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Media

0:27

This

0:30

is our first Christmas tree in our little

0:32

house at the beach. One

0:36

hour later and we're

0:38

still here. I'm shutting off the light. That's

0:41

Wendy and Gary DeVore in happy times.

0:44

There were no iPhones in the 90s. Gary's

0:46

filming this with one of those bulky handheld

0:49

camcorders. A drink in his free hand.

0:51

Teasing Wendy about taking forever as

0:54

usual. Four hours 27 minutes

0:56

and 30 seconds. Shut

0:59

it off. Shut it off. But

1:02

Gary doesn't shut it

1:03

off because it's their first Christmas in Montecito

1:05

and it's also Wendy's birthday. December 23rd.

1:08

Happy birthday to you.

1:11

Happy birthday to you.

1:14

Happy birthday dear

1:16

you've been lying about your age for the last year.

1:18

I'm 47. Happy birthday

1:22

to you. I'm 47. I got

1:24

flowers. Want to see my flowers? Wendy's

1:26

beaming keeping eye contact with the camera

1:29

as she moves from showing off her birthday flowers

1:31

to a gift from Gary. I'm opening

1:33

something Gary got for me.

1:38

I have a new pair of earrings Sharon and

1:40

you know they're the kind that you love. Oh

1:44

Gary they're gorgeous. Yeah they're

1:46

gorgeous. They're gorgeous. I'm putting them on.

1:51

Oh yeah they look great. You like

1:53

them? Yeah. These are

1:55

some of Gary DeVore's last known lines

1:57

of screen dialogue.

1:58

Just simple home videos. videos he made with Wendy.

2:02

Yes. I love my pick them out. I must like

2:04

them. Yeah, but I knew

2:06

you like them. Yeah, I

2:09

do.

2:16

These are hard to watch even now. So

2:18

imagine being Wendy on June 29th, 1997, a

2:22

little more than 24 hours after Gary vanished.

2:25

Wendy had barely slept and pouring over

2:27

these home videos. It wasn't just some exercise

2:30

in nostalgia and attempt to find some

2:32

joy in an otherwise terrible time. The

2:35

Santa Barbara sheriff's detectives had advised her to gather

2:37

pictures and videos of Gary. So

2:39

the news media could run them as part of the search

2:41

effort. But as Wendy scanned the videos,

2:44

her mind turned to that bizarre car

2:46

ride she'd taken with Gary's mentor, director

2:48

John Ervin. He'd planted the seed

2:51

that there were aspects of Gary's life she

2:53

didn't know about. Like that script he'd

2:55

been writing when he disappeared. It's a big steal.

2:58

He had finished the script and polished it

3:00

and a lot of it was classified information.

3:03

And I did not understand that

3:05

in order to get classified information,

3:09

you have to be entitled. You

3:11

have to have clearance.

3:13

She was starting to wonder by putting real

3:16

information into his screenplay, Gary

3:18

might've placed himself in real danger.

3:21

In watching these videos of what had been the happiest

3:24

days of her life with Gary, she

3:26

now had to ask herself, was

3:28

any of it real?

3:30

I started thinking, what

3:32

the hell was he doing?

3:35

Who, who was the other side

3:37

of this man that I was married to?

3:46

From Campside Media and Sony Music

3:48

Entertainment, I'm Josh Dean. And this

3:50

is Witness Season 5, Fade

3:53

to Black.

3:54

Episode 2, The Rockin'

3:56

Wild Tears.

4:02

On Sunday morning, June 29,

4:05

1997, most people in America were talking about one

4:08

thing.

4:17

But in Gary and Wendy's house that morning, no

4:19

one was talking about Mike Tyson biting off

4:21

a chunk of a Van Der Holafield's ear. Gary's

4:24

friends had come for the fight party. They'd

4:26

turned on the TV. But then cops

4:29

had shown up to take that missing persons report

4:31

of the missing host. And that became

4:33

the main event. Some of those friends had

4:36

stayed the night, and now the living room was piled

4:38

with blankets and sleeping bags. Those

4:40

who'd come for the fight party were now

4:42

turning in to a search party. I

4:45

mean, there was so much going on about the disappearance,

4:47

you know, in the beginning,

4:49

when he went missing and we couldn't find him.

4:52

That was a weird feeling, you know? When

4:55

you feel attached to somebody and they disappear,

4:59

Gary,

5:01

where could he be?

5:05

That's Gary's best friend, David Debon, one

5:07

of those who stayed the night. The

5:09

landline in the small house had been ringing off the hook

5:11

all day. And each time, Wendy

5:14

dropped everything to answer, hoping

5:16

it might be Gary calling to put an end

5:18

to this madness. But it said,

5:21

the phone just brought more of it.

5:27

When this happened, all the studios

5:29

called and said, he's one of us. He's our guy.

5:32

You know, what it would be like to not

5:34

have that kind of amazing coverage. But

5:36

they all called and said, he's

5:38

our guy. He's one of us. You have carte

5:41

blanche. You

5:41

can go on every talk show. You can hold

5:43

a picture up. And indeed, the news media

5:46

smelled a story and reporters all

5:48

over Southern California were moving fast.

5:50

Here's a screenwriter who's well

5:52

known and it was getting attention

5:55

in L.A. So as a reporter,

5:57

this was a big deal for

5:58

me.

