Hello everyone and welcome back to my channel and welcome to another old Hollywood crime
This is the third video in this series
And if you have not seen the other two, this is a series
I am doing in partnership with TNT to promote their new show
I am the night the series premieres on TNT on
January 28 and you're definitely gonna want to see this one because it is directed by patty Jenkins
Who is the director of the Wonder Woman so she has worked with Chris Pine who is also in it?
and she's worked with him before and the show is inspired by a true and incredible story of thana Hodel who is played by
india Eisley the show uncovers some of the biggest darkest secrets in one of Hollywood's most
Infamous murders the Black Dahlia and what's really exciting is by the time you guys are watching this?
I'm likely in LA to actually go visit the Sowden house, which is where most of the show was filmed
The Sowden house has been a huge source of mystery since its construction in
1926 in 1945 it became home to dr
George Hodel who is a character in I in the night and he was known for his notorious parties
This shows gonna be awesome. It looks so good
I'm
Really really excited for it to come out and I'm so excited to actually get to go to the Sowden house and see it in
Person, so if you haven't seen the trailer, I will link it below for you guys
Definitely check that out and mark your calendars for June 28th for the premiere of I am the night now
Let's get into our old Hollywood crime for today and we are talking about Sal. Mano now salvatore Miano jr
was born on january 10th in
1939 so chances are a lot of you have not heard of him
But he was born in the Bronx his mother enrolled him in dancing and acting school at a very early age
He was extremely warm talented funny and smart and he was said to be very sweet and gentle as well in
1951 he had his first stage appearance in Tennessee Williams play the Rose Tattoo
He also played in a stage musical The King and I and on may 8th of 1954
He was in NBC's opera called Salome as a teenager. He appeared in a bee these musical quiz program
Jukebox jury
He made several television appearances before making his screen debut in Joseph Penn V's film six bridges to cross in
1955 he also was in a movie called the private war of major Benson in
1955 and his major breakthrough was when he was actually in the movie rebel without a cause in 1955
He played John play-doh Crawford and his performance resulted in an Academy Award nomination
For Best Supporting Actor and his popularity soon developed from there by the late 1950s. Salle was a major celebrity
He was actually sometimes referred to as the Switchblade kid
Which was a nickname that he earned from his role in the criminal movie called crime in the streets
His family actually moved to mama Roenick from the Bronx in
1956 and Sal actually bought a
$200,000 home for his parents in the Edgewater Point section in
1957 he briefly got into the musical world and recorded a handful of songs on an album
Two of his singles reached the top 40 in the United States Billboard top 100
So that was quite an accomplishment for him and the more popular of the two which was called
Start movin in my direction was number 9 on the Billboard chart
So it did really well, it sold over a million copies and was awarded a gold disc then later on
He starred as drummer to Gene Krupa in the movie the Gene Krupa story in 1959 in 1960
He was cast in the film Exodus which was an American epic film about the founding of the modern State of Israel
And when he was on set he met another actor named Jill hall were the two of them became really good friends
And kind of an on and off relationship for two years
They actually got engaged but eventually he found out that Jill was actually cheating on him
She specifically had an affair with Bobby Sherman and he was a singer at the time but the two of them still remained friends after
This but he did call off the engagement
sounded up winning a Golden Globe Award and received a Academy Award nomination and Best Supporting Actor for his
performance in Exodus
So as you can see life was going pretty good for him and he was pretty successful
But by the early 60s his career sort of started to decline
He was becoming too old to play any of the roles that he used to play
That is normally what he's comfortable with, you know kind of like the young troubled teenager thing, but he was really depressed
he was
really upset that no one seemed to want him anymore in anything and he was having trouble getting work and that's just gotta suck when
You've been coming off such a high
even though he was
struggling to get as many roles as he was used or is it big of roles as he was used to he did get a
role in the greatest story ever told in
1965 and he also appeared in season two of the Patty Duke show
patty meets a celebrity in
1964 and in
1965 Stahl was in the movie who killed teddy bear and he played the character of a stalker and because of this he was
Typecast as a sketchy criminal so he couldn't break out of this role that you know
People saw him as kind of like this bad-boy dark character and he didn't really enjoy doing those roles that much in
1969 sal actually directed a Los Angeles production of the LGBT themed play Fortune and men's
Eyes and overall the play did pretty good sales last major movie role was a small part in the film
escape from Planet of the Apes in
1971 and he played a chimpanzee named. Dr. Milot when he was working on fortune in amends ize
He actually met an actor named Courtney who was a male
I know Courtney's a female name normally, but they became pretty close pretty quick in 1973
