"The Dating Game Killer": The Story of Rodney Alcala and 'Woman of the Hour'
Anna Kendrick's 2023 directorial debut Woman of the Hour highlights the surreal moment that vicious serial killer Rodney Alcala appeared as a contestant on the television show The Dating Game
Background
In 2023, American actress Anna Kendrick made her directorial debut with the film Woman of the Hour. It is based on American serial killer Rodney Alcala, who was known as “The Dating Game Killer” for his infamous 1978 appearance on the television game show The Dating Game.
The film highlights how a failed legal system can allow a dangerous criminal to prey on women and children for decades.
Although it is based on real events, the film has been described as "fictionalized enough to qualify as a straightforward drama.”
Woman of the Hour made its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival on September 8, 2023. On October 8, 2024, it was released on Netflix.
Produced by AGC Studios, Vertigo Entertainment, and BoulderLight Productions, the project won Kendrick several film awards and nominations. She donated her pay for the film to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network and the National Center for Victims of Crime.
Film Overview
The film alternates between the violent crimes of sexual predator and serial killer Rodney Alcala and the ambitions of struggling Hollywood actress Sheryl Bradshaw. The film opens with Alcala taking photographs of a young pregnant woman in Wyoming before strangling her to death.
It jumps back and forth between Bradshaw’s Hollywood dreams and Alcala’s heinous crimes. Alcala gains access to many of his victims by claiming to be a photographer.
Alcala and Bradshaw are brought together when they both appeared on the television show The Dating Game. In 1978, Alcala appeared as a contestant on the popular television show, which allowed a bachelorette to present questions to three bachelors concealed behind a partition.
Based on their answers, the bachelorette would choose one man to go out on a date with, the show paying the expenses. The episode in which Alcala appeared aired on September 13, 1978. In the film, Sheryl is reluctant to appear on the show, believing it to be shallow and sexist. However, her agent convinces her to do it, claiming it will be good for her career.
During the question-and-answer segment, Alcala delighted in putting an erotic spin on his answers. At one point, the bachelorette – Sheryl Bradshaw – asked him what food he would be if she were serving him for dinner. His answer was a banana. He then told her, “Peel me.”
Bradshaw ended up selecting Alcala as the man she wanted to go on a date with. Before the date, they met up for drinks. That’s when Alcala’s personality changed so abruptly that Bradshaw wanted to leave.
After walking her to her car, he asked her for her phone number. He immediately realized the number she gave him was fake, and she admitted that she wasn’t interested in seeing him again.
As he becomes visibly angered, Sheryl worries that he is going to attack her. Luckily, just then, some people exited the studio, and she managed to get into her car and drive away.
Later, Alcala convinces a teenage runaway that he can help her become a model. However, he abducts her, beats and sexually assaults her. The girl manages to convince him that she won’t tell anyone what happened, and when the two go to a gas station, she escapes and alerts the police.
Alcala is arrested, but released on bail during which time he murders a woman and a young girl. He is then rearrested and convicted of several murders.
Rodney Alcala
Rodney Alcala was the third child born to a Mexican-American couple in San Antonio, Texas. When he was 11 years old, his father abandoned the family, and his mother relocated him and his siblings to California. There, he attended private schools, proved to be academically gifted and popular, and participated in the track and cross-country teams, as well as the yearbook planning committee.
After graduation, he joined the US Army with the intention of becoming a paratrooper. Three years into his military service, he suffered a mental breakdown and went AWOL, leaving Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and returning to his family home in California.
After doctors diagnosed him as having an antisocial personality disorder, he was discharged from the Army. Alcala then enrolled at the UCLA School of Arts and Literature.
In September of 1968, the 25-year-old pulled up alongside 8-year-old Tali Shapiro as she walked to school. He convinced her to let him give her a ride and then told her he wanted to show her something first.
Alcala took the child to his Hollywood apartment, where he assaulted and beat her before leaving her there to expire. When police found the girl, she was still alive but remained in a coma for 32 days. A hunt for Alcala began.
Fleeing to the East Coast, Alcala changed his name to John Berger and enrolled at the University of New Hampshire. Despite being on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, Alcala was able to secure a job as a counselor for children at a New Hampshire art camp.
Before long, police tracked him down, and he was held for the assault on Shapiro. However, the child’s family had relocated to Mexico, and her parents refused to allow her to testify at trial. Therefore, Alcala served only 34 months in prison before being paroled.