6:01

Laura Evans-Manitos was working as a general

6:03

assignment reporter at KYET, the

6:06

local ABC affiliate in Santa Barbara, where

6:08

the biggest news story is usually wildfires or

6:11

mudslides.

6:12

So I got off the morning show

6:14

and I got word that

6:17

Gary DeVore was missing. So my

6:19

photographer and I got in the car

6:21

and we went to Woody's house. And

6:25

yeah, I was thinking, this

6:27

is a great story. This is also

6:29

a woman in a lot of pain.

6:33

While Wendy dealt with the media onslaught, her guests,

6:35

some of whom had never met before, began

6:37

working together to help. And so Phil

6:40

and I, this friend of Wendy's,

6:42

we formed a good relationship. Within

6:45

hours of Gary's disappearance, Wendy had put

6:47

up a $10,000 reward for any information leading

6:50

to his whereabouts. We put together

6:52

the reward poster and all that. The

6:58

poster featured a photograph of Gary as

7:00

he was the day he left, bearded, 55

7:02

years old, 5'11", 185 pounds,

7:04

dark graying hair, rugged features. An

7:10

equal size to the photo of his face was

7:12

a close-up diagram of his most distinctive

7:14

physical feature, his broken, deformed,

7:16

right pinky finger. A football injury

7:19

in high school had permanently fractured it and

7:21

it stuck out at a right angle. Anyone

7:23

who met Gary noticed that pinky. It

7:25

stood out like that.

7:27

And he would never have it fixed because

7:30

I know he thought it was sexy. I

7:33

mean, it was a conversation piece. He

7:35

had big hands,

7:37

very rough hands, and it looked tough,

7:39

you know?

7:40

Wendy's friend Phil Combest, a former

7:43

writer and producer on hit TV detective

7:45

shows like Magnum PI, had been

7:47

at Wendy's side when the real detectives had

7:49

shown up to take her missing persons report. Although

7:52

Phil had only ever written fictitious police

7:54

scenes, it was clear to him that the cops

7:56

in this case, only hours old, had

7:59

already reached a conclusion. You

8:01

know, the police that were

8:03

involved in this were not

8:05

that interested in anything

8:08

except the possibility that Wendy killed

8:10

him.

8:11

Given their complete lack of confidence in the police,

8:14

Phil and David decided to undertake their own search.

8:21

They'd head out to the area near the Mojave Desert

8:23

Denny's, where Gary made his last call

8:25

to Wendy. I found a guy with a bloodhound

8:28

who met us out there. He

8:30

was a professional tracker who told him to bring

8:32

something with Gary's scent on it. So

8:35

I had Wendy take me into Gary's closet.

8:38

And Gary's closet had rows

8:41

of western cowboy hats. And

8:44

so I found one that looked like a good

8:46

thing. And what they really wanted was a band. As

8:49

a backup, they also brought one of Gary's sneakers.

8:52

He was a jogger and had a pair of shoes that was

8:54

especially well used. Pungent.

8:59

And we drove out there to the desert

9:01

with Gary's hat band and

9:04

a sneaker.

9:08

Word of Gary's disappearance had spread fast

9:10

in Hollywood, which was, even before

9:12

social media, a very small and well-connected

9:15

place. RKO Pictures,

9:17

the studio Gary owed the script to, had

9:20

already reached out to Wendy, panicking.

9:22

They wanted to know if he'd left behind a copy of the

9:24

script at home on a desktop computer or

9:27

someplace. Wendy was fairly

9:29

certain Gary had taken his only copy of the

9:31

script with him on his laptop. But

9:33

now it was due in a few days, and the

9:35

studio's financing was dependent on its

9:38

delivery. And soon, even

9:40

the action stars Gary wrote for were reaching

9:42

out.

9:43

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jean-Claude Van

9:45

Damme are not people that

9:48

I could ordinarily reach out to. These

9:52

are people that Gary worked with in

9:54

his career writing features. These

9:56

are two of the men who

9:58

cared about him. who liked

10:01

him enough to

10:03

be as horrified

10:06

as I was that he never made

10:08

it home.

10:11

Arnold Schwarzenegger was the biggest box office

10:13

draw in the world at this time.

10:15

And he starred in Gary's film, Raw Deal.

10:18

A lot of people are dead. Now

10:20

it's your turn. The two remain friends. And

10:22

when Arnold heard that Gary was missing, he

10:24

hired detectives to search chop shops in Mexico.

10:27

On the theory that Gary was carjacked and his

10:29

Ford Explorer was stripped for parts.

10:32

Arnold had sent men

10:34

down to Tijuana to

10:37

check the chop shops and to find any evidence

10:39

he could.

10:41

Then there was Jean-Claude Van Damme, the

10:43

Belgian kickboxing star whose films Time

10:46

Cop and Sudden Death Gary had improved,

10:48

or possibly rescued, by doing punch-up

10:51

work on the dialogue. Now

10:53

Van Damme, who viewed himself as a box

10:55

office rival to Arnold, took things

10:57

further.

10:58

Jean-Claude Van Damme got in a

11:00

car and drove to Nogales

11:04

to go and see if there was any way that

11:06

he could help find anything to do

11:08

with Gary's disappearance.

