Don’t pick Bachelor No. 1.
Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut, “Woman of the Hour,” tells the chilling and unbelievable story of serial killer Rodney Alcala, who appeared on the hit game show “The Dating Game” in 1978, amid his murder spree. This earned him the moniker, “The Dating Game Killer.”
Now streaming on Netflix, the movie – which Kendrick 39, also stars in – follows the events around Alcala’s appearance on the show.
“The Dating Game” premiered in 1965 and although ABC dropped it in 1973, it continued in syndication through 1999. On a typical episode, a bachelorette posed questions to three bachelors who were hidden from her view, before she’d select one to go on a date with.
Matt Murphy, former Sr. Deputy District Attorney of Orange County, Calif., said on a 2021 episode of “20/20” that looking back, “it is chilling to realize that this iconic show celebrating love and romance would unknowingly feature a remorseless killer.”
Here’s everything to know about the buzzy true crime thriller and the case.
What’s the movie about?
“Woman of the Hour” is a thriller based on a true story. It follows serial killer Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto) on his crime spree in the late 1970s. It also follows aspiring actress Cheryl Bradshaw (Kendrick) – her name spelling is changed to Sheryl in the movie – as her agent encouraged her to appear on the TV show “The Dating Game.”
The two cross paths on the show, and end up going on a date. To add suspense, a woman in the audience (played by Nicolette Robinson) recognizes Rodney as a man she saw with her friend who was later murdered, and tries in vain to raise the alarm to the show. This part of the story is fictionalized.
Was Rodney Alcala a serial killer?
Yes, Alcala, who was born in Texas in 1943 and died in 2021, was a convicted serial killer and sex offender. Between 1971 and 1979, he killed at least eight people across New York, California, and Wyoming — including children and a pregnant woman.
Authorities estimate the real number of his victims to be more than 100.
He was a photographer who often lured his victims by promising to take their photographs. In 1979, he also worked as a typesetter at the LA Times.
Alcala was sentenced to death in California for five murders that he committed between 1977 and 1979.
“He kept trophies, usually jewelry,” Kendrick told Rolling Stone.
She added, “The mental image of him, in the aftermath of violating and brutally killing a person, taking the time to remove a delicate piece of jewelry, haunts me. He preserved them for years. He treated an earring with more respect than a human being.”
In 2013, he got a sentence of 25 years to life for two murders committed in New York; 23-year old Cornelia Crilley, a flight attendant whom he strangled to death with pantyhose in 1971 and Ellen Jane Hover, a nightclub owner’s daughter whom he strangled in 1978.
“This is the kind of case I’ve never experienced, and hope to never again,” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Bonnie Wittner told her courtroom audience in 2013.
The judge cried at the time. “Sorry,” she said. “In 30 years, I’ve never had a case like this.”
In California, he murdered 18-year-old Jill Barcomb, 27-year-old nurse Georgia Wixted, 31-year-old legal secretary Charlotte Lamb, 21-year-old typist Jill Parenteau, and 12-year-old Robin Samsoe.
In 2016, Alcala was also charged with the murder of a six-months pregnant woman, Christine Ruth Thornton, who went missing in 1978. Her body was discovered in 1982.
How did he end up on “The Dating Game?”
Today, it’s unfathomable that a reality TV contestant could have been on the FBI “most wanted” list without producers (or viewers on TikTok) sleuthing out that information.
But, pre-internet, background checks were less common, and you couldn’t just Google someone. So, although he was placed on the FBI’s “most wanted” list in 1969, that didn’t come to producers’ attention when he applied to be on the show.
The show’s husband-and-wife producing team of Mike and Ellen Metzger initially disagreed about casting Alcala.
Ellen thought he was tall, dark, and handsome, but Mike recalled feeling like Alcala had a “strange personality.”
“He had a mystique about him that I found uncomfortable,” Mike told ABC’s “20/20” in 2021.
But, his opinion got overruled.
What was his episode like?
On his now infamous 1978 episode, the show’s host, Jim Lange (played by Tony Hale onscreen), introduced three male suitors who were there to be questioned by Bradshaw. She was sitting on the other side of a partition and unable to see them.
“Bachelor No. 1 is a successful photographer who got his start when his father found him in the dark room at the age of 13 fully developed,” Lange introduced him on the ABC hit. “Between takes you might find him skydiving or motorbiking. Please welcome Rodney Alcala!” Little did Lange know, Alcala, then 35, was also secretly a murderer.
During his time on the show, Alcala was asked, “I’m serving you for dinner. What are you called and what do you look like?”
He replied, “I’m called the banana and I look good. Peel me.”
Jed Mills, another contestant on the same episode, recalled on “20/20” that when they were in the green room, Alcala told him “I always get my girl,” adding that he found Alcala “creepy.”
Mills also told CNN in 2010 that there was “Something about him, I could not be near him,” and he described Alcala as a “very strange guy” with “bizarre opinions.”
How did Cheryl Bradshaw survive him?
Bradshaw’s instincts helped her escape.
“She said, ‘Ellen, I can’t go out with this guy,’” Ellen Metzger recalled to “20/20.”
She added that Bradshaw said, “There’s weird vibes that are coming off of him. He’s very strange. I am not comfortable. Is that going to be a problem?’ And of course, I said, ‘No.’”
Ultimately, she didn’t go on the date.
So, the part of the movie where she does go on the date before getting uneasy is fictionalized.
Just one year later, Alcala was first sentenced to death in 1980 in California, after he was tried and convicted for the kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe in 1977.
Did he really study with Roman Polanski?
In the movie, he brags about studying at New York University with Roman Polanski, the “Rosemary’s Baby” director who is himself a convicted sex offender.
The real Alcala was enrolled at NYU but didn’t graduate, and there’s no evidence that he and Polanski met.
What happened to Rodney Alcala?
Although Alcala was sentenced to death, he died of unspecified natural causes at age 77 in 2021 while incarcerated in a California prison.
What happened to Cheryl Bradshaw?
Bradshaw left California and the spotlight to start a family and live a more private life, after her near-miss with a serial killer. Details of her current life are unknown. Little is known about the real Bradshaw, so most of her onscreen persona is fictionalized.
For Kendrick, she felt “very emotionally connected to the material.”
“I obviously like making kind of lighthearted fare, but I really felt drawn to this story and the way in which it teased out these larger themes around the way that women, especially, have to move through the world in a constant survival mode,” she told E! News.
“Woman of the Hour” is now streaming on Netflix.