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Gina Gershon will never forget her brief encounter with Paul Snider, the “creepy” small-time hustler who later murdered his wife, Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten, before killing himself.
The actress has a new memoir out, “AlphaPussy: How I Survived the Valley and Learned to Love My Boobs,” chronicling her rise to Hollywood stardom and the many famous faces she met along the way. The “Bound” and “Showgirls” star told Fox News Digital that her meeting with Snider continued to unsettle her for years.
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“How did it stay with me? Well, because it was creepy to begin with,” said the 63-year-old. “I was just out there dancing with my friend, and then very soon after that, you heard about the horrible murder in which he killed his wife, Dorothy Stratten. And honestly, it really creeped me out.”
“It scared me, thinking, ‘Oh my God, I was just talking to that guy just a few weeks ago. What if I said ‘Sure?’ It scared me, but I listened to my instincts. He was really a creep. I don’t think [you need] great instincts for that.”
It was 1980 when Gershon went dancing at a Los Angeles nightclub with Jodie Foster, whom she befriended in college, according to her book.
“We had to be 21 to get into the club, but I guess since Jodie was famous, they let us in,” she wrote. “Definitely a perk.”
As they were having fun, “some weird guy with a mustache” approached Gershon.
“Would you ever consider posing for Playboy?” he asked. “I know Hef. I could introduce you.”
Gershon declined, but the man insisted, saying she was “perfect” for the magazine and “just what they’re looking for.”
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“No, thank you,” Gershon replied firmly. “I want to be an actress, so I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“My wife, Dorothy, is an actress,” said Snider, as quoted in the book. “And being the centerfold totally helped her. She’s now starring in a Peter Bogdanovich movie. Think about it.”
Snider handed Gershon a business card before he “sauntered away.”
“He was so slimy he practically left a trail of ooze in his wake,” Gershon wrote. “Jodie and I looked at the card, which had ‘Paul Snider’ written on the front. Creepy. I threw it away, and we got out of there.”
Three weeks later, Gershon read in the newspaper that Snider had murdered Stratten, 20, before turning the gun on himself. He was 29.
“In 1981, Bob Fosse, one of my favorite directors, made ‘Star 80,’ a film about the tragedy,” Gershon wrote. “I was very happy not to have been a subject in that movie.”
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Gershon still shudders when she recalls meeting Snider.
“There was something very sleazy and icky about him,” she told Fox News Digital. “And honestly, I wasn’t interested in posing for Playboy. I wanted to be a very serious actress. And especially at that time, you just didn’t do that.”
Snider scouted Stratten when she was a teenager serving ice cream at a Dairy Queen in Vancouver, Canada, People magazine reported. Stratten was helping her mother make ends meet while Snider, a local pimp, had big dreams of Hollywood fame.
Snider arranged and paid for a nude photoshoot that helped Stratten get noticed by Playboy at age 18. Described as shy, she initially hesitated to strip down, but Snider persisted until she gave in.
The pair married in 1979, a few months before she turned 19. That year, Stratten was named Miss August and later became Playmate of the Year for 1980.
As Stratten’s fame rose, a jealous Snider found himself left behind.
Candice DeLong, a retired FBI profiler, recently explored the case in her true crime podcast, “Killer Psyche.” DeLong told Fox News Digital that Snider was a “psychopath” who “used, abused and eventually murdered Dorothy Stratten.”
“He was never a partner,” DeLong stressed. “He was an abuser from the moment he met her. Before he knew her name, he said to a man, ‘That girl’s going to make me a lot of money.’ That’s how the relationship started. In his mind, he saw her as a cash register.”
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“Paul Snider is a psychopath, not to be confused with psycho,” DeLong explained. “We hear the term psycho and think, ‘woo woo, somebody’s crazy.’ Psychopath does not mean that. It’s a clinical term for someone who is afflicted with antisocial personality disorder. They don’t care about other people. But the most important thing to remember about them is they’re users and abusers of the rest of us.”
Snider and Stratten’s relationship quickly deteriorated, and they separated. Friends of the couple said Snider had become increasingly controlling and abusive.
During their separation, Stratten began a relationship with filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich, whom she met at the Playboy Mansion, People reported. Bogdanovich wrote a part for her in his 1981 romantic comedy, “They All Laughed.” Believing Stratten was having an affair, Snider hired a private investigator.
Stratten filed for divorce. She and Snider agreed to meet at their former home to discuss the financial terms of their split. Reports say friends warned her not to go.
“She didn’t want to be with him anymore,” said DeLong. “She was in love with Peter Bogdanovich, who was infinitely better for her than Paul. [But] Paul could not handle her leaving him. And so, he destroyed the source of his pain. He took a young woman away from the rest of us because he couldn’t stand her not being there to open her wallet for him.”
On Aug. 14, 1980, the day of their meeting, Snider shot Stratten to death with a shotgun, then turned the gun on himself. Their bodies were later found by friends.
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“I can understand why he killed himself right afterward,” said DeLong. “Maybe he was horrified at what he did. I don’t think so. I think he probably knew he was going to San Quentin for the rest of his life or possibly death row in San Quentin.”
Bogdanovich wrote a book published in 1984 titled “The Killing of the Unicorn,” in which he criticized Hefner and the Playboy empire for its alleged role in events he said ended in Stratten’s death.
Nine years later, at age 49, he married her younger sister, Louise Stratten, who was 20. They divorced in 2001, but continued living together with her mother in Los Angeles, The Associated Press reported.
Bogdanovich told Fox News Digital in 2017 that his love for the late model has never faded.
“[I miss her] wisdom, her laugh, her warmth, her beauty, her humor, her charm, her elegance [and] her empathy. Everything about her I miss, she had.”
The director died in 2022. He was 82.
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