Two elderly people were shot dead at the Beverly Hilton hotel Friday night in what police said appeared to be a murder-suicide. The mysterious incident occurred as the hotel, a venue for countless star-studded events since it opened more than 50 years ago, was gearing up to host the Daytime Emmy Awards on Saturday. From Whitney Houston’s death to Rielle Hunter, incidents centered in this posh hotel.
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Friday’s eerie incident comes only three months after the tragic death of legendary pop diva Whitney Houston, who was found dead in her room at the Beverly Hilton a day before she was scheduled to attend the Grammy Awards. Authorities found her unconscious and submerged in a bathtub hours before she was expected at a pre-Grammys party at the hotel. A toxicology report attributed Houston’s death to accidental drowning, though cocaine was found in her system. The singer had battled drug addiction for years prior to her death.
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Though there were many hotels in which John Edwards and Rielle Hunter “secretly” carried out their affair, it was their rendezvous at the Beverly Hilton that ultimately led to their exposure. In July 2008, a National Enquirer reporter and photographer caught Edwards visiting Hunter and their baby girl, Quinn, at the hotel. Shortly thereafter, having repeatedly denied their affair to the press, Edwards admitted paternity of the baby. Hunter chronicles her side of the story in a memoir, What Really Happened, which hit shelves Friday. (Check out the juiciest bits from the explosive new tell-all.)
Photos from left: Jim R. Bounds / AP; Krista Kennell / ZUMA Press; Sara D. Davis / Getty Images
Peter Finch’s ghost may very well be among the crowd at the Daytime Emmys on Saturday. The Australian actor met his untimely end in the lobby of the Beverly Hilton, where he suffered a heart attack in 1977. Finch, who was 60 when he died, received a posthumous Best Actor Academy Award for his starring role as a TV anchorman in the film Network.
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Perhaps the masseur who filed suit against John Travolta for sexual assault (and has since dropped it) at the Beverly Hilton thought the location might make his case more credible. Dirty talk and scrotum touching were among the graphic complaints in the “John Doe” masseur’s suit.
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Add this to the long list of Tricky Dick’s famous last words. In 1962 Nixon held a press conference at the Beverly Hilton in which he lashed out at the media after losing the race for the California governor’s seat to Pat Brown. “You don’t have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentleman, this is my last press conference,” he told reporters. He went on to win the presidency in 1968.
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The media saga that came to be known as Heidigate began in a lavish suite at the Beverly Hilton, where an undercover sting operation led to the 1993 arrest of Heidi Fleiss, a.k.a. the “Madam to the Stars.” Fleiss operated a high-class prostitution ring for Hollywood’s rich and famous for two years. Though she wasn’t present at the time, four LAPD officers posing as Japanese businessmen videotaped their meeting at the hotel with prostitutes she sent. Both the videos and audio recordings of conversations between Fleiss and an undercover detective posing as a client were used to against her in court. She was convicted of money laundering and tax evasion in 1997.
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