Less than two months later, Alacla was arrested again for assaulting a 13-year-old girl. He served two more years in prison and was released as a registered sex offender. In 1977, he obtained a job as a typesetter at The Los Angeles Times. He soon became interested in photography and began introducing himself as a professional photographer who could help build modeling careers.
In 1978, Alcala made his now-infamous appearance on The Dating Game. One of the other contestants on the show remembered him as being a “very strange guy.” Though she selected him on the show, real-life bachelorette contestant Cheryl Bradshaw (who was a former foot masseuse and drama teacher, not an actress) never did go on a date with Alcala, whom she found to be “creepy.”
A Long List of Victims
In 1971, Alcala assaulted and beat 23-year-old flight attendant Cornelia Crilley after helping her move furniture into her New York apartment and then strangled her with her own stockings.
It’s believed that, in 1977, he murdered 28-year-old Christine Thornton in Wyoming, 23-year-old Ellen Hover in New York, 18-year-old Jill Barcomb, and 27-year-old Georgia Wixted in California.
The following year, he assaulted and beat a 32-year-old secretary, Charlotte Lamb, before strangling her with a shoelace. In 1979, he assaulted, beat, and strangled 21-year-old Jill Parenteau.
That same year, he assaulted, beat, and stabbed 12-year-old Robin Samsoe and attacked 15-year-old Monique Hoyt, who escaped.
Several other women disappeared. Most were later found sexually assaulted, beaten, strangled, and placed in posthumous poses.
Having convinced hundreds of women and teenage boys and girls that he was a professional photographer who could launch lucrative modeling careers, Alcala amassed a collection of hundreds of photographs, many of them explicit in nature. Police were able to confiscate over 1,000 of Alcala’s photographs from his storage locker.
Arrest and Convictions
Alcala was finally arrested in 1979. What followed was a long series of legal proceedings and trials. He was twice convicted of murder in California and sentenced to death. However, both convictions were overturned on appeal.
After decades of legal wrangling, in 2010, Alcala was finally convicted of five murders in California and given a third death sentence. He was convicted of an additional two murders in New York State and given a sentence of 25 years to life.
On July 24, 2021, Rodney Alcala died of a heart attack while on death row. Though he was convicted of seven murders, most believe the actual number to be significantly higher, with some estimating the total upwards of 100 victims.
Closing Thoughts
If there’s one thing that Woman of the Hour makes blatantly clear, it’s the historic normalization of violence against females. Despite knowledge by law enforcement and the court system of Alcala’s penchant for violent assault, he still managed to obtain a job working with children and became a contestant on a national television game show.
Each time he was arrested, he was let out on bail, let out on parole, slapped on the hand, and told not to do it again. The consequences for acting on his brutal impulses and torturous desires were so insignificant that, to Alcala, they were worth it.
We may never know exactly how many victims he took each time he was given another chance to live his life free of steel bars.
Unfortunately, the judicial system still does not treat sexual violence with the seriousness that it deserves. And when there is little deterrent for sexual predators, far too often, they escalate the level of violence, and only after they have taken a life are they (hopefully) handed a significant punishment.
Sources:
Zuckerman, E. (2024, October 18). The True Story of the Dating Game Serial Killer in Woman of the Hour. TIME. https://time.com/6312191/woman-of-the-hour-true-story/
Montaldo, C. (2019, July 1). Profile of serial killer Rodney Alcala. ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/profile-of-serial-killer-rodney-alcala-973104
DiLillo, J. (2025, May 15). Woman of the Hour ending explained, What happened to Rodney Alcala? Netflix Tudum. https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/woman-of-the-hour-ending-explained
Van Sant, P. (2024, November 10). Serial killer Rodney Alcala’s trail of murder. CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/serial-killer-rodney-alcala-the-killing-game/
Goad, J. (2018, June 28). Rodney Alcala: the ‘Dating Game’ killer who seduced women with his camera and a smile. Thought.is. https://thought.is/rodney-alcala/
“The Dating Game” Episode dated 13 September 1978 (TV Episode 1978) ⭐ 6.9 | Game-Show, Romance. (1978, September 13). IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1631219/
Anna Kendrick on her directorial debut with “Woman of the Hour.” (2024b, October 21). [Video]. TODAY.com. https://www.today.com/popculture/movies/rodney-alcala-dating-game-episode-video-rcna176406
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The photos. In the one, Alcala looks like Weird Al Yankovic, in some of the others, more like Richard Ramirez, the night stalker. You never know who you meet. I just heard from a reader who identified someone I was briefly involved with in the 70s as a serial rapist who was her bio dad from one of the rapes (and then she was put up for adoption). I did not see that coming, at all.