11:11

Nogales, Mexico is just across the border

11:13

with the U.S. and has long been a destination

11:15

for cars stolen across North America. The

11:18

idea that Jean-Claude was there personally trying

11:20

to kick ass and find Gary was

11:22

something Wendy found deeply moving. To

11:25

think that they did

11:27

go so out of their way to try

11:30

and help, it was

11:34

unexpected and I was

11:37

so grateful. I really

11:40

thought, you want to hear how stupid I

11:42

am? The minute that I

11:44

heard that Arnold Schwarzenegger was active

11:46

in trying to find Gary, I thought he would.

11:50

I had the biggest action stars in

11:52

Hollywood searching for my husband.

11:56

They were searching for their lost screenwriter.

12:00

think it could possibly fail.

12:03

When David Dabbin and Phil Combest made it

12:05

to the desert that day to begin their search,

12:08

things started to get weird immediately.

12:12

They came

12:12

across this telephone pole

12:15

with this big sign that said Gary

12:18

on it.

12:19

I mean legitimately,

12:24

what else could it have been?

12:32

As she says this, Wendy shows us

12:34

a photograph taken by David that first morning.

12:37

As they turned off the freeway, the two men spotted a telephone

12:39

pole with a small handwritten sign on

12:41

which someone had spelled out the name Gary.

12:48

From that sign, they followed a small trail into the desert

12:51

for about 100 yards. It ended

12:53

by a brick hut that had collapsed and was in ruins.

12:56

Bloodhound found no sense of Gary, so

12:58

they had to shock this bizarre sign with Gary's

13:00

name on it up to coincidence. A

13:03

decision that's never sat well with Wendy.

13:08

I mean out in the middle of the fucking

13:11

desert and it says Gary

13:13

on it. I mean there's an

13:15

arrow up at the top aiming.

13:20

The area where Gary disappeared was one of his happy

13:22

places. Gary was obsessed

13:24

with cowboys and westerns. He often carried

13:27

a film camera with him, photographing

13:29

potential locations for films he'd like to make,

13:32

sometimes just for scenes that existed only

13:34

in his head. The

13:37

last ping from Gary's cell phone was a few

13:39

miles from Vasquez Rocks, a

13:42

national historic site with stunning vistas

13:44

and rock formations. It serves as

13:46

LA's mini-monument valley, a

13:48

dramatic location where countless westerns and

13:50

TV shows have been filmed. All

13:52

the classics, from Star Trek to Blazing

13:54

Saddles. David and Gary had produced

13:57

The Heat, a movie pilot they'd shot nearby

13:59

a few years ago.

13:59

earlier. Now out searching for

14:02

him, spooked by the strange sign with

14:04

Gary's name on it, and with temperatures rising

14:06

to well over 100 degrees, David

14:09

felt very unsettled. We

14:12

went out, walked all these little roads,

14:14

holding the hatband and holding the sneaker,

14:18

and then the dog smelled

14:20

something. And Phil and

14:23

I are trying to figure out if we should take

14:25

the sneaker of Gary's that we bought and try

14:27

and go deeper into it. When

14:30

seemingly out of nowhere, a cop car pulls

14:32

up. Two sheriffs debuted. They

14:35

get out and start asking what these two are doing here with

14:37

a bloodhound and one dirty sneaker. Well,

14:39

we, you know, we're looking for a friend of ours

14:42

who

14:43

was lost and try and find him. And

14:46

he looked at us. He said,

14:48

you guys cops. Now

14:50

he's talking to me and Phil, a Jew, and

14:52

I don't know what the fuck he was. Phil,

14:56

the combat is looking at

14:58

me like I'm trying to hide

15:01

something. The

15:03

last thing I ever thought I was going to be

15:05

called or be was a cop.

15:09

And boy, he gave us a look. You

15:12

guys are in the wrong place.

15:20

Back at her home in Montecito, Wendy was having

15:22

an unusual encounter of her own. The

15:25

reporters had left and she was alone in her bedroom,

15:27

resuming her search of home videos when

15:29

there was a knock at the front door. According

15:32

to Wendy, she opened it to find two men in suits

15:34

flashing what appeared to be federal government IDs.

15:37

But only one of them really spoke. He

15:39

introduced himself as Chase Brandon.

15:42

He said he was a friend of Gary's and

15:44

that he was with the CIA.

15:48

He looked vaguely familiar to Wendy, but she

15:50

couldn't place it. Chase said he'd been to

15:52

the house before for a party. His

15:54

relationship with Gary was personal. He said

15:56

they were friends. And as he stood there

15:58

in her living room,

15:59

He acted like he was emotional.

16:02

And he said, I'd like to just

16:06

go in there alone into Gary's office

16:08

and just look at stuff. And I said, fine.

16:12

The door to Gary's office was a few feet down

16:14

the hall. And he went in there

16:16

and he shut the door. I assumed

16:19

that he was there to help.

16:22

He emerged a few minutes later, having gathered

16:24

himself and told Wendy he was stay in touch.

16:27

Then he left.

16:30

Everything about this was odd. Here

16:33

was the CIA showing up at

16:35

Wendy's door, but not to offer help,

16:38

just condolences and tears.

16:41

I trusted these people.

16:43

I mean, if you don't know anything

16:46

about this world, and I certainly

16:48

didn't, you

16:50

feel almost so grateful that there's someone

16:52

from something like the CIA coming

16:56

to try and look, all I wanted to do was recover

16:59

him. I wanted to know what had happened. I wanted

17:01

to save

17:01

him. So

17:04

this looked like a potential

17:06

hero for me.

