The Horrifying True Story Behind Woman of the Hour: “He Was Born With Half a Soul” | film

“I “I’ll serve you for dinner,” said Cheryl Bradshaw. “What's your name and what do you look like?” Bachelor number one, Rodney Alcala, replied, “I'm called the banana and I'm really good-looking… Peel me.” Bradshaw burst into laughter, as did the studio audience.

This was a seemingly innocuous episode of the 1978 television show The Dating Game. Bradshaw, who was able to ask three contestants questions but not see them, chose Alcala, a long-haired photographer who enjoyed skydiving and motorcycling in his free time. What she couldn't know was that she had booked a date with one of the most prolific serial killers in American history.

The story of their close encounter and how Bradshaw's intuition saved her life is retold in “Woman of the Hour,” Anna Kendrick's directorial debut, now streaming on Netflix.

The film traces how Alcala (played by Daniel Zovatto), armed with charm and a camera, lured young women by offering to photograph them (he was eventually convicted of five murders in Orange County, California, and two in New York sentenced). the 1970s). It's also about Bradshaw (Kendrick), an aspiring actress who battles sexism in the industry and sees “The Dating Game” as a path to her big break.

Their paths cross on the show, a precursor to “The Bachelor” and other reality TV shows that starred future Hollywood stars like Farrah Fawcett, Sally Field and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Producers had no idea that Alcala was already a registered sex offender and took little action to vet participants.

Matt Murphy, a former murder prosecutor who worked on the Alcala case and consulted on Woman of the Hour, says by phone from Manhattan Beach, California: “The Dating Game was a risqué, X-rated show that ran for over 10 years in Southern California. It was full of silly double entenders and reflected a far more innocent time, before television was inundated with scary reality TV. And it reflected a more innocent time in America, particularly when it comes to our collective understanding of sexual predators.”

Handsome, intelligent and urbane, Alcala seemed the ideal candidate. But as he sat on stage in a brown bell-bottomed suit, he already had blood on his hands. Murphy continues: “It speaks to the narcissism, the arrogance of psychopaths. He’s in the middle of an assassination attempt and went on The Dating Game and got picked.”

At the moment of choice, Bradshaw announced, “Well, I like bananas, so I'll take (Bachelor Number) one!” Alcala beamed as the audience applauded. The young couple received tennis lessons and a trip to the Magic Mountain theme park. But almost immediately, Bradshaw felt something was wrong.

Murphy added: “If you watch the YouTube clips of him walking around the partition and Cheryl Bradshaw looking at him, there's a moment in her eyes where you can see she's being polite but has refused , going on a date with him, and that probably saved her life.”

After filming, Bradshaw called The Dating Game production office and told contestant coordinator Ellen Metzger that she wanted to cancel. Metzger told an ABC News documentary, “She said, 'Ellen, I can't date this guy. Strange vibrations are coming from him. He is very strange. I don't feel well. Will that be a problem?' And of course I said, 'No.'”

Bradshaw later told Alan Warren, author of The Killing Game: The True Story of Rodney Alcala, about the experience. He remembers: “She liked him when she asked questions and he gave answers. His answers were very sexual with very strong innuendos – this was also part of the 70s and the style show, so it wasn't far off.

“She liked that playfulness, but when she actually met him, when they were both backstage at break, she got chills and thought there was something wrong with him. She thought this guy was strange.”

Warren, of Seattle, Washington, adds: “The word was scary: It scared me; There was something about him that made me nervous. It wasn't anything he said that put her off. It was just his presence, something about the way he looked and acted and the way he looked at her, and she panicked.”

Bradshaw never saw Alcala again. She also didn't fulfill her acting ambitions. She left California – and the public – to start a family. Warren, who interviewed her before her death from cancer, says she never forgot her brush with a mass murderer.

Warren says: “When I spoke to her a few years ago she was still disturbed by the whole thing. Even years later she acted like, yeah, good thing I didn't do that and I felt it. She was very open in that way. But I still felt like I was a little uncomfortable because she had come so close to it. It was still there.”

After his fleeting fame, Alcala returned to his killing spree. He murdered 12-year-old Robin Samsoe in 1979 and was subsequently arrested and tried in a home he shared with his mother. Despite a retrial and the conviction being overturned twice, he remained in prison for decades. By 2010, DNA technology had advanced enough to link him to numerous murder cases.

He was ultimately sentenced to death for five murders in California between 1977 and 1979, although authorities estimated he may have killed up to 130 people across the country. In 2013, he received another 25 years to life in prison after pleading guilty to two murders in New York.

He was still awaiting execution when he died of Alzheimer's disease in a hospital in San Joaquin Valley, California, in 2021 at the age of 77.

Alcala is the focus of a chapter in Murphy's new volume, The Book of Murder. The prosecutor, who spent more than two decades in the Orange County District Attorney's Office's Sexual Assault and Homicide Unit, says Alcala's childhood offers few clues to his psychological motivations.

“He grew up in a house with people who loved him. He had successful siblings. His brother graduated from West Point and became a war hero in Vietnam. In the picture he had an aunt who also loved him very much.

“We had some of the best defense lawyers and investigators working on the defense in three different trials and no one found any evidence of child abuse. He was not sexually abused. He was not physically abused. He wasn’t bullied at school.”

He adds: “Perhaps the most disturbing insight from people like Rodney Alcala is that if there is a common thread in their childhood, it has a lot more to do with entitlement and being spoiled as children than it does with child abuse, and that matters a lot .” People feel uncomfortable. I can give you example after example of this.

“Rodney Alcala had a certified Mensa-level genius IQ. He was handsome, he was well-spoken, he had friends, he had girlfriends, he was not a social outcast, he had a family that loved him. And he loved to sadistically rape and murder people.”

Two of Alcala's victims were depicted naked after their deaths, while one was raped with a claw hammer. All were repeatedly strangled and resuscitated to prolong their torment. After he was caught, investigators located his locker and found about 1,700 photos, mostly of women and girls – it was unknown whether they were alive, missing or murdered – as well as dozens of pieces of jewelry that had belonged to his victims.

Alcala represented himself at his last trial. Murphy, the prosecutor, saw the “Dating Game Killer” up close every day in court. What were his impressions? “He was very charming, he was very charismatic, but of course I knew he was a monster,” he says. “He's a true blue American bogeyman and it was fascinating to get to know him and find out what makes him tick.

“He was born with half a soul. He would take part in the absolutely horribly sadistic rape-murders of these poor women. Part of our job involves caring for families, and the intergenerational trauma that results is difficult to describe. I went from dealing with family members to dealing directly with Rodney, and we did that every day for six months.”

Murphy, an ABC News legal analyst, added: “I don't think there's anything wrong with these people's moral compass. They do it because they love it and because they choose to. They’re sexually attracted to it.”