Murder Most Glamorized : Ever since Truman Capote’s acclaimed 1966 book, “In Cold Blood,” networks have gobbled up grisly true-life scenarios

Last year, producer Carole Coates hiked up a freeway off-ramp in Hollywood. She paused in the hot sun, surveying the dusty embankment--and felt an unwelcome chill.

During Thanksgiving weekend, 1978, the Hillside Strangler had used the same spot as a drop site for two of his victims.

Coates was scouting locations for “The Hillside Stranglers,” a two-hour TV movie she’s produced with her husband, Mike Rosenfeld. It airs on NBC tonight.

“The terror we all felt in 1978--before the killings stopped--came back to me suddenly,” she said. “It was like stepping back in time to those dreadful days we all shared.

“And I instantly decided not to use any of the real sites where the bodies were found . . . it was just too painful.”

Not so painful, though, that it dissuaded her from making the docudrama, which recounts how handsome, charming Kenneth Bianchi (played by Billy Zane) and his cousin, Angelo Buono (Dennis Farina), raped and killed 10 women before being arrested and convicted.

Coates and Rosenfeld defend the social worth of their lurid subject matter--”It’s important to be reminded of how dangerous sociopaths can be,” said Rosenfeld. But others see such movies as part of an exploitative glut.

“The Hillside Stranglers” is just the latest in an explosion of TV fare that re-enacts sensational, real-life murder cases (see accompanying list of upcoming programs). What these projects have in common is that they seem to focus on attractive, white male killers--with sex often associated with their grisly slaughter--who some critics contend are being glamorized to attract a broader audience. With ratings generally strong for such product, producers and network executives have found an endless supply of pre-fabricated story lines that circumvent the need to create imaginative, fictional drama.

“The very word (murder) ignites network ambitions,” said ITC Entertainment producer Harvey Kahn, who is preparing two fact-based homicide yarns for TV. “This is a shortcut to high ratings.”

“The Hillside Stranglers” treats the Bianchi-Buono relationship with restraint, but apparently it could have been worse. At one time it was in development for a cable network, according to Darcy O’Brien, who wrote the book “Two of a Kind,” on which the movie is based.

“The first script absolutely outraged me,” said O’Brien. “It took a semipornographic interest in the crimes themselves.”

Coates and Rosenfeld snapped up the rights to O’Brien’s book when they became available in 1986, even though all three networks had nixed Hillside Strangler projects in previous years. But the popularity of O’Brien’s book, and the hero at the center of it, was enough to convince NBC to give it “a quick commitment.”

Unlike many projects in the genre, “Stranglers” has taken years getting to the screen. But it’s the exception to the prime-time crime frenzy. Of late, some have aired before trials are completed and the suspects have been neither convicted nor acquitted of the crimes portrayed.

Two years ago, NBC’s “Billionaire Boys Club” blazed a new trail: The network and ITC Entertainment commissioned a script as soon as the first of two trials concluded because, in the words of then-NBC Vice President Susan Baerwald, “I smelled a verdict.” (Ten days later, Hunt was indeed found guilty.) More recently, writer Joe Gunn’s “Night Stalker” script for CBS was finished before a jury was even selected for the current trial of accused killer Richard Ramirez.

Within 10 days after clean-cut, darkly handsome Robert Chambers confessed to accidentally killing Jennifer Levin in Central Park last year, the so-called “Preppy Killer” got 100 offers from authors and Hollywood producers, according to his attorney Jack Litman.

Now serving five years in a New York state prison for manslaughter, Chambers has yet to make a Hollywood deal. But two projects are in development: A TV movie/miniseries from producer Jack Grossbart for ABC that’s based on court records, and MGM-TV producer Diane Sokolow’s four-hour miniseries commitment from CBS, using Linda Wolfe’s upcoming book, “The Preppy Killer,” as source material.

The crime wave craze is further buoyed by syndicated shows such as “A Current Affair” and “The Reporters,” which mix dramatization with documentary footage.

“Truth has a great value when you are trying to sell a docudrama,” said agent Arthur Axelman, who specializes in true crime TV projects. “If we can go to a network and say something is based on the truth, you can make a quicker deal--often for better money. There is a direct correlation between truth and ratings points.

“You get higher numbers.”

The craving for true-life crimes and criminals has its roots in the publishing world--especially Truman Capote’s acclaimed 1966 book, “In Cold Blood,” which broke new ground by using fiction techniques to make actual events more compelling. The stark saga of two killers who murdered a Kansas family was adapted for an Academy Award-nominated 1967 film, and Hollywood has gobbled up true-life scenarios ever since.

Not too many years ago, TV producers rarely paid more than five figures to those caught up in evil doings, whether they were the perpetrators, victims, investigators or innocent bystanders. But that’s changing.

In 1980, all of the rights for “Murder in Texas”--involving the violent death of socialite Joan Hill--went to NBC for about $60,000, including consultant’s fees. Three years later, it cost NBC $100,000 for the various rights from girlfriends and family members to dramatize the story of convicted Utah killer Gary Gilmore for “Executioner’s Song.”

