The author of this book mentioned that Jean Spangler worked with the Three Stooges, but evidently knew nothing else about her. But then, no one seems to know what did happen to her. Whatever happened to her is one of Hollywood's Unsolved Mysteries.

Jean Spangler

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jean Spangler
Born	Jean Elizabeth Spangler (1923-09-02)September 2, 1923 Seattle, Washington
Disappeared	October 7, 1949 (aged 26) Los Angeles, California
Status	Missing for 64 years, 7 months and 15 days
Spouse(s)	Dexter Benner (m. 1942–46)

Jean Elizabeth Spangler (September 2, 1923 – disappeared October 7, 1949) was an American dancer, model and bit-part actress in Hollywood films and in early television.

Life and career

Born in Seattle, Washington, Spangler had danced with the Earl Carroll Theatre and Florentine Gardens. She lived with her mother Florence, five-year-old daughter Christine, brother Edward, and sister-in-law Sophie, on Colgate Avenue in the Park La Brea residential complex near Wilshire Boulevard, in Los Angeles, California.
In 1942, she married manufacturer Dexter Benner. They had a daughter, Christine (born April 22, 1944), and divorced in 1946. Spangler and Benner engaged in a long custody battle over their daughter, until Spangler was awarded custody in 1948.

Disappearance

On October 7, 1949, Spangler left her home in Los Angeles around 5:00 p.m. She left her daughter with her sister-in-law Sophie, and said that she was meeting her former husband to discuss a late child support payment; after that, she was going to work on a night shoot for a film.^[1] The last person to see her was a clerk in a store near her home, who said that she appeared to be waiting for someone. She was never seen again.^[2] Spangler's mother was visiting family in Kentucky at the time. Spangler's sister-in-law, Sophie, went to the police and filed a missing person report the next day.

Police investigation

Though Spangler had told her sister-in-law that she was going to work on a movie set after she met with her ex-husband, this lead went nowhere. She had worked as an extra and bit-part actress for several different Hollywood studios, but none of those studios had any work in progress or were even open on the evening of October 7.
Police questioned Spangler's ex-husband, Dexter Benner, about her statement to her sister-in-law that she was going to meet him about his child support payments. He said that he had not seen his former wife for several weeks before Spangler disappeared. His new wife Lynn Lasky Benner, to whom he had been married only one month, stated that he was with her at the time of the disappearance.
Two days later, on October 9, Spangler's purse was found near the Fern Dell entrance to Griffith Park in Los Angeles, with both of the straps on one side torn loose as if it had been ripped from her arm. Sixty police officers and over one hundred volunteers searched the 4,107-acre (16.62 km²) natural terrain park, but no other clues were found. There was no money in the purse (her sister-in-law said that she had no money when she left her house the evening of her disappearance) so the police ruled out robbery as a motive. There was an unfinished note in the purse addressed to a "Kirk," which read, "Can't wait any longer, Going to see Dr. Scott. It will work best this way while mother is away,...". The note ended with a comma as if it had not been finished.
Neither "Kirk" nor "Dr. Scott" could be located, and neither Spangler's family nor her friends knew anyone by those names. When Spangler's mother, Florence, returned to Los Angeles and told police that someone named "Kirk" had picked up Jean at her house twice, but he stayed in his car and did not come in. Police questioned every doctor with the last name Scott in Los Angeles, but none of them had a patient with the last name Spangler or Benner, her former married name. Spangler had once been involved with a abusive man she called "Scotty," but her lawyer said she had not seen him since 1945.^{[citation needed]}
Spangler had recently completed filming a bit part in the film Young Man with a Horn starring Kirk Douglas. Douglas was vacationing in Palm Springs when he heard about the disappearance; he called the police and told them he was not the Kirk mentioned in the note. When interviewed by the head of the investigating team, Douglas stated that he had heard of her name, and knew that Spangler had been an extra in his new film, but that he did not know her personally.^{[citation needed]}
Spangler's girlfriends told police that she was three months pregnant when she disappeared and that she had talked about having an abortion, which was illegal at that time. Witnesses, who frequented the same nightclubs and bars that Spangler did, told police they had heard of a former medical student known as "Doc," who performed abortions for money, but police could not locate him, nor prove that he existed.^{[citation needed]}
Spangler had been seen with Davy Ogul, an associate of infamous mobster Mickey Cohen, in Palm Springs, California, who disappeared two days after Spangler did. This led police to investigate the possibility that Spangler and Ogul, who was under indictment for conspiracy, had fled to avoid prosecution. In 1950, a customs agent in El Paso, Texas reported seeing Ogul and a woman who looked like Spangler in a hotel in El Paso. The hotel clerk identified Spangler from a photograph, but neither Davy Ogul nor Jean Spangler's name appeared on the hotel register.^{[citation needed]}
The Los Angeles Police Department continued the search and circulated Spangler's picture for several years, in an unsuccessful attempt to find her or any reliable leads. Columnist Louella Parsons offered a $1,000 reward for information concerning Spangler's disappearance or location. Despite a nationwide search, no further clues have surfaced. Possible sightings included northern and southern California, Phoenix, Arizona, and Mexico City over the next two years, but none of those sightings could be validated. She is still listed as a missing person, and the LAPD has not closed the case.

Media coverage

An episode of the now-defunct television series Mysteries and Scandals featured the case in 2001.
Megan Abbott's 2007 noir novel The Song is You centers on the Spangler case.

Filmography

Miracle of the Bells (Uncredited, 1948)
When My Baby Smiles at Me (Uncredited, 1948)
Chicken Every Sunday (Uncredited, 1949)
Young Man with a Horn (Uncredited, 1950)
Wabash Avenue (Uncredited, 1950)
Champagne for Caesar (Uncredited, 1950)
The Petty Girl (Uncredited, 1950)

References

Jump up ^ Arthur Lyons. "The Mysterious Disappearance of Jean Spangler". Whispering Palms. Retrieved 2014-03-17.
Jump up ^ publico.pt (16 February 2012). "Caso de desaparecimento de actriz de Hollywood aberto há quase 63 anos" (in portuguese). publico.pt. Retrieved 16 February 2012.

External links

Jean Spangler at the Internet Movie Database
The Jean Spangler website
Georgette Bauerdorf: Murder at El Palacio
Court tv news
Palm Springs Life: Mysterious Disappearance of Jean Spangler Archive copy at the Wayback Machine
1949 Los Angeles County Grand Jury Final report re Spangler and other missing persons
The Song is You - A book about Jean Spangler
The Song is You by Megan Abbott ISBN 0-7432-9171-9, ISBN 978-0-7432-9171-2
The Doe Network -Jean Spangler
The Charley Project-Jean Spangler
Benner v. Benner (1952) Custody hearing
Benner Silvex (Requires Pdf reader)

Persondata
Name	Spangler, Jean
Alternative names
Short description	American actor
Date of birth	September 2, 1923
Place of birth	Seattle, Washington
Date of death
Place of death

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I'm not surprised when someone who thinks he knows it all doesn't know something, even when it's covered in books he didn't write. But that's not the real problem. "Joking" about women being raped, murdered, scalped, etc. is far more serious.

Getting back to someone who actually contributed something to the films of the Three Stooges, here are some pictures of Jean Spangler.