17:15

There's a mystery on

17:18

the Caribbean island of Grenada. So I just want

17:20

to ask, to be clear. Sir. Did

17:22

you ever see the body of Maurice

17:25

Bishop? No. You're sure? Absolutely. 40 years

17:28

ago, the remains of the prime minister

17:30

went missing. And we've

17:32

been trying to figure out what happened. I

17:35

can tell you, in my words, this thing

17:37

stinks.

17:38

I'm Martin Powers with the Washington Post.

17:41

The empty grave of comrade Bishop is

17:43

out now. Follow and listen wherever

17:45

you get your podcasts. Hey, it's

17:47

Alan Gross. And have I got a story

17:50

for you. In my new one-of-a-kind

17:52

true crime podcast, uncharted crime

17:55

and mayhem in the music industry, I

17:57

take you inside unbelievable stories.

18:00

From murder to fatal plane crashes

18:02

to court battles and even run-ins with the mob,

18:04

you'll hear about the dark side of the world of music.

18:07

Search for and follow Uncharted, Crime,

18:09

and Mayhem in the Music Industry on Apple Podcasts,

18:12

Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your

18:14

favorite podcasts.

18:18

With no hard leads to work with, Wendy

18:20

started sorting through her memories, all

18:23

the way back to the beginning with Gary, wondering

18:26

what she might have missed from the first time they met.

18:28

Mr. Speaker, if you were

18:30

in the air last Thursday, especially

18:32

if you're flying to the Los Angeles

18:34

airport, you might have been delayed because

18:37

Air Force One was sitting on the

18:39

tarmac while our president was getting

18:41

a $200 Hollywood haircut. That's

18:44

the sound of Bill Clinton's first presidential

18:46

scandal. Before allegations

18:48

of White House blowjobs, it was blow

18:50

dryers. In a ridiculous

18:53

media moment now remembered as hairgate,

18:55

reporters once ran with the narrative that President

18:57

Clinton delayed an official flight out of L.A. in

19:00

order to get a haircut from Christophe, who

19:02

was then the IT stylist for celebrities

19:04

and power players around Hollywood. Wendy

19:07

and Gary were among the regulars. It's

19:09

where they first met. Gary

19:13

was in for a cut one day when he overheard Wendy talking

19:15

to her stylist about her mom, who was quite sick.

19:18

When the stylist got pulled away to deal with

19:20

actor Richard Dreyfuss, Gary spoke

19:23

up to offer a few words of support. Wendy

19:25

hadn't even seen Gary's face yet, but

19:28

she liked something about what he'd said, his

19:30

sense of caring. Gary

19:32

left the shop after their brief exchange, but

19:34

moments later returned and walked up to Wendy,

19:37

still in her chair. He said,

19:38

I work out of my home and I don't get to meet people

19:40

very often. And, you know,

19:42

I'd really like to get to know you. I'd

19:45

like to have coffee with you or something. And

19:47

he said, so here's my number. Just

19:50

call me and I'll make myself

19:52

available

19:52

to you. Wendy had already

19:55

made up her mind. There was something about

19:57

him.

19:57

I said, well, then why don't we just go have a cup of coffee

19:59

now?

20:00

And finished my hair up and we

20:02

went and we had a cup of coffee and that was like the

20:04

beginning.

20:06

To Wendy, Gary seemed the consummate

20:08

Hollywood creature.

20:09

It wasn't just a success in writing blockbuster

20:12

films with giant movie stars. He

20:14

had a serious reputation in town as a ladies

20:17

man. Yeah, no, he was really a player.

20:20

And the women

20:21

that he had been with

20:22

and the women that he knew was stuff I had avoided.

20:25

Gary had been married three times. He

20:27

was known not simply for dating women who were beautiful

20:30

or desirable in some way, but for being

20:32

with women in Hollywood who were powerful, independent,

20:35

different.

20:36

Gary's first wife was African American singer

20:38

Maria Cole. While her name is little known

20:40

today, when Gary married her, she

20:43

was the widow of singer Nat King Cole. We

20:45

both had been with other people, but

20:48

it was really weird to me when I found out who Gary

20:51

had been married to. She was the widow of

20:53

one of the most famous people that I ever knew

20:55

about, ever. Nat

20:57

King Cole's widow.

21:00

His second wife was Sandy Newton, actor

21:02

and now news anchor in Palm Springs. His

21:05

third was Claudia Christian, the sci-fi star

21:07

we heard about last episode. And the list

21:09

goes on. He dated singer Janet Jackson

21:11

and famed rock and roll groupie Pam DeVars.

21:14

In the year before he gave Wendy his phone number, Gary

21:17

had an entire chapter written about him and producer

21:19

Julia Phillips' bestselling memoir, You'll

21:21

Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again. Julia

21:24

Phillips, who died in 2002, is

21:26

the first woman ever to win a Best Picture Oscar.

21:29

She made some of the greatest films of the 70s,

21:31

The Sting with Paul Newman and Robert Redford,

21:34

Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver and

21:36

Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third

21:38

Kind. She used her memoir to eviscerate

21:41

the male power structure in Hollywood, but

21:43

then devoted an entire chapter to praising

21:45

Gary DeVore. Here's a passage as

21:47

read by our producer, Megan Donnis.

