Trigger Warning: This article discusses rape, sexual assault, and violence.
If the trailer for the upcoming Netflix Original Woman of the Hour is accurate, the upcoming true crime thriller is going to be utterly terrifying.
Directed by and starring Pitch Perfect‘s Anna Kendrick, Woman of the Hour is based on the “Dating Game Killer” Rodney Alcala, an infamous serial killer that began his murderous rampage in the late 1960s.
Despite this, Alcala was able to hide his ways so well that he auditioned, appeared, and then won a popular dating TV show in 1978. It is this portion of Alcala’s crimes that Woman of the Hour is based on, with Kendrick starring as Cheryl Bradshaw, the contestant on The Dating Gamewho ended up picking Alcala (Daniel Zovatt) during her appearance on the show. Unbeknownst to her, Alcala is not who he appears to be. Uh, at all.
Here are seven facts about the bone-chilling true story behind Netflix’s upcoming Woman Of The Hour.
1. Rodney Alcala used his professional photography career to help him commit his horrendous crimes.
Under the guise of being a professional photographer, Alcala would approach his victims on the street by offering to take their photos, only to lure them to a remote location where he was able to beat, rape, and strangle them.
Alcala, who used various aliases, traveled across the country to find his victims. He is connected to murders in New York, California, Washington, New Hampshire, and Arizona.
2. The Dating Game‘s executive producer hadn’t wanted to cast Alcala on the show due to his “strange personality.”
In an interview with 20/20 on ABC, the executive producer of The Dating Game Mike Metzger revealed that he got bad vibes from Alcala and really didn’t want him to come on the show because he thought he had a “strange personality.”
“He had a mystique about him that I found uncomfortable,” said Mike Metzger. Despite this, Mike’s future wife, the show’s contestant coordinator Ellen Metzger, convinced him to let Alcala appear on the show. Ellen found Alcala attractive and thought all the women would “love him.”
3. Alcala had murdered at least five women prior to his appearance on The Dating Game in 1978.
What is especially horrifying given Mike Metzger’s original reservations, Alcala had already murdered at least five women before going on The Dating Game as a contestant in 1978. He even had an attempted murder charge of an eight-year-old girl.
However, technology was nowhere near what it is today with national databases and background checks, no one behind The Dating Game knew of Alcala’s criminality. This made it easy for Alcala to hide his crimes from the show’s producers.
4. In hindsight, Alcala’s answers on The Dating Game were not playful but were actually rather disturbing.
For example, when bachelorette Bradshaw asked him the question “I’m serving you for dinner. What are you called and what do you look like?” Alcala responded, “I’m called the banana and I look good.” When Bradshaw asked Alcala to be more descriptive, he replied, “Peel me.”
The audience laughed.
According to David Greenfield, a producer for the show at the time of Alcala’s episode, the raunchy humor is exactly what the show was looking for to keep up with American culture at the time. However, in looking back, Greenfield admits how horrible and telling Alcala’s answers were.
“We were looking for raunchy, sexy answers, and that was one. Take it in context now, it’s like, ‘Oh my God,'” said Greenfield.
5. In real life, Bradshaw refused to go out with Alcala despite choosing him on the show because she thought he was “creepy.”
When Bradshaw chose Alcala, aka “Bachelor Number One” at the end of her episode of The Dating Game, Bradshaw’s original interest transformed into what Ellen described as “pretty lukewarm togetherness.”
“She said, ‘Ellen, I can’t go out with this guy. There’s weird vibes that are coming off of him,” Ellen recalled during her interview with 20/20. “He’s very strange. I am not comfortable. Is that going to be a problem?’ And of course, I said, ‘No.’”
6. Alcala going on The Dating Game is what one prosecutor believes is a reflection of the “narcissism” of a serial killer.
Matt Murphy, a former prosecutor who was assigned to Acala’s case in 2003 believes Alcala auditioning and then appearing on The Dating Game is one the most telling parts of Alcala’s psyche.
“The Dating Game appearance is just a bizarre part about this case,” Murphy said. “And I think that what it reflects is the narcissism and the ego and the arrogance of a serial killer.”
7. Alcala is responsible for eight confirmed murders (but the real number could be much, much higher).
In 2021, Alcala passed away of natural causes at the age of 77 in prison while awaiting execution. He had eight confirmed victims at the time of his passing but reports suggest that the number as many as 130.
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Woman of the Hour will premiere on Netflix on October 18, 2024.
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