FATE OF A FLOOZY

On a cloudy Thursday morning in late May, I stood in Helene Redpath’s bedroom looking down at her naked body laying next to a man more than twenty years her junior. They were dead, of course, killed by two blasts from a horribly expensive double-barreled shotgun.

Helene Redpath spent more than four decades portraying a floozy. She appeared in major motion pictures, TV movies, cable features, and even on British television where they’ve never been squeamish about primetime sex or showing lots of skin. As a young actress everyone remembered her face, but I’d be surprised if many people knew her name. Helene worked steadily for years, but spent most of that time on the “B” list. Whenever a studio needed a beautiful girl with a figure to make Miss Universe jealous, they cast Helene as a cheating housewife, an oversexed career woman, a hooker with a heart of gold, or a scrumptious drunk.