21:58

I think it's because

22:00

he's written lines that I really admire.

22:03

Gary and I slide comfortably from

22:05

lovers to friends.

22:08

As Wendy looks back now, none of these details

22:10

even slightly suggested that Gary might have

22:12

been anything but what he claimed to be, a charming

22:15

screenwriter, certainly not

22:17

a spy. She saw no

22:19

red flags, even with the colorful

22:22

dating history. In the end, Wendy

22:24

took the plunge with him because of the way he made her

22:26

feel.

22:27

You look for a little excitement in your life. And

22:30

Gary, if nothing else, was a little excitement,

22:33

let me tell you.

22:34

And it wasn't like Wendy was some innocent, fresh

22:37

off the Greyhound bus to Hollywood. She

22:39

was a successful voiceover actor by this point,

22:42

with a romantic past of her own.

22:44

Wendy's most recent job had been supervising

22:46

dialogue in Ridley Scott's film, Black Rain,

22:49

starring Michael Douglas and Kate Capshaw. Hi,

22:52

sweetheart. You remember me, don't you?

22:55

I spoke. Between voice gigs, Wendy

22:57

ran a surgeon's office in Beverly Hills and

23:00

was raising her daughter, Brittany. She was

23:02

an independent, self-supporting woman. And

23:04

I have a very strong personality. I was called

23:06

an upstart.

23:08

Yeah, it wasn't a compliment.

23:14

Wendy came from a background of extreme privilege,

23:16

mixed with a certain kind of alienation. Her

23:19

parents were both first-generation Jews. Her

23:21

paternal grandfather made a fortune and

23:24

not legally, at least at first. He

23:28

was a bootlegger during Prohibition. And

23:30

then when Prohibition ended, they

23:33

became legitimate distillers.

23:38

His business partner was Joe Kennedy, father

23:41

of President John F. Kennedy. Wendy

23:44

was raised in Palm Beach, Florida, playground

23:47

of America's rich and famous. Joe

23:49

Kennedy lived down the street. Blonde,

23:51

blue-eyed girls were everywhere. But

23:53

Wendy was different. I

23:55

was tall, for my generation.

23:58

I was five-nine.

23:59

I was exotic, I had very black

24:02

hair. She was the eldest

24:04

of three sisters, close to her father, but

24:06

had a difficult relationship with her mother. She

24:09

would never have wanted to be a mother.

24:11

These women didn't have a choice. They had to get

24:13

married in that generation. And

24:15

remember, the first birth control pills were

24:17

on until 1965, and

24:21

she did everything that was right. Meaning

24:24

her mother did everything expected of her, except

24:26

to have a warm and loving relationship with her daughters.

24:29

By the time Wendy was 13, her mother began traveling,

24:32

leaving Wendy to her own devices. While

24:35

it's easy to look back at the early 60s as

24:37

a more innocent time, the young privileged

24:40

kids Wendy found herself running with in Palm

24:42

Beach were fast company. A

24:44

common fixture in the neighborhood was President

24:46

John F. Kennedy, who, according to Wendy...

24:49

He would slow the car up and say hi. Nothing else,

24:52

you know, not really. Two

24:54

days before he was assassinated, he stopped and

24:56

said hello to me. In his car driving

24:58

down the street, we lived on the other

25:01

corner. He was down in Palm Beach before he went to Dallas.

25:05

And Wendy says, there was a reason

25:07

she kept having these run-ins with President Kennedy,

25:10

beyond his neighborliness. He was

25:12

having an affair with the girl around

25:14

the block from me while he was

25:16

the president. And I used to walk down

25:19

to his house with her, and

25:24

I'd sit outside with the Secret Service guys and

25:26

drink Coca-Cola

25:27

while she went inside with him.

25:30

I mean, we thought

25:32

it was all pretty cool. I

25:35

think I was 14.

25:37

I think she was 16,

25:39

maybe almost 17.

25:41

Wendy's older adventurous friend soon enlisted

25:43

her help as a wingman in another dangerous

25:46

escapade,

25:47

one that would form a lasting connection for Wendy

25:49

later in her life.

25:51

Wendy's friend needed her on a double date.

25:53

I'd never had a date. I was 14

25:56

years old. She asked me if I wanted to study with

25:58

her. She said, call your mom. I'm gonna ask you if you

26:00

spend the night over with me.

26:02

This, of course, was a lie. See,

26:05

Wendy's girlfriend was actually involved with a much

26:07

older married man, and he was

26:09

friends with a famous actor who happened to be

26:11

in town that night. The actor's name

26:14

was Sean Connery. Mr. Bond.

26:19

James Bond.

26:23

So Wendy, a young teenager, found

26:26

herself having cocktails in a top West Palm

26:28

Beach restaurant on a date with

26:31

James Bond. We're

26:33

all sitting at dinner in this restaurant. And they

26:35

brought the drinks, and they brought the appetizers.

26:38

That's as far as it got.

26:38

And all of a sudden, my

26:40

mother came in. And you should

26:42

have seen the faces on the people facing the

26:44

door because she looked like she was completely out

26:46

of her mind. And she came charging in there,

26:49

grabbed me by the back of my neck and my shoulder,

26:53

dragged me up, started screaming

26:55

at them, and dragged

26:57

me out. And that was my entire

27:00

introduction to Sean Connery.

