes must be patched, and hand sewn out of worn out Indian bedspreads, and you must have a dirty dog that you bring to class, and the older and crappier your car was, the better.

There was hatred for the government, distrust of the system, rejection of traditional parental values, but the future was wide open, and it belonged to you.

It was kind of wonderful that Patty's parents were forced to feed the hungry in order to keep her alive.

If there had been the internet, I would have had my eyeballs glued to this case. So many twists and turns, and it got very real when the SLA were burned to a crisp, and very hard to believe when Patty robbed the bank. Whoa, Patty! Come on, girl. That's not hippie values.

I was glad she was pardoned, and thrilled that she went on to star in John Water's films.

So you were glad she slummed it for a minute and then used her rich, capitalist pig connection to get out of it r25?

Death to the fascist insect that preys upon the people!

I lived down the street in Berkeley from where she was kidnapped. Very mediocre street. A few blocks from Knights of the Round Table pizza on University ave. And the movie theater. Woody Allen played pretty regularly. We used to sneak in the back door by the screen wearing baseball caps but as soon as we sat down we took them off. Kids. Huey Newton was around later. Not a Panther anymore. Doing freebase like everybody else.

Greetings to the people. This is Tania. I want to talk about the way I knew our six murdered comrades because the fascist pig media have of course been painting a typically distorted picture of these beautiful sisters and brothers.

Cinque was in a race with time believing that every minute must be another step forward in the fight to save the children.

Gelina was beautiful. She taught me how to fight the enemy within through her constant struggle with bourgeois conditioning.

Gabi crouched low with her ass to the ground. She practiced until her shotgun was an extension of her right and left arms.

Zoya, female guerrilla. Perfect love and perfect hate reflected in stone cold eyes.

Fahizah taught me to shoot first and make sure the pig is dead before splitting. She was wise and bad.

Cujo was the gentlest, most beautiful man I've ever known. He taught me the truth as he learned it from the beautiful brothers in California's concentration camps. Neither Cujo or I had ever loved an individual the way we loved each other. Our relationships foundation was our commitment to the struggle and our love for the People.

I died in that fire on 54th Street, but out of the ashes I was reborn. I know what I have to do.

Meghan McCain missed an opportunity...

It's been seen in several later kidnapping cases that the victims don't simply escape--i.e. Elizabeth Smart, Jaycee Dugard. And, no, the Stockholm Syndrome wasn't a brilliant defense strategy. Brilliant defense strategies get you off.

And, no, this wasn't an issue of white privilege. If Patty Hearst hadn't been a rich white girl, she'd have gotten more sympathetic coverage and people would have been more inclined to see her as a victim in the first place since she was, yeah, kidnapped at gun point, thrown into a closet and raped multiple times.

The SLA was a nasty crew--they kidnapped Hearst, initially, to use her for a prisoner exchange to get off the two of their members who'd murdered Marcus Foster, Oakland's first black school superintendent. So, yeah, they were completely capable of the brutal treatment Hearst described.

She should never have been convicted.

I think it was her personality more than anything else that made people less than sympathetic. I remember reading a blog by someone who knew her and although she was horrified by kidnapping, she stated that Hearst was horribly spoiled and self absorbed person.

I'm not sure. I have to revisit again.

Patty will be appearing on RuPaul's Drag Race next season.

[quote] So is she still rich?

I met her in the mid 1990s and she seemed just another rich woman.

She also contradicted herself in her book on several key points on things she'd said and statements she'd made to the police that raises suspicion.

She also had contact with the people before she was kidnapped, so ti wasn't just a random selection.

There's a lot more to the story than terrified and abused kidnap victim. As far as I've ever heard, neither Elizabeth Smart nor Jaycee Dugard has significantly contradicted themselves in the details of the events of their experience.

[R22] This is the fictionalized account of Patty's flight across country when she was in hiding with the Harrises and Wendy Yoshimura. This story is told from Wendy's point of view.

Since it is fiction, Patty can't claim it's her story, this project is still being produced.

Party is on instagram. She's also really good friends with Paris Hilton's mother Kathy. She's always commenting on Kathy's photos. But pattys page is private.

Yeah I'm a snoop.

Her mother Catherine was a right-wing mess. A very conservative person against activism and free speech. And used her power at a university she had some kind of board members position to shut liberal and socially conscious movements down. Anything that went against conservatism was discouraged.

These were not good people.

