Ryan Murphy’s series based on the Lyle and Eric Menendez murders continues to top the Netflix charts, not to mention make headlines – most recently drawing anger from the Menendez family themselves, who claim it is ‘gross’ and ‘riddled with mistruths.’
The drama – starring Javier Bardem, Chloë Sevigny, and Cooper Koch – revisits the twisty, and often twisted, saga of the siblings who, in 1989, shot their film executive father Jose and mother Kitty in their Beverly Hills home, later claiming the killings were motivated by horrific sexual abuse.
The brothers are now set to tell the story in their own words – as Netflix has announced the Menendez Brothers, a documentary about the case, will air October 7.
Scott Huver, who began his career reporting for a Beverly Hills newspaper then spent more than 20 years as a celebrity journalist, explains what he believes is the enduring appeal of the case.
Nicholas Chavez and Cooper Koch with Javier Bardem have shone new light on the Menendez case, in the Netflix drama Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story
The brothers photographed in front of their Beverly Hills home around the time of the murder. The case kicked off a frenzied cycle of celebrity crime obsession
‘In part, it helped kick off a frenzied cycle of celebrity crime obsession that flourished in the 1990s and early 2000s – the Beverly Hills-adjacent OJ Simpson trial being the jewel in the Court TV crown,’ he says.
‘But theirs is far from the most monstrous crime to come out of the 90210 zip code.’
Now, in his book Beverly Hills Noir: Crime, Sin & Scandal in 90210, he reveals there’s plenty more monstrous material for the streaming services, when the frenzy over the Menendez siblings finally dies down.
Bugsy Siegel
Handsome, flashy, volcanically tempered mobster and Las Vegas visionary Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel had been sent west by the New York mob to take over the Los Angeles rackets.
And when he wasn’t warring over the city’s lucrative criminal empire with rival Jack Dragna, the Chicago mob’s emissary, he was rubbing shoulders with the stars, dating glamorous actresses, and befriending stars like George Raft and Jean Harlow.
He was also being implicated in crimes ranging from racketeering to murder – but somehow always managed to walk free (in his cell, he would dine on steak dinners delivered by gourmet restaurants and be entertained by beautiful female visitors).
Handsome, flashy, and volcanically tempered, Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel spent as much time dating starlets and hanging out with actors as he did building the mob’s criminal empire
Siegel established The Flamingo, recasting Las Vegas’s dusty, rough-and-tumble Strip as a haven for high-class frolicking with a hint of danger
Even in prison, Siegel would dine on steak dinners delivered by gourmet restaurants and be entertained by beautiful female visitors
One well-placed shot hit him through the eye, and his corpse was left awash in blood on the chintz sofa
However, his luck ran out when his vision of a luxe gambling oasis in the nearby Nevada desert came tumbling down around him.
He established The Flamingo, recasting Las Vegas’s dusty, rough-and-tumble Strip as a haven for high-class frolicking with a hint of danger. But Siegel was suspected to be skimming millions off the top of the profits, enraging his mob cronies.
His oldest friend Meyer Lansky reluctantly agreed to a death warrant, and the New York mob quietly let it be known that no reprisals would follow if anything ‘happened’ to Siegel.
Returning to his mistress, Virginia Hill’s home after dinner one night – when she was, perhaps too conveniently, away – Siegel went from local menace to gangland casualty, struck by a hail of bullets that tore through the living room window.
One well-placed shot hit him through the eye, and his corpse was left awash in blood on the chintz sofa.
Most believe Dragna ordered the efficient hit, with the help of an inside man, but the identity of the actual triggerman remains an enduring mob mystery.
The flashy gangster died in a hail of bullets – the identity of the triggerman remains and enduring mob mystery
Some of the bullets passed through Siegel’s body before knocking down a statue on the top of a piano and splattering into the wall amid an arrangement of paintings
The glamorous gangster was played by Warren Beatty in the 1991 film Bugsy, playing opposite his future wife Annette Bening
Siegel, meanwhile, was immortalized on screen by Warren Beatty in the highly fictionalized 1991 film ‘Bugsy’, with Annette Bening as Virginia Hill.