27:03

What Wendy saw as her dark, weird,

27:05

freakishly tall, Russian-Hungarian-Jewish

27:08

looks were precisely the features

27:10

that drew people to her.

27:12

And one day, while

27:13

walking down the street in Palm Beach, Wendy

27:15

was discovered.

27:19

First job I ever had was Bill Blass

27:22

and Roberta Ranczy. I mean,

27:24

Pauline Trigere. I would model for all of

27:26

them. Satisfied her mother, Wendy went to college

27:28

to study nursing, but Ford Models signed

27:30

her and brought her to New York. She

27:33

also fell into some work as a Cher

27:35

lookalike. When you find out you have a double,

27:38

you have a double, Cher and I, I

27:40

mean, you couldn't tell us apart. Wendy

27:44

would end up in People Magazine as America's

27:46

most famous Cher lookalike. She

27:48

tried developing a career as an actor, but

27:51

if you play Cher once, you can only

27:53

ever play Cher after that. Wendy

27:58

ended up running into Sean Connery again.

27:59

on the NBC Universal lot and

28:02

had a relationship with him. She went from Sean

28:04

Connery to Judd Hirsch, star of Taxi,

28:06

and eventually spent 10 years with a successful

28:09

TV producer. And what would be her last relationship

28:11

before Gary?

28:13

Meeting Gary was

28:17

kind of like

28:19

a growing up event.

28:21

I thought I was growing up already. I

28:23

thought I was growing up already. I was 20, didn't

28:25

you? I

28:29

think that with Gary,

28:30

it was a different thing because

28:33

I was a grown up.

28:38

Now,

28:39

that growing up event and meeting Gary

28:41

was turning into the biggest test of her life.

28:52

Why, hello there. Welcome to

28:54

Radio Rental. If you're new around

28:57

here and haven't heard, I'm your host,

28:59

Terry Carnation. On Radio

29:01

Rental, we play tapes of the scariest

29:04

true stories you've ever heard. That's

29:07

right, we've got real scary stories

29:09

told by the people that actually experienced

29:12

them. We've got stories of paranormal

29:15

peril, near death experiences, stitches

29:18

in the space time continuum, and

29:20

more. Stories like

29:23

these. This person was

29:25

looking for me. They start to take

29:27

these long strides towards me. I

29:29

was freaking out. We started

29:31

seeing it everywhere we went. It

29:33

would be sitting there watching us. I've

29:36

never ran so fast in my life.

29:39

And it's all set right here at Radio

29:41

Rental. The video rental shop

29:44

of your worst nightmare. Radio

29:46

Rental is available now. Listen one week

29:49

early and ad free on Tenderfoot

29:51

Plus.

29:53

I'm Kathleen Goldhar and I'm the host

29:55

of a new podcast, Crime Story.

29:58

Every week we bring you a different crime. Told

30:00

by the storyteller who knows it best

30:02

you got one witness who can't be found

30:05

you got another witness who's murdered We

30:07

couldn't sugar-cite the story I

30:09

was getting calls from Cosby's attorney threatening to sue

30:12

every day Every crime in one way

30:14

or another is a reflection of who we are

30:16

as a people as a city as a country

30:19

Find us wherever you get your podcasts

30:24

Criminologists say that when a person goes missing

30:26

the first 72 hours are critical It's

30:29

when clues are the freshest and when victims

30:31

of foul play are more likely to still

30:33

be alive Experienced investigators

30:36

know that they're working against the clock in this early

30:38

period

30:39

and each passing moment Simply increases the

30:41

odds that a loved one will never be found

30:43

alive again

30:45

Since Wendy had reported Gary missing authorities

30:47

had seemingly done everything Except

30:49

to actually look for Gary they've

30:51

gone from suspecting Wendy to

30:54

suspecting Wendy and her friend Phil Kombest

30:56

have gotten rid of him together

30:57

And now they were preparing Wendy for another possibility

31:00

as the FBI told me when they came

31:02

in very few men go missing

31:04

and When they do the highest

31:07

percentage of them go missing

31:08

on their own accord because they can and

31:10

they want out

31:12

of whatever their life is

31:17

And so the authorities started to dig hard

31:20

into Gary's past his marriages

31:22

and his well-earned reputation as a player a

31:25

Million different ways they asked could

31:27

it be that he had left Wendy for another woman

31:31

Phil who was present for the whole ordeal remembers

31:34

feeling strongly that cheating wasn't a likely

31:36

scenario for Gary Years

31:42

of Wendy and became pretty close

31:44

to Gary over the time I knew

31:46

him

31:47

There was no fear. There was nothing like that

31:50

Just he found Wendy and that was

31:52

that Yeah

31:59

people brought it up to me at that time. I said,

32:02

it's just not possible. No, he had decided,

32:04

you know, it was a decision he made. He

32:06

had decided that I was what he had been

32:08

looking for all of his life

32:11

and he was not gonna fuck this up.

32:18

Faced with the questions of whether she might be wrong

32:20

about Gary being loyal, it occurred

32:22

to Wendy why she was never jealous.

32:25

If Gary had a double life, it had been his

32:27

obsession with work.

32:29

But after that drive into the mountains with director John

32:31

Ervin, the call from government security

32:33

specialist Frank Thorwald and especially

32:36

that visit from CIA officer Chase

32:38

Brandon, Wendy was now looking at

32:40

Gary's career as a screenwriter in a very different

32:43

light.