I meant patty R38

Jefferey Toobin, who writes for The New Yorker and appears on CNN, and is among the best legal analysts working in popular media today, seems to conclude that it is not so black and white.

I read his book on the Hearst case, and ultimately had a little less sympathy for Patty, but would not have voted to convict her, if I was a juror.

Is her daughter the one that married Chris Hardwick from Talking Dead? Lol.

Well, R26, the 19 months she was in captivity is more than a minute, and she served 2 years in jail, which is more than nothing.

I was fascinated by what transpired, like the craziness of her manifesto at R29. I could empathize with her being brainwashed by her captors and turning into their ally.

A lot of people hated Catherine Hearst because she was a regent of the University of California, and she and Reagan were ruining what was an idyllic and aspirational public university system, so it was kind of exciting that her daughter was kidnapped as revenge, and I think she and her husband had to actually hand out the food to the people.

Also, the Vietnam War was tearing people's hearts out, and cult leaders were everywhere on the prowl.

Waters' use of her is SHADE. And perhaps cynical social commentary on the justice system.

He'd probably dismiss that if he were asked about though.

The problem with discussing a case about an heiress like Patty is that you're going to be biased one way or the other no matter how unbiased you think you'll be. Either you're going to be predisposed to give her sympathy (she was young and had the world before her, and did not ask to be kindapped) or hate her (she was a rich girl who never had to earn her way in the world).

Did Catherine Hearst herself really have to hand out food in Oakland as part of the SLA's demands? i find that almost impossible to believe.

No. The hearsts didn't personally hang out the food. There was a linguist stores which turned into a riot. The Tobin book smells of his own misogyny.. Read about his personal life. He is not a good man. The best account of the Hearst story is a pbs documentary called Guerilla which is on YouTube.

Love this t-shirt though!

I liked Tobin's book a lot. However, I think he discounted the rapes and captivity. Posters have addressed this and I think accurately. Thanks for this thread.

Yes r42

I think Emma Roberts could play the fuck out of her if Ryan Murphy decided to cover Patty in the next American Crime Story

I've been digging into the Jim Jones thread and corresponding links, and I'm having flashbacks of those years in San Francisco.

From an article "Six Degrees of Patty Hearst: Ronald Reagan, Jane Pauly, Jim Jones and More"

"Jim Jones: The megalomanical leader of the San Francisco-based People’s Temple tried to intimidate his way into running the People in Need program. Jones and two other men, all wearing dark suits and sunglasses, arrived at PIN’s China Basin headquarters. Jones insisted the program be run by locals, and claimed he could run and manage the program for $2 million."

California Gov. Ronald Reagan said of the food program, “It’s just too bad we can’t have an epidemic of botulism.”

Patty Hearst could have left her "captors" many times. She knew these people in advance. It was all planned.

Spoiled rich brat rebelling against her privilege. After being caught, the rapes and closet detention stories were invented. She is a fraud and a liar.

And by the way, who gets "kidnapped" in her bathrobe and just happens to have their drivers' licence in their pocket?

Bitch, please.

[quote] She knew these people in advance. It was all planned.

Link please.

Honey, I thought we talked about the beret. Patty Hearst couldn't even pull it off, and she had money and a gun.

That bitch wore white after Labor Day!

In that iconic photo, It looks like she is shooting some crazy black ectoplasm from the gun.

[quote]California Gov. Ronald Reagan said of the food program, “It’s just too bad we can’t have an epidemic of botulism.”

Wait, what?

Please elaborate

I believe she was brainwashed and should never have been convicted. But I also think there are elements in the tale that still need explaining.

Was Camilla Hall Patty's first women loving women sex?

For R57 Ronald Reagan: As governor of California, Reagan, a Republican, enjoyed loyal support from Hearst’s mother, Catherine Hearst, when she was on the UC Board of Regents during the riotous 1960s. He reappointed her to the board in 1974, when her daughter was being held captive by the SLA. He strongly disagreed with Randolph Hearst’s willingness to negotiate with his daughter’s kidnappers and he expressed disdain for the People in Need program, specifically the Bay Area residents who benefitted from it. At a private luncheon with Republican leaders in Washington D.C., the aspiring U.S. president said of the program: “It’s just too bad we can’t have an epidemic of botulism.” Despite his disdain for PIN, Reagan became one of Hearst’s supporters in her bid to seek clemency from Jimmy Carter.

pay no attention to the person who claims she knew them in advance. That is some propoganda put out by the surviving SLA members and in some crazy book some nut published.