He also made an appearance in ‘Mobsters’, played by Richard Grieco, and in multiple TV series, including ‘Boardwalk Empire’ and ‘Mob City’, in which he is portrayed by Edward Burns
Lana Turner and Johnny Stompanato
After the intense but rocky year-long romance between A-list sex symbol Lana Turner and mobster Johnny Stompanato turned violent in 1958, she dumped him and attended the Academy Awards without him on her arm.
Furious at the snub, he confronted her at her Beverly Hills home eight days later, where the pair had a violent argument. He threatened to kill her family, she told cops, and slash her face with a razor.
Sex symbol Lana Turner couldn’t resist the lure of bad boy Johnny Stampanato – but the relationship turned violent within a year
He confronted her at her Beverly Hills home where the pair had a violent argument. He threatened to kill her family, she told cops, and slash her face with a razor
Turner with Stompanato (right) and her daughter Cheryl Crane (right), who confessed to the murder
Stompanato’s body in Lana Turner’s bedroom – Time magazine called it one of the most notorious crimes of the 20th century
Overhearing the argument and fearing for her mom’s safety, Cheryl Crane, Turner’s 14-year-old daughter, is said to have grabbed a kitchen knife and run to intervene.
As she gestured at him, she accidentally stabbed his abdomen in a freak spot that killed him almost instantly.
Conspiracy theories continue to surround what Time magazine called one of the most notorious crimes of the 20th century.
Some dubious sources – including Stompanato’s press-craving gangster pal Mickey Cohen – insisted the story was a cover-up concocted to keep Turner in the movie-making business by placing blame on the teen.
But Turner – in tearful witness stand testimony that outdid even her most emotional acting performances – convinced the courtroom otherwise.
Harold Robbins’ 1962 novel ‘Where Love Has Gone’ is said to have been based on Stompanato’s murder, and the book was adapted into a film in 1964 starring Bette Davis.
Conspiracy theories surrounded the murder, but Turner’s tearful witness stand testimony convinced the courtroom it was a case of justifiable homicide
The Harold Robbins book – and subsequent film adaptation – bore striking similarities to Stompanato’s murder
Bette Davis took a starring role in 1964’s Where Love Has Gone, opposite Susan Hayward
Billionaire Boys Club
As the key figure in the self-titled Billionaire Boys Club, charismatic Joe Hunt led a collection of privileged, ambitious young Beverly Hills men in pursuing morally dubious get-rich-quick plans.
Hunt held an almost hypnotic sway over his underlings as they cooked up various Ponzi schemes to relieve hapless investors of their cash.
But in 1984, the crew found themselves the victims of an even more wily Beverly Hills con artist, their faux investor Ron Levin, who swindled them out of $4 million.
Hunt and one of his associates evened the score by purportedly murdering Levin, though the con artist’s body was never found and Hunt insisted that Levin simply vanished with his ill-gotten gains.
However, Hunt’s second in command flipped and testified against him, resulting in his conviction for the murder.
In his trial for another murder – this time of Hedayat Eslaminia, who was allegedly killed for his $35 million fortune (though he was, in fact, penniless) – Hunt acted as his own attorney and, incredibly, managed to get himself acquitted.
Handsome Joe Hunt cooked up various Ponzi schemes to relieve hapless investors of their cash
Hunt was played by Judd Nelson in the 1987 TV film The Billionaires Boys Club
The 2018 film was a flop, largely thanks to the presence of Kevin Spacey, who had recently been accused of sexual assault
A barely recognizable Emma Roberts starred in Billionaire Boys Club in 2018
He is the only person in California legal history to represent himself in a capital case and not receive the death penalty.
In the years since Levin’s disappearance, witnesses have continued to come forward with reported sightings of the con man and, as recently as 2018, Hunt’s family was offering $100,000 for evidence of his whereabouts.
To this day, the case is often mentioned in the same breath as the still mysterious death of Marilyn Monroe and the OJ Simpson case.
It was turned into a limited series in 1987, starring Judd Nelson as Hunt. Then in 2018, a star-studded feature film was released with Taron Egerton, Kevin Spacey, Suki Waterhouse and Emma Stone. But it bombed spectacularly at the box office, mainly because it was released within months of Spacey being accused of sexual assault.