He decided that he kind of wanted to be a producer
and he ended up making a play called the children's Mass and the play was actually about a hooker a
Transvestite as they were called at the time a physically disabled writer and an alcoholic
So this was really pushing the boundaries like he had a lot of fundraising
Crowdsourcing to get this thing going because it was so controversial for the 70s in 1975
He played a small role on Hawaii five-o and then later on that year
He ended up getting cast in a play called
PS your cat is dead and he played a sketchy kind of burglar role
So by 1976 he was kind of starting to regain some of his success and things were looking good for him
He was feeling a lot more comfortable and happy with where he was. But then on February 12th of
1976 Sal was headed home after a rehearsal of PS your cat is dead
And so he was walking to his apartment and at pretty close to his apartment
There was an alleyway he lived off of the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood
and
This is when someone
Jumped out of the alley somewhere hiding and stabbed him and there was actually a woman with him when he died now
He was only stabbed once but he was stabbed in the heart and it was fatal. He died before paramedics even showed up at age
37 he was buried at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York on February 17th
And about 250 people gathered into the Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church and dozen stood outside
Tons of his friends flew in for his services and Jill also attended the funeral now it didn't take long
After he died for rumors to start going around about what happened to him and who killed him because there was no suspects
so when there's not a lot of answers and there's a really high-profile case that people want answers for normally the
News kicks into their BS mode and that's what they did here. They major major like smear job of him
They were hinting stuff that like maybe because he was gay
in a bad relationship
And was killed by a boyfriend like just making all these weird
Excuses people thought that maybe he was messing around with male prostitutes and got himself into some type of dangerous
situation with drugs even there's no proof that he did anything with prostitutes, but there was a
Club that they assumed him into a gay club and so they even went as far as to go undercover
And go in there and try to like antagonize people and they even tried
Hypnotizing people to try to figure out what happened
So for a year after he was killed police came up with absolutely nothing
They had no idea who killed him
but one thing that police did do pretty shortly after the murder was interview a pizza delivery man named Lionel who was actually in
prison who was currently in prison
He was in jail for robbery and he went to the police and just said I have some
information that can help you figure out who killed Sal
apparently he claims that Sal got into some type of trouble with drugs around April or May of
1977 the police were actually contacted by another prison in
Michigan where Lionel was currently being held at and one of the prison guards said that he overheard
Lionel talking about how he killed Sal and then even
Lionel's wife came forward and confessed
to police that she believes her husband had something to do with the killing of Sal and her reasoning for that is because the night
That he was murdered her husband Lionel came home covered in blood. So in January of
1979
Lionel was put on trial and there were several things that pointed to Lionel being the killer
first of all
They were able to prove that Lionel had committed a robbery
Only half a mile from where Sal was killed within 30 minutes of Sal being murdered
There was also a car seen leaving the murder scene the killer ran down the alleyway
Hopped in his yellow car and took off and when asked about this Lionel admitted that he was driving a yellow
Rental car at the time Lionel also had a tattoo of the same knife that was used in the killing on his arm
So it seems pretty obvious that Lionel killed Sal
however
There was one major discrepancy that kind of threw every went off and that was that the guy who was reported to have killed Sal
Eyewitness statement said that he had long
brownish-blond hair and Lionel had an afro, however police were able to find an old photo of Lionel with his hair straightened and
apparently he had
Styled it like that sometimes and it did look like what the witnesses described after they did that so a few months later in March
Lionel was found guilty for killing Sal and for 10 other robberies
However, just after 11 years of serving his time
He was paroled and set free in 1990 but it didn't take long until he was arrested again for robbery and homicide
He also was carrying around a fake ID with him going under the name Raymond Williams
and he said that he was trying to change his name because he was dealing with shit for people thinking that he killed Sal and
He didn't want to be known as the guy who killed Sal forever. So super super bizarre
It's really sad because Sal
sounds like he could have done a lot more and who knows what kind of films he would have been in or like how he
Would have changed the industry and it's just so senseless
It's like why so it's one of those cases that's just really frustrating
But I really hope you guys found these Hollywood murders and crimes to be interesting
I know some of them are older and don't have as much information, but I find older crimes very very interesting
But that's it for me today guys. Be sure to check out. I am the night On January 28th
It's going to be awesome mark your calendar and I will see you guys
You