She was locked in a closet, raped repeatedly, told the FBI would kill her..............you'd be confused too.

The Paul Schrader film with Natasha Richardson and Dana Delaney does a pretty good job telling the story from her point of view.

[quote]R29 Zoya, female guerrilla. Perfect love and perfect hate reflected in stone cold eyes.

Wait...she's describing DL now (??)

Toobin's written some good pieces, but he has an agenda and he's kind of a slime as a journalist.

And, no, not buying that this was all pre-planned--that's pure retconning.

Yes, Patty is filthy rich and so is her daughter Lydia, ..who bought one of the grandest houses in Los Feliz with her husband Chris Hardeick. Looks like a mini Hearst Castle and was $12 million.

bump

R63 Jeff Toobin's agenda includes: being a deadbeat dad, offering to pay for his mistresses abortions and fisting.

That being said, I thought his Patty Hearst book was good -- I was unaware of the cross-country trips that Patty Hearst made during her "capture" and the several opportunities to leave the SLA that she declined.

this is a very well done documentary about Hearst.

Mrs. Patty on Larry King Live. Very informative. I miss ole Larry.

Going by that video, R68, I would say that she should be played by Lady Mary in a film about her life.

[quote] There was a linguist stores which turned into a riot.

Rioting linguists? Is this what we've come to?

in the documentary above the show the brawl in the streets at the food giveaway. My favorite part is when one woman's wig pops off in the middle of it.

Ronald Reagan truly was a horrible person. Along with Nancy Reagan. In many ways they made TRUMP possible. Fuck all of them.

All criminal acts aside, I [italic]do[/italic] think she was overdoing it with this bow, a bit.

Journalists are cunning linguists.

r63 Toobin wrote that pretty on-point book about OJ that Murphy based his show on. I'm not being facetious when I ask what his agenda is?

He was very mad that Patty and her family wouldn't grant him interviews for the book so he really goes after her in the book.

It is sort of preposterous. In interviews he completely disregards the Stockholm Syndrome and says she wasn't brainwashed and that he is not really interested in that part of the story. THAT IS THE STORY!!!!

His book is very complete but their is nothing in it that hasn't been reported elsewhere. His OJ book and mini-series were the same way.

Oh okay, thanks r76, now I won't bother to read it. I liked his OJ book but am kind of obsessed with that so read every other book on OJ too.

For whatever reason, I just imagined her whole ordeal was like Alicia Silverstone's character in that terrible movie, "Excess Baggage."

Or like "The Ransom of Red Chief"

Toobin doesn't really unearth anything new--he just interprets the facts his way and disregards Hearst's own comments (in her autobiography) on her state of mind. He's an ex-prosecutor--and has the gotcha mentality that goes with that.

The idea of heiress turned radical was a lot more romantically appealing than teen girl kidnapped, raped, stuck in a closet for 57 days who then does what her captors want. Again, Elizabeth Smart had chances to escape and didn't. So did Jaycee Dugard. Hearst has said she felt betrayed by her parents when they limited the ransom money they'd pay and scared that she'd be killed by the government after most of the SLA was blown up in that house fire.

Her sentence wasn't short for the time, by the way--she got seven years--one year less than Emily Harris, who was one of her kidnappers and Hearst said she actually shot (accidentally) Myrna Opsahl during a bank robbery.

If anything, Hearst was punished for her rich girl privilege--which is why her sentence was commuted--as people became more aware of Stockholm syndrome, there was more sympathy for Hearst.

Emily Harris shot Myrna Opsahl.

Did you mean that r80 or did Hearst say she herself shot her?

Good post btw but that part confused me.

R73, that's a pussy bow made famous By our FPOTUS.

Her pussy stinks. Bad.

This song is about her....according to urban legend.

Yes, Harris shot Opsahl, according to Hearst. Hearst shot no one. Sorry for the confusion.

Video of the SLA shootout with the LAPD in South Central LA.

Patty is involved in a bank heist.

Excellent footage, R86.

She had money and a gun and still couldn't pull off the beret!

r89 see r54.

Karen wisdom

Gentlemanly straight men always pay for abortions when they accidentally knock up a girlfriend.

It is called paying for one's mistake.

[OT: I had a cousin who was treated like shit by his father. He knocked up a girl, and my father (his mother's brother) took care of the "mistake". Two years later he was dead from an overdose and my aunt NEVER FORGAVE MY FATHER for killing her only grandchild.