32:44

Had she missed something?

32:47

The fact is, if you hold Gary's early career

32:49

up to scrutiny, there are some oddities worth

32:51

zooming in on. Small, weird

32:53

things that could, if you squint, at

32:56

least point to the possibility of a secret

32:58

life, like his entry

33:00

into Hollywood. In his 20s,

33:03

Gary Dabour got his first writing job on The Dating

33:05

Game. It was on the staff of this

33:07

show that Gary met his oldest friend, David

33:10

Debin.

33:10

He also met another longtime friend,

33:13

The Dating Game's producer and creator, Chuck

33:16

Barris. Barris

33:22

is famous for hosting The Gong Show, a

33:25

fixture of daytime TV in the 70s. It

33:27

was a live performance competition game show,

33:30

like The Voice, except the performers

33:32

all seemed to be crazy people living out of their cars.

33:37

And the joy of the show was in seeing them gonged

33:40

off of it and into oblivion by the judges.

33:48

And this is the other reason people remember

33:50

Chuck Barris. A Harvard, a deep

33:53

secret.

33:53

I was a paid assassin for the CIA.

33:55

In 1984, Chuck

33:57

Barris published his memoir, Confessions,

33:59

of a Dangerous Mind, in

34:02

which he claimed that while revolutionizing American

34:04

TV with game shows that pushed the

34:06

boundaries of sexual innuendo and bad taste,

34:09

he was also working

34:11

as a secret CIA hitman.

34:15

That's George Clooney playing CIA

34:17

operative Jim Byrd. In 2002's Confessions

34:24

of

34:29

a Dangerous Mind, the film was Clooney's

34:31

directorial debut, based on Chuck Barris's

34:34

book. Wendy had never really considered

34:36

Barris's claims to have been a CIA hitman,

34:39

but as she reviewed her past with Gary, she

34:42

did remember something that seemed strange.

34:44

At their first coffee together, he

34:47

said, I have someone that you have to

34:49

meet,

34:49

and the first person he had

34:51

me meet was Chuck Barris.

34:54

Naturally, they all met at the Ivy, the LA

34:57

powerplayer hotspot for meals and deals.

34:59

You know, everybody was at the Ivy at that time. We

35:02

went in to the Ivy one night

35:05

and they moved a table of people to

35:07

give him his favorite table. He

35:09

was very interesting. He was nothing like

35:11

the game show guy. Nothing.

35:14

He had an entirely different personality, very

35:17

bright. But to Wendy, that initial

35:19

encounter Gary arranged with Chuck Barris felt

35:21

strange, like he was assessing

35:23

her. And it was like I was being approved.

35:28

At the time, Wendy perceived all of her meetings

35:30

with Gary and Chuck Barris as simply part of

35:32

his Hollywood life. But since

35:34

that visit from CIA officer Chase

35:37

Brandon,

35:38

Gary's relationship with Barris began to look

35:40

very different.

35:43

Later, when all of this stuff started

35:46

to emerge and then the book was out,

35:49

that Chuck had written, I started to put things

35:51

together in a different way. I didn't know if I was right,

35:55

but Gary was always in touch with him. And

35:58

when he spoke to Chuck, sometimes he needed to.

35:59

little privacy.

36:04

And then there was Gary's first produced film,

36:07

Dogs of War. It features Christopher

36:09

Walken leading a double life as an amateur birdwatcher

36:12

and secret hit man. Birdwatching

36:15

is a quiet business. How would you

36:17

know? You're not CIA, are

36:19

you?

36:22

Well, you're hardly KGB. Thanks

36:26

for the drink. You are, are you?

36:28

You're a fucking CIA. The script

36:30

was based on a novel and Gary was hired

36:32

to rewrite it. He didn't originate

36:34

the story. Still,

36:36

how was it his first film just happened

36:38

to be about a secret hit man? But

36:41

it was the car trip with John Irvin that truly

36:43

haunted her. Wendy had always

36:46

seen John as one of Gary's closest Hollywood

36:48

friends as a kind of protector.

36:50

Yeah, John Irvin was literally

36:54

one of Gary's most important

36:56

friends. I mean, they were

36:59

connected all the time when one wasn't on location.

37:02

Wendy had viewed the socializing they did as part

37:04

of Gary's job in the Hollywood Dream Factory.

37:07

At the same time, she knew Gary tried

37:09

to be different.

37:10

To distinguish his fictional writing and scripts about

37:13

crime and tough guys, Gary did

37:15

serious research. He read books,

37:17

sought out reporters and government sources. When

37:20

Wendy met Gary, he described himself as working

37:23

almost like a journalist.

37:24

When I first moved in with him, he

37:27

said to me, you're going to get calls, you're

37:29

going to pick up the phone and now and

37:31

then

37:31

you're going to get a call from the CIA,

37:34

from the New York Times.

37:35

And he made it sound very generalized.

37:39

And he said, because I call

37:41

and I write and ask for information

37:44

for my books. And I never thought

37:46

another thing about it. Until

37:48

now, given

37:51

the warning from John Irvin and the odd visit

37:53

from Chase Brandon, Wendy was

37:55

really taking what the police said to heart about

37:58

Gary having a possible double.

37:59

life.