The People vs Livaditis
In June 1986, at the pinnacle of ritzy Rodeo Drive’s rise to become one of the most celebrated shopping streets in the world, scruffy drifter Steven Livaditis attempted to hold up the chic Van Cleef & Arpels jewelry boutique.
However, he found himself trapped between the store’s nigh-impregnable security and a legion of fast-arriving police officers, with the shop employees at his mercy.
As of 2020, Livaditis remains on Death Row at California’s San Quentin Prison for the crime
He attempted to hold up the Van Cleef & Arpels jewelry boutique on Rodeo Drive but three people ended up dead
Riled by the media, who made phone calls into the store throughout the standoff, Livaditis took his frustrations out on his hostages, eventually stabbing a defiant security guard to death and executing a hysterical saleswoman with bullet to the head.
After nearly a day of an already deadly siege, Livaditis attempted to escape in the store manager’s car, using three remaining hostages as cover.
But an errant flash-bang grenade thrown by police caused an inferno in the parking lot and, in the confusion and after miscommunication among the county sheriffs’ sharpshooters, the jewelry store manager was shot and killed instead of the gunman.
Livaditis received the death penalty as his mother, who had travelled from Greece for the trial, wept in the gallery.
As of 2020, he remains on Death Row at California’s San Quentin Prison.
Greystone Mansion murders
One of Beverly Hills’ first – and still most shocking – murder-suicides took place in the region’s most extravagant and expensive mansion in 1929.
Mere months after moving into Greystone – a vast, 67-room, 18-acre estate overlooking the Los Angeles Basin and presiding over the still-fledgling Beverly Hills community – the body of Ned Doheny was found in a pool of blood. Nearby, his closest friend, Hugh Plunkett, also lay dead
Ned – heir to one of the country’s largest oil fortunes – was slumped at the foot of the bed, with bullet wounds on both sides of his head. The bullet that killed him had lodged in the wall.
Plunkett, as well as being Ned’s personal secretary, had been his constant companion for 15 years, and they were as close as brothers.
His injuries were much messier – parts of his brain and skull had spattered the wall, and the still burning cigarette in his hand had singed his fingers.
The pair had been mid-quarrel, and the gunshots were heard by Ned’s wife Lucy – but who killed who, then turned the gun on himself?
Both men were under pressure, embroiled in a scheme hatched by Doheny’s father to bribe a cabinet official for the oil rights to federal lands.
They had both hand-delivered the illicit cash together, kicking off the Teapot Dome scandal, a Watergate-level brouhaha of the era.
Greystone was a vast, 67-room, 18-acre estate overlooking the Los Angeles Basin and presiding over the still-fledgling Beverly Hills community
The grand interior of Greystone mansion, where Ned Doheny and Hugh Plunkett met their grisly end
The mansion’s bowling alley played a key role in the movie based on the Dohenys’ fortune, There Will Be Blood
Ned Doheny, son of oil magnate Edward Doheny, lies dead in the foreground; the body of his friend and assistant Hugh Plunkett is in the hallway beyond
Doheny’s family and the mansion’s staff offered one version of events in which Plunkett, after months of erratic behavior, snapped and committed the murder before ending his life.
But forensic evidence suggested the entirely opposite scenario was true.
After the dual deaths dominated sensational headlines for two days, the unlikelier scenario was suddenly deemed official.
Today, the truth behind the incident remains shrouded in mystery, with every indication that the real scenario was buried, ‘Chinatown’ style, due to the Doheny family’s power and influence.
Greystone was bought by the city of Beverly Hills in 1971 and it is now a public park and frequent filming location – it appeared prominently in ‘There Will Be Blood’ starring Daniel Day Lewis and in The Big Lebowski.
It also plays host to the site-specific play ‘The Manor: Murder and Madness at Greystone’ every year – a performance that is a fictionalized account of the Doheny family’s fortunes.
Beverly Hills Noir: Crime, Sin & Scandal in 90210 by Scott Huver is published by Post Hill Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster
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