Racketeering has been part of Hollywood almost since the beginning; extortion, embezzlement, union corruption, murders disguised as suicide (Thelma Todd, George Reeves, Marilyn Monroe), and all manner of criminal activity are unfortunately grim realities of the film industry. It looks pretty on the surface, but wow, does it ever stink when you stir it up ...
Only Washington surpasses Hollywood in sheer rottenness—although to tell the truth, it’s not always clear where one leaves off and the other begins. Yesterday's action star is today's governor. Comedians testify (in character) in Congress. Politicians marry movie-star trophy wives. It goes on and on ... Hollywood overlaps with Washington as surely as the CIA overlaps with the Mafia, TMZ celebrity gossip overlaps with Time-Life Mockingbird media, and government propaganda overlaps with fun entertainment. And it is in that nexus where starlets, politicians, paparazzi, mobsters, banksters, shysters, fixers, dirty cops, G-men spooks and goons and stinkbugs of every description dwell and do coke together on casting couches and everybody has their price—in that netherworld, anything can happen, and does.
And now comes a genuine Hollywood star, Randy Quaid, saying he’s on the run from mobsters … and people think he’s crazy?! Good Lord, this is only the latest chapter in a sordid saga that goes all the way back to the Thirties, when the repeal of Prohibition left mobsters high-and-dry, looking for other useful work they could do. Turning their eyes westward, they saw Tinsel Town where lo and behold, film unions were ripe for the corrupting and stars were just asking to be blackmailed and fleeced. So began the Hollywood Mob connection, and anyone who thinks it all ended with the deaths of Mickey Cohen and Johnny Roselli, is very mistaken or living on the Moon …
The Quaid matter is not farfetched at all. And yet, with the interesting exception of Quaid’s ABC and CBS interviews, the coverage of this story by Big Media has almost entirely been spun to discredit Quaid and his wife. The news stories typically start from the premise that the Quaids' allegations can’t possibly be true, therefore they must be crazy—hence the suggestion they are suffering from a rare shared psychosis known as “Folie a Deux.” It was the “vivacious” blonde-bombshell Beverly Hills marriage counselor Dr. Michelle Golland who first offered that diagnosis to the tabloid press, and now it is being trumpeted by all “respectable” news agencies everywhere as the only possible solution to the Quaid conundrum. But the fact is that the Quaids’ allegations fit quite plausibly within Hollywood’s larger history as a haven for racketeers, a smorgasbord of rich clueless celebrities just waiting to be feasted on by wolves.
How will the Quaid matter play out? If it follows the story arc of the Cliff Robertson-David Begelman scandal of the late Seventies, some of the truth will come out and Quaid will get some of his money back. But he’ll be blacklisted for years and his alleged nemesis will remain a bigmajor powerbroker until he eventually outlives his usefulness and ends up another Hollywood suicide …
There are, however, differences between this and the Robertson scandal. The Quaids are not only alleging embezzlement; they’re alleging murder, and mind control, and also pointing the finger at the celebrity gossip industry as an extortion racket and form of psy-ops designed to keep stars in line and the public confused. But the gossip industry is too big to kill, and strange deaths of entertainers—be they Brian Jones or Marilyn Monroe, Jimi Hendrix or George Reeves—are never reinvestigated on an official level. Yes, the financial part of the Quaids’ allegations may be proven in court, but the truth behind the deaths of David Carradine, Heath Ledger, and Chris Penn, if different from the official versions, will enter the realm of movieland lore and stay there, two more unsolved Hollywood mysteries that will of course make great films someday.
And yet, in Hollywood, anything is possible. This is definitely a story to keep an eye on …
SMiles Lewis and I will be discussing these and other aspects of this fascinating story—the underreported facts behind it, as well as the possible larger implications—tonight on PsiOp Radio. We start live at 7 pm Central, you may listen via http://www.psiopradio.com …