By 1986, the various rights to produce what became CBS’ “Murder Ordained”--about the Emporia, Kan. minister who conspired, with his mistress, to murder his wife--cost a then-record $145,000 (the figure did not include rights to either of the principal suspects).

To gain permissions to portray certain characters in “The Billionaire Boys Club” last year, NBC and ITC Entertainment coughed up $200,000.

Last August, producer Zev Braun and CBS pledged $300,000 to the nine cops and district attorneys who cracked the so-called “Mormon Murders” in Salt Lake City if they got a production under way. The high price tag was not accidental: the nine cops banded together, hired Orange County lawyer and agent Mark Rader, and swore to sell all nine rights as part of a package deal--or no deal. According to Rader, they wound up being courted by 19 producers.

“And the $300,000 we took wasn’t even the highest bidder,” he bragged. “They took a lower amount because of their high regard for (producers) James Keach and Zev Braun.”

During the Mormon Murder case in Utah, several policemen--who were minor players--were reportedly offered $100,000 apiece for their cooperation. The complicated tale of murder and revenge in Salt Lake City centered on a disenchanted Mormon named Mark Hofmann, who killed two other Mormons to protect his career as a forger of church documents. It’s being developed as an eight-hour miniseries for CBS.

Authors also clean up, of course. Fifteen years ago, prosecutor-turned-author Vincent Bugliosi received $125,000 for the TV rights to “Helter Skelter”; last month, Tri-Star/Columbia Pictures agreed to pay $1.1 million for his as yet unwritten “And the Sea Shall Tell,” about hijacking and murder on the high seas. Joe McGinnis, who got $130,000 from NBC for “Fatal Vision” in 1984, will earn more than $400,000 from NBC for his new book, “Blind Faith,” about the Tom’s River murder case in New Jersey, which involves a yuppie-ish insurance executive who killed his socially prominent wife for insurance money.

Three years ago, Joseph Wambaugh notched $800,000 (which included payment for his adaptation) from CBS for rights to “Echoes in the Darkness,” about The “Philadelphia Main Line Murders” involving a high school English teacher convicted in the murder-for-hire of his mistress.

“A major book lessens liability,” said NBC senior counsel Donald Zachary.

“It’s very comforting to the networks if they can buy a major book by a proven author and from a reputable book publisher,” echoed agent Axelman, who sold Wambaugh’s book to CBS.

Axelman has ridden the profitable wave, watching payments rise.

“I broke in through a crash course by putting together the docudrama, ‘Kent State,’ for which I needed 85 releases on 85 living people,” he recalled. “It used to be--if there was an interesting item in a newspaper, we snapped it up. You could get the article--and you could get it--and sometimes the rights to key players--for several thousand dollars. These amounts have snowballed.”

The crime wave has led to a strange, new savvy about media matters on the part of killers and victims alike.

In 1985, the Ft. Myers, Fla., area was the setting for the bombing deaths of wealthy Margaret Benson and her grandson, Scott. Members of one of America’s foremost tobacco families, the Bensons had always attracted headlines. But these headlines were different: They involved son Steven Benson--who would later be convicted of the killings. And Carol Lynn Benson, Steven’s sister--who had miraculously escaped death in the bombings. A former beauty queen, Carol Lynn’s badly burned countenance was scrutinized by the TV cameras.

Playwright and screenwriter Dale Wasserman--who is now writing “A Fine American Family” for producer Renee Valente and CBS--said he detected “an air of unreality” as he sat through the trial.

“After the first surge of exploitation had passed, everybody was busy casting themselves in the inevitable miniseries,” Wasserman said. “Everyone was more interested in their portrayal on television than they were in the implications of this trial.”

He added, “Prosecutors, detectives--even the judge himself--began acting with major self-consciousness. There was so much play acting.”

Early in the trial (which would grab the covers of Paris Match and the London Daily Express), Carol Lynn announced to reporters that she planned to use her life story to break into the movies as a producer. Her lawyer, Richard Cirace, said that she also wished to use the project as her master’s thesis in film studies at an Eastern university.

Said Cirace: “We all knew that Carol Lynn’s property was a ‘million-dollar proposition.’ ”

But, author Mewshaw pointed out, “She was trying to sell both her literary and theatrical rights. And she was the principal witness in the trial. . . . If she sold her story and her brother was acquitted, the project lost all its face value.”

And Carol Lynn would presumably have lost a pile of money, since the bulk of dramatic rights payments--monies paid beyond the option figures--are due only upon commencement of production.

According to Cirace, Carol Lynn was “very, very careful to hold off selling her rights until the trial was over.”

In the end, no one purchased her dramatic rights. Valente is using court transcripts as the basis for her movie. Carol Lynn’s attorneys have reportedly threatened to sue.

When “Fatal Vision” aired on NBC in November of 1985, 44% of America’s TV viewers tuned in for the saga of Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald, convicted of murdering his wife and young daughters. 1987’s “The Billionaire Boys Club” earned a 35 share (35% of the nation’s television sets that were on in that time period). “Ted Bundy, the Deliberate Stranger,” garnered 28 and 35 shares in 1986. “Murder Ordained” had a 30 share when it was broadcast last year.

