Murder

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A Violent Life: The Prophecies of Pier Paolo Pasolini

In the early hours of 2nd November 1975, a mutilated body was discovered on the Lido di Ostia, a district of Rome by the Tyrrhenian Sea. Badly beaten, burnt and crushed, having been repeatedly run over by a car; it was a violent and ignoble end to the life of a man whose artistic and intellectual valour had made him an Italian cultural icon. Pier Paolo Pasolini was born in Bologna on 5th March 1922, his mother was a teacher and his father an Italian army lieutenant with Fascist sympathies, who was credited with identifying and capturing Anteo Zamboni, a 15 year-old anarchist who attempted to assassinate Mussolini during a March on Rome celebration parade in Bologna on 31st October 1926. The shot fired by Zamboni missed the Prime Minister, and the teenager was set upon and lynched by a Fascist squad. Today, the Mura Anteo Zamboni a street in Bologna, bears his name, and a plaque marks the spot where he was found.

Like many scholars and poets before him, such as René Daumal and Roger Gilbert-Lecomte, Pasolini idolised Arthur Rimbaud and began writing poetry as a way of coping with the family’s frequent relocations. Returning to the city of his birth to enrol at the Literature College of the University of Bologna in 1939, Pasolini developed a passion for the cinema as well as poetry after attending a film club. Failing to establish his own poetry magazine with his friend and fellow poet Roberto Roversi, Pasolini self-published a volume of his own works in 1941, entitled Versi a Casarsa. Written mostly in Friulian, a language spoken in the Friuli area of North-East Italy, where his family were then living in the commune of Casarsa, Pasolini developed a lifelong affinity with the unique identity and culture of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region.

A trip to Nazi Germany in 1941 gave Pasolini further cause to question the political regime in Italy, and he concluded that his own outlook was best represented by Communism. In September 1943, Pasolini was drafted and taken as a prisoner of war by the Germans. However, he soon escaped and made his way back to Casarsa. To make ends meet, he began tutoring students whose educations had been disrupted by the war, and it was with one of these students that he engaged in his first love affair, having previously suppressed his homosexuality. Continue reading →

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Star 80: The Stellar Dorothy Stratten

It was around 11 p.m. on the evening of 14th August 1980 and Dr Stephen Cushner was growingly increasingly concerned. The private investigator hired by Paul Snider, the friend with whom he shared an apartment, had rung to say that Snider’s phone was not being answered. Knowing that Snider was home, Cushner broke down the door; the scene that greeted him was one of unimaginable horror. Lying naked and bloodied were the bodies of Snider and his estranged wife, the stunning model and Playboy playmate, Dorothy Stratten.

Only 20 years-old at the time of her death, she was born Dorothy Ruth Hoogstraten in Vancouver on 28th February 1960; her parents had emigrated to Canada from the Netherlands and had two other children, John who was a year younger than Dorothy, and Louise who arrived in 1968.

Whilst working at a local branch of the fast-food restaurant Dairy Queen, at the age of 17, Dorothy caught the eye of Snider, a club-promoter, pimp, drug-dealer all round shady character, who was nine years her senior. Noting her statuesque height and curvaceous figure, which provided a striking contrast to her angelic face, Snider saw the young woman as his path to fame and fortune, apparently telling a friend ‘That girl could make me a lot of money.’ Continue reading →

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Heavenly Blues: The Soul of King Curtis

Curtis Montgomery was born in Fort Worth, Texas on 7th February 1934. Along with his sister Josephine, he was adopted by William and Josie Ousley, taking their family name. Experiencing a comfortable and stable childhood in the affluent Texan city of Mansfield, his parents encouraged their son when he began learning to play the saxophone at the age of 12, in the hope of emulating his idols Lester Young and Louis Jordan.

As a member of his high school band, it became obvious to all who heard him, that Ousley’s talent was something special. Rejecting the numerous college scholarships he was offered, Ousley instead joined the Lionel Hampton Band. A renowned musician and bandleader, Hampton had been involved with some of the most respected names in the industry, such as Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman and Charlie Parker.

Ousley moved to New York, the home of the American Jazz scene in 1952. He found work as a session musician, and recorded with artists like Nat Adderley, Andy Williams, Bobby Darin, Sam Cooke, Buddy Holly and The Coasters, contributing to their 1958 hit, Yakety Yak. For the next decade, having taken the moniker King Curtis, he continued to work with major stars, as well as making an impressive number of his own recordings after signing with Capitol Records; notable albums from that period were Have Tenor Sax, Will Blow (1959), The New Scene of King Curtis (1960), Trouble In Mind (1962) and Soul Serenade (1964).

Above: King Curtis – Soul Serenade (1964)

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Once In A Blue Moon: Suwanni Sukhontha’s Stories

Suwanni Sukhonthiang was born in Phitsanulok, a province of Northern Thailand, on 1st March 1932. After leaving school, she travelled to the capital Bangkok, where she spent the next two years studying at the Pohchang Academy of Arts; she completed her education by taking a course in fine art at Silpakorn University, graduating in 1951. Taking a job as a teacher, she worked at the Bangkok School of Arts before lecturing at her alma mater. At the same time, she began penning short stories under the pen name Suwanni Sukontha; her first published story being Chot Mai Thueng Puk for the Siam Rath Weekly. Encouraged the positive reaction to her writing, Sukhontha decided to devote herself full-time to it, and produced her debut novel Sai Bo Yut Sane Hai in 1965.

Noted for her masterful character development, and powerful imagery, Sukhontha won the SEATO literature award in 1971 for her novel Khao Chue Kan, a gritty tale about an idealistic young doctor and his dissatisfied wife, dealing with the corruption and dishonesty of those around them and its catastrophic impact upon their own relationship. By 1973, the story had taken on a greater significance with the student uprisings in Thailand, and the ensuing transition of the previous military dictatorship into a more pro-democratic political system.

A year after she was given the prestigious award, Sukhontha founded and edited the female-orientated literature journal Lalana and used the publication as a platform for her progressive ideas about women and their involvement in Thai society. Sukhontha also received the National Book Week’s Award for Duai Pik Khong Rak in 1973. Continue reading →