- Hey, now, my name is Lucius Dillon.
Today we're gonna talk about the mysterious death
of Thomas Ince.
Was he murdered?
Or dead-ed. Dead.
- What?
- All right, so the year is November of 1924.
Thomas Ince was a big-deal Hollywood producer.
And big, old, huge newspaper tycoon
William Randolph Hearst wanted
to get into the movie industry.
Hearst is like, hey, it's your 44th birthday.
Why don't you come to my yacht
and we'll take a three-day cruise.
We'll get some celebrities.
We'll sign some contracts to make us business partners.
It's gonna be a great, great, great, great humdinger
of a good time,
so he was like, great.
So they set out on the yacht.
So it's Hearst and it's Ince
and it's actress Marion Davies.
She was Hearst's very unsecretive mistress.
- Ohh.
- And it's Charlie Chaplin,
and it's also gossip columnist Louella Parsons.
And other people not famous enough
to mention in this story.
So they all go out for three days,
but when the boat returns,
Thomas Ince was dead.
[gulps]
Party over.
The newspaper read "Big Hot Shot Hollywood Producer
Shot Dead On Hearst's Boat!"
But then,
the evening edition said,
Ha Ha Ha! Whoops! Just Kidding!
He Actually Died Of Heart Failure In Hearst's Home.
[raspberries]
So, yeah. Weird.
But things get more confusing,
because at Thomas' funeral,
Ince's wife, Elinor, was like,
it's so terrible that my husband has died.
Okay, thanks. Come again.
And then she cremated him immediately
and [bleep] off to Europe.
So that was kind of odd.
We know he's dead.
That's the one fact that we know.
But since there was so many different stories,
I mean, it's pretty much like the movie "Clue."
But we're gonna figure it out.
We're gonna figure it out.
So one of the theories is that Thomas Ince
had a problem with ulcers,
because he was a big Hollywood producer
and had a lot of stress and shit on his mind.
Of course, when he gets on the yacht,
champagne's flowing.
They were having hootenannies and bee-baw-billies
and blah-blah-blahs,
and then Ince is like, oh.
Salted almonds, yes. I probably shouldn't.
Okay, I'll have 1 or 40.
And then of course when it comes to toasting time,
it was like, okay, it's my [bleep] birthday.
Toast to me.
Love--mm...
But because of that,
it ruptured his ulcer,
and the next morning, he wakes up with a heart attack--
not that cool-- and then died.
- That's theory one.
So theory two is:
they're having a great, old time for three days.
Except for Chaplin, who was in his room,
alone, suicidal.
Because, like... [sighs]
I'm Chaplin.
I'm a big, old genius.
And I hate myself.
Oh, look it here.
There's a diamond-crusted pistol.
Ince comes in, is like, hey, Chappy!
What's going on?
Look at you. Are you being funny?
No, I'm being depressed.
Look--I mean, clearly I have a pistol--oh, shit.
I just shot you.
Oh, God.
Oh...God.
Oh.
Oh, okay. God.
[belches]
Oh.
But here's the prevailing theory:
Hearst had a whole yacht party.
♪ Dan-ding, bah-bah ♪
♪ Blee-blabbity, bloop-bloop ♪
♪ Bing-ding, bah-bah ♪
[raspberries]
♪ Bing-bong, boo-bah, ooh, ooh ♪
♪ Dee-dee, dee-dil-ee-dee-dee, boo, eh, mm-mm ♪
[pops]
[blubbers]
So that--so there's a lot of music happening.
- Why did you stop? - [laughs]
- [chuckles]
- And cut to Ince and Hearst going down the hall.
And Hearst is like,
oh, I love Chaplin because he does nice things
to my bankroll. I love Davies because
she does nice things to my downstairs.
And then--oh!
They see Chaplin and Davies having some...
- Sex. - Yes.
So then back to Hearst had a diamond-crusted pistol
and was like, how dare you, Charlie Ma-Chaplin.
Not Ma-Chaplin, but-- how dare you, Chaplin!
I'm going to shoot you both.
So Ince did a slow motion no...
He makes money for Hollywood.
[raspberries]
And someone got shot, and it was Ince.
And he died.
But maybe not.
- [laughs]
- So after the incident,
everyone was like, so, Louella,
you were on the yacht.
What's the scoop? Was it Hearst?
Was it Chaplin? Was it Davies?
What happened?
I saw nothing. I was not on the yacht.
I was 3,000 miles away.
You didn't even know about it.
[raspberries]
She was there. She didn't say anything.
- What do you believe happened?
- I think that Hearst shot him
on the yacht
with the revolva--
revolver.
And he was buying up everyone to shut them
the [bleep] up.
I mean, he bought this gossip columnist.
He bought Ince's wife.
And he got away with it.
Because Hearst owns everything.
He owns all of the newspapers.
He is the Citizen Kane,
the rosebud.
And after all that,
Hearst said like, hey, everybody,
Thomas Ince didn't die of natural causes--
wait, no, yeah--
he did die-- [laughs]
Thomas Ince did not die of murder.
He died of natural causes.
Nice try. [laughs]
I'm Hearst.
And I'm gonna go home and sleep with my wife.
Good night.
- [laughs]
- Mm. - Do you have
any other theories?
No?