Who killed actress Barbara Colby ?

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Overall, it's an interesting case. First, she was not gunned down in Venice. It was in the Palms area. I think it might have been Venice Blvd., but I can't get the exact address. At the time, it was also suggested by the LAPD that it was retaliatory for Colby appearing in an incendiary play in Los Angeles. I remember looking this up and was unable to find anything. Merman was the one who identified her body.

She was estranged from her ex husband

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest it was probably the ex husband.

R4, that's become the common belief among armchair detectives. But anytime there's something like this, as Forensic Files will attest, the ex-spouse is always the first suspect, so he must have had an air tight alibi, but did he hire someone? Before Kiernan died, he gave police details of the crime and the ex-husband obviously didn't fit the description.

I read somewhere at the time of her death that it was a drug deal gone wrong.

I saw her act with Liv Ullman on Broadway.

Helen Lawson

Did anyone read the article?

Several attacks that same night in that area, all of which identifying two men and their cream-colored van.

The article also says it happened in Venice Beach, which is wrong.

R7, although Ullman doesn't identify her by name, in her autobiography, she says that Colby was raped in her hotel room during A Doll's House tryouts out of town.

Wow I never knew Ethel Merman had kids. I just assumed she'd never had sex w/ a man.

This article gets some details wrong, which is unfortunate.

r9 is right, there were several killings along the same area that night, from the same van. If I recall, the police didn't figure that out on their own, it was Merman's son's private investigator. The cops of course thought he was a suspect because he was Colby's ex, so he got an attorney and a PI, and the PI discovered there was a whole series of shootings in the area.

The police did detain a bunch of teenagers that night but I have never heard a follow-up to what happened with them.

R7 I saw her act with Cloris Leachman on Phyllis. What play was she in? I met Liv Ullman once.

R12, Merman also had a daughter who died of a drug overdose.

She was an acquaintance when I worked at ACT in SF. I saw her in a production of "The House of Blue Leaves" with Ed Flanders, Mary Wickes, Kathy Crosby, and Barbara. It was a great production. Crosby was the weak point as she can't act.

She was in "A Doll's House" with Liv.

Her ex came out as a "straight homophile".

She stepped one too many times on one of Ethel’s lines.

Find a death has some good info about Colby and the murders including comments from her sister.

Colby and the other woman who was murdered that night Gloria witte were both at the same funeral home and their viewing/service was around the same time. Witte’s killers were apprehended quickly.

It's total speculation but I always thought the NYPD decided Colby's ex did it, and because he was connected with famous parents, decided to just drop it and not investigate.

Colby was murdered in California r20. Also Colby’s sister said Barbara was on good terms with bob Levitt six.

It wasn't the ex-husband. Apparently, Barbara and Bob Leviit (her ex) were on good terms and the divorce was very amicable according to Barbara's sister. Also Bob allegedly had a solid alibi in that he was not in California at the time of the murder. As others have mentioned, on the night of the killing, a group of teens in a light colored van had gone on a robbing spree and also shot and killed another woman (a Mrs. Gloria Witte) and injured other. The police didn't initially connect the crimes, and for whatever reason they never charged the teens beyond attempted robbery. This appears to have been a completely random killing.

Was Merman's the celebrity daughter who jumped out the window on LSD?

Alexis.

She had already done in poor Cecil.

Barbara was magnificent.

She played Lilly La Sanka in "Murder by the Book", one of the best Columbo episodes ever...

Barbara's death seemed so unfair...

She had finally gotten her big break as a regular on "Phyllis" - a top-rated network sitcom.

And it was all taken away from her on a dark street in a random shooting...

R26 she wasn't in a dark street, she was in a parking lot.

R23, I think that was Diane Linkletter.

Fun fact: Divine starred in The Diane Linkletter story, directed by John Waters. There is a terrible copy on YouTube, but it's interesting.

Great mini documentary.

Was she better or more popular than the namesake Cheese from Wisconsin that we had a thread on recently?

r21, you're right about it not being the NYPD, I'd linked to the NYT article about suspects being arrested and got confused.

I'm guessing it was, like with Sal Mineo, just a wrong place, wrong time thing. The Mineo murder is so crazy. That is not a bad area at all, unlike with the Colby case.

[quote]It wasn't the ex-husband.

Just to clarify since more than one person has said this: I never said it WAS the ex-husband. I said that my speculation was that the cops may well have thought it was him and just shrugged the whole thing off. They knew it wasn't a robbery, and got a description of the shooter(s) from Kiernan before he died, then didn't do anything but arrest a group of teenagers who had nothing to do with it. The murders clearly weren't a priority and maybe it was too tempting to say "oh, probably the ex hired some kids to shoot his ex-wife and new boyfriend, but he was rich with famous parents so there wasn't much we could do."

Academy Award-winning actress Linda Hunt.

The site of the murder was 8970 Ellis Avenue. It’s only 9/10ths of a mile from SCH Culver City which is where they took Kiernan.

[quote]She was an acquaintance when I worked at ACT in SF. I saw her in a production of "The House of Blue Leaves" with Ed Flanders, Mary Wickes, Kathy Crosby, and Barbara. It was a great production. Crosby was the weak point as she can't act.

Do you mane KATHRYN Crosby (the last Mrs. Bing) or CATHIE Lee Crosby?

It was either Ethel Merman or a huge drag queen with a brassy voice that could knock you flat on your ass in the last row of the balcony.