8. A Great Role Followed by a Disappearance
Albert Dekker’s life journey came to a weirdly macabre end in 1968. That year, he managed to land a great supporting actor part in The Wild Bunch. When he completed his final scene, he left the set and seemed to fall off the map. Friends and family became concerned after days passed and nobody had heard from him. Among other things, he was a no-show at a date with his fiancee, fashion model Geraldine Saunders. She tried to call him at home but got no response.
So Saunders went to his apartment, knocked but got no answer, and finally pinned a note on a door that was already covered by notes from friends and acquaintances. When she returned later that day and found things still the same, she convinced the building manager to let her in the apartment. Once in the apartment, they found the bathroom door chained from the inside and had to break it open. There, they were greeted with the macabre sight of Dekker’s corpse, hanged from a leather belt. That was not the worst of it.
