December 20, 1905 – May 5, 1968
Masturbation will kill you. Ask Albert Dekker. He was an actor best known for his role as Dr. Cyclops, but was also in East of Eden and The Wild Bunch. He was also a former California Legislator. He had a sixteen-year-old son that killed himself in 1967.
His long-time fiancée, Geraldine Saunders, last saw Albert on May 2nd, when they attended the opening of The Latent Heterosexual, at the Hollywood Huntington Hartford. At the time she said, “We were to have gone again on Friday, but my numerous phone calls to him that evening went unanswered.” She also claimed that they were to be married within the next month.
Albrert Dekker had recently moved into an apartment on Normandie Avenue in Hollywood.
Hello, Dearly Departed van!
Initially annoyed and then concerned, Geraldine went to Dekker’s apartment on Sunday morning the 5th. There were numerous messages and notes attached to the door of his apartment from others who were concerned. She asked the manager to open the apartment door just to have a peek.
When she turned the corner into the bathroom, she saw in the bathtub…
Now here’s the thing.
A few years back we were making the documentary Dearly Departed Vol. 1. Albert Dekker was one of the featured stories. Director Mike Dorsey lived in the building, but in a different apartment. Since they are all the same, we were going to shoot it in his place. In an “oh, what the hell” moment, I thought… Well, we’re here. Why don’t we ask the people who live in Dekker’s actual place?
So I knocked on the door.
A nice girl answered the door. I told her we were doing a little documentary about an actor who lived in her apartment in the 1960’s. I asked her if she wouldn’t mind if we shot in her apartment for a minute. She agreed and asked us to return in 20 minutes. I stressed to her, “We really want to see the bathroom.”
She looked at us strangely and agreed. We returned.
This is what happened.
He was kneeling nude in the bathtub. A noose was around his neck but not tight enough to have strangled him. A scarf was tied over his eyes and a horse’s bit was in his mouth, fashioned from a rubber ball and metal wire, the bit had chain “reins” that were tightly tied beneath his head. Two leather straps were stretched between the leather belts that girded his neck and chest. A third belt, around his waist, was tied with a rope that stretched to his ankles, where it had been tied in some kind of timber hitch. The end of the rope, which continued up his side, wrapped around his wrist several times and was held in Dekker’s hand. Handcuffs clamped both wrists with a key attached. Written in red lipstick on his right buttock was the word, “whip.” Sunrays had also been drawn around his nipples. “Make me suck,” was written on his throat, and “slave,” and “cocksucker,” on his chest. On his stomach was drawn a vagina. He had apparently been dead for several days.
He was 62 years old.
Dekker was sent back east to the Garden State Crematorium, New Jersey. No one knows for sure what has become of his cremains.
Some people say it was a robbery gone wrong, because a good deal of cash and electronic equipment was missing from his apartment. I think someone may have ripped him off, but it sounds more like Albert loved doing the dirty squirty thing on his own. He was the great granddaddy of all autoerotic asphyxiators. Problem is, he didn’t even complete the job. The proverbial Die Trying, his death was ruled accidental.
He didn’t cum.
1/2010 Findadeath pal Jaymuss has a pal that wrote celebrities for autographs in the 60’s. This is one he got from our pal Albert. I hope he washed his hands first.
I owe much thanks to Bob Siler again, for his text information for this story.
What was in the needles?
They were just there for the “owie!” effect
Where did all the crime scene photos go that you use to have links to?
Poor guy didn’t even get his happy ending.
I don’t recall where I read it, but some years back it was mentioned that the lipstick used to write on his chest was not found in the apartment.
i think he cremated and his remains is at the Garden State Crematory in North Bergen, New Jersey
Dr Cyclops seems oddly fitting. RIP.
Has anyone deciphered the symbols on the autograph note? And Minky, where did you read about needles in his arse? Can’t believe police crime scene pictures of him haven’t surfaced by now.
Japanese for little girl. Poorly written Japanese.
It read Chinese as “How are you?”. But it could mean: “Are you good (for it)”.
I think maybe he did do these things for arousal, but why go to all the trouble to draw all the things on his body and to just leave needles in his behind. I think someone else was there as an audience. Why waste a good stage set up . And when he died is when whoever was there to watch took the opportunity to rob him..to me that makes more sense for someone to be there to see what he was doing to himself to add to the humiliation.. it just seems like a waste of a good spank and yank if he was alone with no one to witness it. Then something went wrong, and its almost like the David Carradine set up, I think he also had an audience to help with the set up, his had too much going on to be done by himself .
David Carradine was absolutely alone when he died of the same cause..