While all these programs may be generating millions of advertising dollars for the networks, some contend they also are glamorizing and glorifying violent criminals in the process.

Susan Baerwald, who was the undisputed network queen of the true-life, violent-crime genre before leaving recently to set up her own production company, said it allows film makers to “show the monstrous side to these killers.” She adds that “people have become fascinated with the idea of murder,” and asks: “What has happened in our society that would even make killing an option for young people today?”

But are the networks really committed to getting at deep truths about such social problems? Dorothy Singer, a media researcher at Yale University, pointed out, “People are killing blacks today in greater numbers (than whites). But we’re not interested in what goes on in Harlem--only Manhattan.”

Baerwald’s viewpoint: “The audience is interested in these monsters among us because these people are so very close to us. We want to know how to recognize and deal with these monsters-next-door.”

Producer Zev Braun feels that “all of us have murderous instincts and noble instincts. Thus murder is fascinating. But it is revolting at the same time. Like an actor who is able to portray a killer and walk away, one can watch a murderer’s story and say, ‘This is not my story.’ There is a bit of ‘There but for the grace of God go I.’ ”

Braun feels it’s quite appropriate for glamorous actors like Mark Harmon to portray vile killers.

“There is, after all, a sexuality in the murder’s act,” said Braun, who produced “Murder Ordained” and is now preparing “The Mormon Murders.” “And, in the sexual act, there’s a murderer’s instinct. A lot of killers have orgasms during their acts.”

It can make casting a challenge, said Rosenfeld, co-producer of NBC’s “The Hillside Stranglers,” who tested more than 50 actors before picking Zane to play the evil but handsome Bianchi. Explained Rosenfeld: “We couldn’t find anyone who was able to be attractive and a killer at the same time.”

NBC’s “Ted Bundy--the Deliberate Stranger” had golden boy Harmon fashionably dressed, with a pearly white smile and charming personality for the role. Ann Rule, who turned down the network’s offer of $100,000 for her book about Bundy, “The Stranger Beside Me,” because NBC “wanted me to make alterations I couldn’t deal with,” insists that the network “thoroughly glamorized him” with its miniseries.

“To me, it said, ‘Let’s all parade the mighty Bundy,’ ” Rule said. “They forgot what he did to all those women.”

Dr. Russell Norris, a criminal psychologist and author of “Serial Killers,” a Doubleday study of mass murderers, faulted the miniseries for “failing to show that Bundy was a very unhappy person . . . a pitiful creature who was so wretched he tried to commit suicide repeatedly.”

Responded Baerwald: “I think Mark Harmon did an incredibly fine job of showing Bundy’s chilling nature. After all, Bundy was charismatic, very good looking . . . .”

Less than a week after Harmon--then known as “The Sexiest Man Alive,” thanks to People magazine--starred in the miniseries, biographer Rule received letters and phone calls from young women who, she said, “had fallen in love with Ted Bundy.”

“One was selling everything she owned and buying a pickup truck to join Ted Bundy’s side in Florida,” Rule remembered. Another young girl told Rule she was ready to journey across country, “just to be with Ted” (who was executed in February, after nearly 10 years on death row).

“I told her, ‘You are not in love with Ted Bundy--you are in love with Mark Harmon.’ ”

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In 1976, dramatic re-enactments of violent crime first appeared on TV with ABC’s “Helter Skelter” about the Tate-La Bianca murders at the hands of the Charles Manson family.

Now, 20 years after Manson’s conviction for first-degree murder and a sentence of life imprisonment, Heritage Entertainment is developing a feature film based on Charles Manson’s book, “Manson: In His Own Words.” First-time screenwriter Trent Harris is adapting. Heritage has tried, without luck, to tempt such actors as Eric Roberts, Sean Penn, Willem Dafoe and Brad Davis to portray Manson.

Both Norris and Leyton find the new Manson picture a crass and dangerous enterprise, symptomatic of a culture that both breeds and feeds on violence.

“All of this only plays into Manson’s hands,” Leyton said. “This is what he wants.”

The man who orchestrated two of the most gruesome murder sprees of modern times continues to receive the largest amount of fan mail in the history of the U.S. prison system, according to a representative of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, in Washington, D.C.--once receiving more than 200 pounds of letters and packages in a single day. A record album has recently been assembled from Manson’s music and lyrics, smuggled out of prison; it’s become a cult item in West Germany and Holland, where it was manufactured.

“It’s a mistake to focus this much attention on Charles Manson,” said psychologist Norris. “Teen-agers who weren’t even alive when Manson and the family committed the Tate-La Bianca killings now idolize him. Some are even forming copycat families modeled on the ragtag group of misfits Manson headed in the ‘60s.”

Heritage executive producer Robert Steloff promised: “We will show a completely different side of Manson. . . . It won’t be thoroughly sympathetic to Manson, but it will be heading in that direction.”