Who Was Dorothy Stratten?
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Though the backstory of Hulu’s latest true-crime miniseries, Welcome to Chippendales—which debuted on November 22—is a bit obscure, you might have heard a familiar name or two so far. Amidst the pilot’s introduction of Somen “Steve” Banerjee (Kumail Nanjiani), a power-hungry business mogul who founded the all-male stripping troupe, we also meet (supposed) power couple Dorothy Stratten (Nicola Peltz Beckham) and Paul Snider (Dan Stevens).
"The only characters, if any, that some people come to this with some familiarity with would be Dorothy and Paul," series creator and showrunner Rob Siegel previously told Esquire of the real-life figures. So, yes: for those familiar with Star 80 and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Village Voice article, "Death of a Playmate," the mere mention of Stratten’s name foreshadows tragedy. But if you were unaware of the Playboy starlet’s fate, you were likely shocked by Episode One’s final scene–which sees Stratten and Snider die a gruesome bedroom murder-suicide.
Stratten’s jarringly truncated storyline in Welcome to Chippendales is unfortunately not unlike her own legacy–her career as a budding actor is so often overshadowed by the sensationalized death that cut it short. Nonetheless, the reemergence of Stratten into the cultural zeitgeist brings an opportunity to reexamine what we know about Dorothy Stratten–and what we don’t. "What's not known [about Stratten], and what I found fascinating was the connection," Siegel says of Stratten’s influence on the Chippendales. "Most viewers, if they know about Dorothy, they don't know about her connection to Chippendales."
Though Stratten is only briefly featured in Welcome to Chippendales, her role is pivotal. After all, it’s only upon an outing to a gay bar with Stratten and Snider–where Banerjee sees a male strip-tease–that the concept of a strip club for women dawns upon Banerjee. Snider, who was originally business partners with Banerjee, protests the idea. But Stratten backs it up, explaining the shocking new-age intel that “women get horny.” Just like that, the scene soon cuts to a montage of Banerjee and Snider scouting the beaches of Los Angeles for hunks. "There's some dispute about who actually came up with the idea for the club," Siegel explains. "Paul claimed that he was the one who thought of the idea for a male strip club."
There's one piece of intellectual property that has fairly definitive ownership, though: "Dorothy was the one who came up with the idea for the cuffs and collars, obviously, because at the Playboy clubs, the cocktail waitresses would wear cuffs and collars," Siegel continued." Some of the showrunner's research even suggests that Stratten might've approached Hugh Hefner himself for his blessing.
Unfortunately, Stratten’s involvement in the Chippendales origin story doesn’t span much further than these few anecdotes, and we see her only a few more times throughout the episode. In one scene, Stratten is propositioned by filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich to read for a role in his upcoming film–which sends Snider into a paranoid spiral. After a charged penultimate scene, where Banerjee allows newly-appointed creative lead, Nick De Noia (Murray Bartlett), to fire Snider. We see Snider exit the club with Stratten forcefully in tow. In the final scene of the premiere, Banerjee calls to check on Paul, only to reach his voicemail. As we hear Banerjee’s voiceover play (which delivers a message about the mess left to clean up at the club) the camera reveals Stratten and Snider dead on a blood-stained carpet, before zeroing in on a shotgun.
Though the depiction of Stratten’s involvement in the Chippendales is mostly true, there are some crucial elements of Stratten’s story that are altered in Welcome to Chippendales. For one, business issues at Chippendales did not play as the catalyst for Snider’s murder of Stratten. In fact, on the day she was murdered, ABC reports that Stratten was actually meeting with Snider in the hopes of finalizing a divorce settlement.
As the series touches on, Bogdanovich approached Stratten to star in the comedy They All Laughed alongside Aubrey Hepburn and Ben Gazzara. Stratten was ultimately cast in what would be a breakout role, closely coinciding with her selection as 1980 Playmate of the Year. Stratten and Bogdanovich soon began an affair while filming in New York.
By the time Stratten told Snider of her wish to leave him for Bogdanovich, Snider was already struggling to cling to her coattails–desperately trying to claim her growing fortune as his own. According to Village Voice, Snider even hired a private investigator to follow Stratten around–which held uncanny parallels to They All Laughed, where Stratten’s character is followed by an investigator hired by her husband. Snider murdered Stratten in August of 1980 at the age of 20. Her death sent shockwaves across Hollywood and beyond, inspiring Teresa Carpenter’s investigative Village Voice exposé, a film adaptation in Star 80, the TV drama Death of a Centerfold, which starred Jamie Lee Curtis.
It’s unfortunate that Stratten’s legacy continues to be marked almost exclusively by her gruesome death. The question of who Dorothy Stratten almost always leads to the question of who Dorothy Stratten could have been. Yet, even true crime-oriented storylines like Welcome to Chippendales can still offer an opportunity for audiences to learn more about Stratten beyond her murder–whether it's her small, but commanding film roles, humble beginnings as Dorothy Hoogstraten in Vancouver, a noted love of poetry, or her lasting mark on Chippendales.
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