Word: arnsteiner
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...plot, which matters least of all, has to do with Fanny Brice's later years after her separation from Nicky Arnstein, who did her so bad in the original. Omar Sharif, forever limpid, shows up again as the ne'er-do-well gambler who tries to tempt Fanny away from Billy, but she rejects him. The ending is an occasion for a few tears and a little heartbreak; we well know from all the funny ladies of movie history that happiness does not come with success. Only producers might think otherwise, and they keep it to themselves...
Twice Before. A grieving and angered Hefner flew from Los Angeles to Chicago on learning of Arnstein's suicide. At an emotional, defensive press conference at the mansion, Hefner denied rumors of rampant drug use in his domain and charged that the dead woman had been "driven beyond endurance" by federal investigators. "This is not a legitimate investigation at all, but a politically motivated one," said Hefner, a "conspiracy to get me and Playboy." Describing Arnstein as "one of the best, brightest, most worthwhile women I've ever known," Hefner also insisted on his own total innocence...
...news sent shock waves through a Playboy regime already besieged by rumor, innuendo and investigation. Arnstein's death compounded the mystery of alleged hard-drug use among Playboy employees, and among the unceasing flow of celebrity guests through the Chicago mansion and Hefner's newest Xanadu, the 30-room Playboy Mansion West on a 5½-acre estate in Los Angeles. Stories that both pleasure domes have been the scenes of parties mixing occasional kinky sex with drugs inevitably have attracted federal and state narcotic investigators; Hefner, 48, is almost too tempting a target to ignore, so publicized...
...five-page suicide note, Arnstein backed up her boss's claims. "I don't suppose it matters that I say it," she wrote, "but Hugh M. Hefner is -though few will ever realize it-a staunchly upright, rigorously moral man and I know him well and he has never been involved in the criminal activity which is being attributed to him now." Though the motive for her suicide remained open to speculation, she had tried to kill herself in a similar way twice before, and Hefner described her as an "already emotionally troubled young woman" even before...
Adding to her difficulties may have been a fact that the federal investigators acknowledge: last December they told Arnstein that they had information that a "contract" had been taken out on her life. Hefner heatedly charged that no such contract ever existed, and that federal officials had been using invented "threats" to coerce testimony from Arnstein about Hefner's own drug...