The true story of the 'Dating Game' killer in Netflix's 'Woman of the Hour'
Anna Kendrick's directorial debut may be some of her strongest work yet; in Netflix's Woman of the Hour, the film observes the strange true story of Rodney Alcala, an American serial killer who won an episode of The Dating Game in the midst of his murder spree in the '70s.
The drama hones in on the killer's chance encounter with Cheryl Bradshaw, an aspiring actress, after the two are both cast as contestants on the popular dating programme.
Kendrick, who also plays Cheryl in the film, previously talked about intentionally prioritising the stories of Alcala's victims over the killer himself. “I really like the complicated journey of a woman who is shrinking herself and being very pleasing and then manages to rebel and take back some power,” she told the Netflix outlet Tudum. “I love the fact that it isn’t as simple as, ‘Oh, she asserts herself and everything works out great.’ Because this is the bargain we’re making every day: how much do I live authentically, and how much danger does that actually put me in?”
Ahead, we break down everything to know about the true story behind Woman of the Hour.
Who is Rodney Alcala?
Born in San Antonio, Texas, Alcala spent some of his early childhood in Mexico before moving to Los Angeles, California with his family. When he was 17 years old, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, but was discharged for sexual misconduct and a nervous breakdown, per CBS. He later enrolled as a student at the University of California Los Angeles.
His first confirmed victim was eight-year-old Tali Shapiro, who was lured into Alcala's car and taken to his Los Angeles apartment in 1968. An eyewitness spotted Shapiro's kidnapping and made a call to 911. When police arrived on the scene, Alcala escaped through his apartment's backdoor.
“I said, ‘Police officer. Open the door. I need to talk to you.’ This male appeared at the door. I will always remember that face at that door, very evil face,” Los Angeles police officer Chris Camacho recalls to CBS. “He says, ‘I'm — I'm in the shower. I got to get dressed.’ And I told him, ‘OK, you got 10 seconds.’ … Finally, I kicked the door in. The image will be with me forever. We could see in the kitchen that there was a body on the floor, lot of blood.”
Matt Murphy, an Orange County deputy district attorney, told the publication: “They say a picture says a thousand words and that image of those little white Mary Janes on that floor with that metal bar that he used to strangle her with, and that puddle of blood, it just looks like too much blood to come out of a— a tiny little eight-year-old like that.”
Shapiro survived the assault. “I know it’s awful what happened to me, but I’ve never identified with it,” she told the New York Times in 2021. “I’ve moved on with my life, so this doesn’t really affect me. It’s a long time coming, but he’s got his karma.”
Alcala was convicted of assaulting Shapiro in 1972. He was imprisoned for three years before eventually going on parole, according to the New York Times. He later moved to New York City, where he enrolled as a student at NYU, and New Hampshire, where he was hired as a councillor at a girls camp. On the East Coast, he invented a new identity, going by the alias John Berger.
When did Alcala go on The Dating Game?
Despite Alcala being a registered sex offender, he was cast as a contestant on The Dating Game, a popular television game show that involved on single woman interviewing three hopeful suitors — hidden from her view — for a chance to win a date with her. The programme was the basis for Blind Date in the UK, with the original iteration of the British adaptation finishing its run in 2003.
He appeared on a 1978 episode as Bachelor No. 1, with the host describing him as “a successful photographer,” per the New York Times. Alcala ultimately ended up beating out the other two hopefuls, winning the date with Cheryl Bradshaw.
However, the date never happened. Bradshaw reportedly refused to meet him after the episode wrapped.
“I started to feel ill,” she reportedly said in a 2012 interview with the Sydney Telegraph. “He was acting really creepy. I turned down his offer. I didn’t want to see him again.”
Bradshaw told the show's producer, Ellen Metzger, that “there’s weird vibes that are coming off of him. He’s very strange. I am not comfortable. Is that going to be a problem?"
How many victims is Alcala said to have had?
Alcala was arrested in 1979, and sentenced to death for the murder of 12-year-old Robin Christine Samsoe, a young girl from Huntington Beach, California, who was reported missing after she biked from home to her ballet class in the summer of 1979.
He was later convicted in the killings of six women in California and New York: Jill Terry Barcomb, 18; Georgia Marie Wixted, 27; Charlotte Lee Lamb, 31; Jill Marie Parenteau, 21; Cornelia Crilley, 23; Ellen Jane Hover, 23.
In 2016, Alcala was charged with the murder of 28-year-old Christine Ruth Thornton, who was six months pregnant at the time of her death in 1977. However, prosecutors ultimately deemed that the then 73-year-old Alcala was too ill to be extradited to face the charge in Wyoming.
While Alcala has been convicted of killing at least seven different people, authorities suspect that the real number of victims is much higher, with suspected incidents occurring across Washington, New Hampshire, and Arizona.
In 2021, the Huntington Beach Police Department publicly released an archive of photos taken by Alcala that were found in his Seattle storage locker, which featured dozens of unidentified young girls and women who may have been victimized by him.
Where is he now?
After spending years on California's death row, Alcala died at 77 of natural causes while hospitalised in Kings County, per the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
“The planet is a better place without him, that’s for sure,” Shapiro later told the New York Times.
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