38:01

Or at least she wasn't able to completely

38:03

dismiss it. But if

38:05

Gary really had been living a secret life, she

38:08

still didn't feel it involved another woman.

38:10

The answers, in Wendy's opinion, had

38:12

to lay hidden somewhere in Gary's intense

38:15

connection to his work.

38:18

In the hours and days following his disappearance,

38:21

Wendy had spent some time alone in Gary's office.

38:25

He had this gigantic set

38:27

up in one of the rooms he used as an office

38:31

overlooking the ocean and the beach. And she began

38:33

to see it in another way. And he

38:36

had that divided into two sides,

38:39

which I now understand what the two

38:41

sides were. You know, one was the

38:43

writer and the other was

38:45

his other life.

38:50

Whatever suspicions Wendy was having, she

38:53

didn't vocalize any of them until Phil

38:55

and David returned from their fruitless search in the

38:57

desert. A college roommate

38:59

named Gene had arrived that day from Austin to

39:01

support Wendy and was helping to prepare dinner.

39:04

Gene was only half listening, but as the group

39:06

debriefed about the search and Wendy shared

39:08

the story of her very weird visit from an

39:10

emotional CIA officer,

39:13

Gene perked up. She hadn't

39:15

seen this CIA officer arrive and

39:17

didn't know he was in the house when she'd gone into

39:20

Gary's office to get something from her suitcase,

39:22

which she'd left in there.

39:24

Expecting the office to be empty, Gene

39:26

had instead come upon Chase Brandon.

39:30

Remember, Brandon had shown up claiming

39:32

to be distraught and asked if he could have a moment

39:34

alone in Gary's office to collect himself.

39:37

Today, some 26 years later, Gene

39:40

still recalls the odd encounter as

39:42

she described it to Wendy.

39:44

looking

40:00

at Gary's computer. And

40:04

I didn't say a whole lot and I got what

40:06

I wanted and then turned around and walked out.

40:09

We asked her if Chase seemed upset. No,

40:12

he seemed surprised. Somebody

40:15

asked me that, some detective asked

40:17

me that question. And I remember

40:19

saying no, he, to me he looked

40:22

like he had not been crying. He

40:24

looked surprised.

40:27

Wendy went into Gary's office as soon

40:29

as she heard Jean's account. Nobody

40:31

had looked at or touched anything in there since

40:33

Chase left. But Gary's computer

40:35

had been turned on and it had crashed.

40:38

It was frozen and

40:41

it said, are you sure we want to erase

40:43

the big deal to delete the big deal?

40:46

That's what was on the computer after Chase Brandon

40:48

left.

40:54

To Wendy, it looked like the CIA and

40:57

the person of Chase Brandon apparently

40:59

rifled through Gary's desktop machine. His

41:03

technical skills were wanting to. The

41:05

entire computer had crashed and the

41:07

hard drive was rendered unreadable. Wendy

41:10

immediately called government security specialist

41:12

Frank Thorwald who remembers trying

41:14

to recover Gary's data.

41:18

I was working with Wendy to try to

41:20

get into the computer and I couldn't get into

41:23

it. And

41:25

this visit from CIA officer Chase Brandon

41:28

still bothers Thorwald today.

41:30

And the things that have concerned

41:33

me that I've never been able to come up with answers

41:35

for, regarded

41:38

Chase Brandon. He said

41:40

he needed a moment because he was cheering him

41:42

about Gary. And somebody in

41:44

my view who has held those

41:46

kinds of positions

41:47

does not tear up over something

41:49

like that. It's

41:52

just not something that's going to happen.

41:58

Why did a CIA officer

41:59

shown up and used crocodile tears

42:02

to gain entry to Gary's office, allegedly

42:04

ransack his computer and steal

42:07

his screenplay. Well,

42:10

that screenplay that Gary was adapting, the

42:12

producers wanted him to set in Panama, and

42:14

that he bragged to people would blow the lid

42:17

off the CIA, it turns

42:19

out that Wendy's mysterious visitor from the agency,

42:22

Chase Brandon, had made his bones in

42:24

the CIA as a clandestine officer

42:26

in Panama.

42:32

Gary was trapped on

42:34

Panama and in Panama, and

42:37

he was denied information. He

42:39

should never have read it. That's

42:42

next time

42:43

on Fade to Black.

42:48

This episode is brought to you by Undeniably

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And some even use technology to

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To learn more about what dairy farmers are doing to

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usdairy.com.

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of Campside Media and Sony

43:24

Music Entertainment, in association

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with Stowaway Entertainment. The

43:29

series was co-created, written, and reported by

43:31

Evan Wright and Megan Donis. Megan

43:33

Donis is the senior producer, and Sheba

43:35

Joseph is the associate producer. The

43:38

executive producers are Evan Wright, Jeff

43:40

Singer, and me, Josh Dean. Niall

43:42

Kasten is the consulting producer.

43:44

Studio recording by Ewen Leitramuwen, Blake

43:47

Rook, and Sheba Joseph. Sound

43:50

design, mixing, and original music by

43:52

Mark McAdam and Erica Huang. Additional

43:55

engineering by Blake Rook. Additional

43:57

music by APM and Blue Dot Sessions.

44:00

Additional field recording by Devin Schwartz.

44:03

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44:05

thanks to our operations team, Doug Slawin,

44:08

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44:12

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44:15

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Thank you.