This is the 48th Anniversary of the death of Karyn Kupcinet.  She was an actress in Hollywood the last 3 years of her life.  Her death has never been solved.  She laid dead on the sofa in her apartment where she just moved for 3 days.  It is a long story and this is just part of it.  She started acting on stage in Chicago when she was 13.  She studied for a time with Lee Strasberg at his Actor's Studio.

This girl had no luck whatsoever.  She was short and was big boned like her father.  She had her father's facial features.  His name was Irv Kupcinet.  He was the most well-liked man in Chicago.  Everyone knew Kup.  He worked as a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times and hosted his own late night talk show once a week, until talk ran out.  Later he would make his show 90 minutes and towards the end it went 1 hour long.  Sometimes I was able to get the show on TV in NJ.  I didn't know about the tragedy then.  When Karyn died 1500 mourners went to the funeral.  Irv had a lot of pull.  But it did not help his daughter.

Karyn was 22 years old when she passed.  She was found nude on her sofa.  As time has passed, there's a general notion that she may have committed suicide.  But they say women who commit suicide are not found in the nude.  A bathrobe laid on another chair.

She was discovered on Nov. 30, 1963 by her actor friend, Mark Goddard, who later rose to fame on Lost in Space.  Lost in space would make a great description of Karyn's life, especially her last year.  Karyn's mother had Karyn memorizing lines before she could read, the story goes.  Essee Kupcinet gave Karyn her first diet pills.  Essee would get mad if Karyn put on weight, according to their housekeeper, who'd been with them for decades.  But Karyn couldn't help it; she was big-boned to begin with.  It became an obsession to her.  Everyday she would start in he diary/address book what she weighed that morning.  When she spoke to reporters she'd tell them her diet woes.  Big-boned people always look thicker and for them to lose weight or keep weight off is an unhealthy thing to do.  She wanted people to see how thin she was, and for that in her last year she was taking methamphetamine, a drug called Desoxyn.  When the police showed up, they found pill bottles in her medicine chest.  One she had refilled 2 days before her death, on the National Day of Mourning for President Kennedy.  The bottle said it contained 100 pills.  It was empty.  Where did they go?

The apartment looked ransacked, but nothing was missing  --- except for the 100 pills.  Her furs were there, her jewelry.  She was buried in the white gown she'd worn as a Hollywood Debutante. 

The coroner concluded she was strangled because her hyoid bone was fractured.  But the coroner, named Kade, was often drunk (though his son denies it).  He was fired when 2 women were exhumed to see what they'd died from.  Neither woman had been strangled.  He had a fetish for strangled women.  The case went to court.  He had joked once that "At least I didn't break the hyoid bone on that one."  Whose hyoid bone was he speaking of?  This had to have gotten back to Irv Kupcinet.  You could not go near him, though and say maybe she committted suicide.  This would put him in a homicidal rage.

Obviously, this is a case I've followed for 32 years.  There is much more to this story and when I have time I'll share it.