Daring Debutante

This is a stickup! - Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
I was in my junior year at Lanier High School in February 1974. Watergate was in full throttle and Paul McCartney’s Wings was boring us with “Bland on the Run”. I needed some excitement and finally received my fix when it was reported that 19 year-old newspaper heiress Patty Hearst had been kidnapped by the left-wing guerillas known as Symbionese Liberation Army. That poor, beautiful girl. There she was watching TV with her boyfriend Steve Weed one minute, and the next minute she was being held for ransom by a ruffian named Donald Cinque LeFreeze no less.

To look at her prior life is to look at stuffy, stifling, wealthy, lily white luxuriance. She was raised by her patrician parents in highbrow Hillsborough, California. The 3rd of 5 daughters, she attended the very best schools – Crystal Springs School for Girls and Santa Catalina School in Monterey. Had Patty’s life unfolded the way her preppy, two-dimensional “script” spelled out, she would’ve joined a sorority, majored in Liberal Arts, met a wealthy scion from Dow Chemical and settled into a life of shallow splendor – vacationing in Aruba and shopping for Mercedes automobiles.

But fate had another script in mind. In the hands of Donald Cinque LeFreeze, Patty was transformed into a firebrand of social revolution. LeFreeze used Maoist mind control tactics to convince the impressionable Patty that she was a victim of White Establishment propaganda. He renamed her “Tania” after Che Guevara’s girlfriend. He talked the beautiful coed into joining the SLA in its various activities – issuing dire proclamations to the public and robbing banks. Patty was caught on security camera, barking commands to Hibernia Bank customers while wielding a gun. Ironically, Hibernia Bank was headed by the father of her best friend from childhood. Strange how the circles overlapped.

The SLA was nothing if not socially conscious. The ransom they requested was for Patty’s father to give $70 worth of food to all of California’s needy – a total value of $400 million. When Hearst complied, the SLA considered the food to be of poor quality – ransom unmet. Patty herself was quoted as saying, “My father could have done better”. Alas, the socially aware SLA had a short run. The group, including Patty, was apprehended in September 1975 and brought to justice.

The 1976 trial was a precursor to the 3 Ring Circus OJ-style events we’ve come to know in recent decades. F. Lee Bailey defended Patty but he was no match for prosecution expert Dr. Harry L. Kozol. Kozol smashed the “Stockholm Syndrome” defense by pointing out that Patty (1) still refused to turn evidence on SLA members and (2) failed to ever mention a small closet where police investigators allege that she was raped. In what was seen as a victory for the prosecution, Patty was sentenced to 35 years in Federal prison. Fortunately for Patty, the other powers that be relented. Jimmy Carter commuted her sentence to time served, 22 months in 1979. Bill Clinton gave her a full pardon in 2001.

In 2011, Patty Hearst lives a pleasant, unexciting, unremarkable life as a still attractive middle-aged matron. She married her former bodyguard, Bernard Shaw; they live in Garrison, NY with their two children Gillian and Lydia. In 1974, the antics of the SLA were greeted with weary vexation – we were still coming down from the 60’s. We live now in an unyielding age of over-the-top comedy with comedians like Conan O’Brien and Kathy Griffin. The extreme ironies and titillating details of Patty’s ordeal would never escape the laugh-a-minute laser vision of Comedy Central or Jay Leno in 2011. Details like a captor named “Cinque DeFreeze” cannot be ignored. In point of fact, filmmaker John Waters (of Pink Flamingos fame) did see the zaniness even at the time. Patty’s acting career is mostly comprised of comedic roles in John Waters movies like Cry-Baby. She was also in a couple of other B movies and did cameos for Frasier and Veronica Mars. Patty’s parents probably wish that their daughter’s life had adhered to the debutante script. All the rest of us, as well as popular culture, must feel enriched that Patty’s life took a completely different direction.

© 2011 blogSpotter