Son, 22, Held : Susan Cabot, ‘B’ Movie Star of ‘50s, Slain

Susan Cabot, a leading lady in “B” movies in the 1950s who was once courted by Jordan’s King Hussein, was found beaten to death in her fashionable Encino home, and police said Thursday that they have arrested her 22-year-old son in connection with the slaying.

Officers were called to the former screen siren’s residence at 4601 Charmion Lane on Wednesday night by the actress’ son, Timothy Scott Roman, who, police said, told them that he had found his mother’s body in her bedroom when he regained consciousness after being struck by a burglar.

“The evidence at the scene and some of the discrepancies that we noted from the story he told us led us to believe that it didn’t happen the way he was telling it,” Los Angeles Police Detective Pat Conmay said in explaining why the young man was suspected.

Roman, an art student at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, was booked Thursday morning at the Van Nuys Jail on suspicion of murder, police said. He is being held without bail, pending arraignment Monday in Van Nuys Municipal Court.

Conmay said police were told that there was an argument between Miss Cabot and Roman that preceded the actress’ death from “blunt force trauma to the head.”

“It’s unclear what the argument was about,” the detective said.

Police described the murder weapon as a metal pipe.

Richard Owen, who lives two doors away from the victim’s rambling, one-story ranch-style house, said Miss Cabot, 59, and her son “were very, very close. . . . She never went any place without him. He was very dependent on her. “

Roman lived with his mother.

Police said Miss Cabot’s son was frantic when officers arrived at her home at 10:30 p.m. He later gave investigators a detailed description of a burglar, who he said was a tall Latino man with curly hair, dressed in the robes of a “Japanese Ninja” warrior, who had made off with $70,000.

Roman told police that he had fought with the man before being knocked out, officers said. Detectives said that his arm was bruised but that he appeared to have suffered no head wounds.

Born Harriet Shapiro in Boston, Miss Cabot had a short-lived career. After a brief experience in stock theater, she made her first film, “On the Isle of Samoa” in 1950. She won starring roles in several other low-budget films, including “Fort Massacre,” “Ride Clear to Diablo,” “Duel at Silver Creek,” “Son of Ali Baba,” “Tomahawk,” “The Enforcer,” “Machine Gun Kelly,” “Gunsmoke,” “The Battle of Apache Pass” and “The Wasp Woman.”

She appeared opposite such co-stars as Audie Murphy, Forrest Tucker, Lee Marvin, Tony Curtis, Rock Hudson and Charles Bronson.

Miss Cabot, a diminutive 104-pound actress, was also a singer. In several published interviews, she said would have liked to combine her screen work with a second career in opera.

In 1959, gossip columnists speculated on a possible romance between Miss Cabot and King Hussein, whom the actress then described as “the most charming man I have ever met.”

Miss Cabot and Hussein dated often after meeting at a Los Angeles party.

She married Martin Eden Sacker in Washington in 1944, but they separated early in 1951. Years later, she wed businessman and former actor Michael Roman, the suspect’s father. She did not remarry after Roman’s death.