THIS Hollywood Actress Was Murdered By An Obsessed Fan And How It Changed The USA

Rebecca Lucile Schaeffer was on a swift rise to fame. Having started her career as a teen model, she moved to acting after landing a role in the CBS comedy My Sister Sam. However, the promising young actress' career, and life, would be mercilessly cut short. Thanks to an obsessed fan. At just 21 years old, she was tragically shot and killed by Robert John Bardo, a 19-year-old obsessed fan who had been stalking her. However, what her death, eventually did for Hollywood and the USA was play a crucial role in the passage of legislation in California aimed at preventing stalking. According to a report in EOnline, Rebecca had initially thought that it was sweet of a fan to send her stuffed toys and other little trinkets while she was shooting for My Sister Sam. While the show was eventually cancelled in 1988, Rebecca had already transitioned to cinema in movies Scenes From The Class Struggle In Beverly Hills, as well as appearing in the TV movie Voyage of Terror: The Achille Lauro Affair alongside screen legends Eva Marie Saint and Burt Lancaster.

If rumours were to be believed, she was even said to be in the running for the lead of the then yet-to-release Pretty Woman. Also Read: But things took a drastic turn for the young actress on July 18, 1981. At 21, Rebecca was supposed to audition later in the day for the role of Michael Corleone's daughter Mary in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part III. The actress was awaiting a messenger to drop her the script at her apartment. However, when the bell rang at 10.15 am, and she answered it, she was fatally shot by 19-year-old Robert John Bardo. As per reports, at the time of her death, she had been stalked by Bardo for three years. He had earlier tried meeting her on the sets of My Sister Sam but was turned away by security. It seems that Bardo watched Rebecca appear in bed with another actor in Scenes From The Class Struggle In Beverly Hills and became enraged. Notably, it wasn’t until after Schaeffer’s murder that stalking was officially classified as a crime. In 1990, California became the first state to enact an anti-stalking law, driven by the tragic deaths of Schaeffer and four other women in Orange County the previous year, all of whom had restraining orders against their harassers. The Screen Actors Guild also lobbied for stronger privacy protections, leading California to limit access to personal information, including home addresses, from the DMV. In 1988, the DMV received 16 million address inquiries. This momentum culminated in Congress passing the Driver's Privacy Protection Act in 1994, mandating similar protections nationwide.