Straight people are seriously fucked up.]

I kinda felt bad for her, and then I visited Hearst Castle..

She didn't live in Hearst Castle, though the Hearsts still own a bunch of property around it. The castle was given to the state after WRH's death. Her father was one of several heirs. Hearst is rich, but not Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos territory. I've never felt, though, that Hearst should have been penalized for being born into a wealthy family.

She was in bad shape when she was arrested--87 pounds, really out of it, "zombie-like", signs of what are now called PTSD--you don't get like that just because you became "radicalized"--she was mistreated. It's a situation that's not unlike child soldiers in Africa.

I'm not surprised that she sounded cold and bitter in her interview with Larry King--I think she's furious about how she was held responsible for things that her kidnappers weren't--no one else was tried for the Hibernia bank robbery. Both of her lawyers were grandstanding celebrity types--F. Lee Bailey was flying off to LA giving talks *during* her trial. She wasn't well served until later when she was in prison--when she had a decent low-key attorney handling her appeals.

I don't think she sounds bitter in the Larry King interview. She is trying to be low key because she was about to be called to testify against the SLA again when they were all recaptured. (they quickly plead guilty after 9/11 since being a terrorist suddenly didn't seem as sympathetic and they were afraid they'd get really long sentences if they didn't take a plea. So Hearst didn't have to testify.)

There is another interview she did with Charles Grodin online. she's more bubbly in that and discusses being banned from Hearst castle (because she wrote a murder mystery set there.)

The Hearsts are still a very wealthy family. Their billionaires. So yeah patty isn't hurting for anything. She lives a fun jet-set lifestyle. And she lives in Connecticut. Life is great for her.

For what it’s “worth”, Forbes puts the Hearst Family wealth at $35B and Celebrity Net Worth puts Patty’s at $45M.

Patty has had two dogs compete in the Westminster Kennel Club dog show or what ever that thing is called. I think one may have even won.

From what I've heard patty lives off of a trust. So does the rest of her sisters. So they'll always have plenty of money.

Yeah, Patty's not hurting for money, she's just not super-duper wealthy. She didn't marry money--she married her bodyguard. She did once say that the only good thing about being kidnapped is that she didn't marry Steven Weed. She does have a wry sense of humor--she did not one, but five, John Waters movies

Can I be just as not super-duper wealthy as Patty Hearst?

Exactly R102. Pattys life is pretty comfortable.

I looked her up on IMDB and was surprised she had done the acting gigs. She was even in Serial Mom. It may have been a small part.

It is a pretty great part in Serial Mom. She wore white shoes after labor day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In Cecil B. Demented she basically gets to lampoon what every one used to say about her. She is the mother of one of Melanie Griffith's kidnappers. He calls her and she says GO TO THE POLICE! Turn yourself in!!! or something like that.

r104 meet r15

Serial Mom clip:

Who's the blonde reporter (I'm assuming) talking into the walkie talkie at R86?

She looks cool af.

The drunk history episode of her story is very funny.

It is one of the travestiesof the American Justice system to persecute a kidnapping victim for doing nothing more than obeying the natural human instinct to survive. I have never been able to reduce my disgust for what she was forced to endure after the FBI, after bungling, stammering, putting her parents through unimaginable hell, and finally, oh, duh... they've been hiding in San Francisco the whole time. A mentally challenged THREE YEAR OLD could have found Patty Hearst not guilty, faster!

I met her one time. we talked about shopping. Very pleasant.

We could use the SLA right about now, to take care of the oligarchs.

Probably not of great interest to the gay men here, but some young women are just as craving of risk and adventure as young men are. People get very touchy about discussing it, as if women are always victims and have no agency or curiosity and they couldn’t possibly do something like that unless a man were forcing her to; especially if she presents as feminine and mannered.

I don't think Patty Hearst was brainwashed. I think she's a fascinating chameleon.

There's just too much evidence that she was eventually a willing participant in the SLA. The question is was she brainwashed into believing she wasn't or is she flat-out lying?

R8 is correct. Being that Patty Hearst appeared in CRY-BABY and PECKER, she qualifies as a star.

She might be good on CELEBRITY BIG BROTHER

She was into berets years before Monica Lewinsky.

The fact that she's cool with Cecil B. Demented (a movie that makes a mockery of her side of the story) should prove that she's a bullshit artist. I still find her fascinating, though.