5 Super Dark Old Timey Celebrity Scandals

Regardless of whether or not that argument ever held any weight, he was a prolific filmmaker with over 500 combined actor/director/writer credits to his name and an inspiration to Chaplin and many other dead people you've never heard of. He also could very well have murdered his wife, in case that factors into your opinion of him at all.

Two things are for sure: he absolutely murdered himself, and she died in the exact same manner after being found next to him -- so the possibilities aren't very endless here. While it's been said that the couple had made a suicide pact, it was almost certainly Linder who talked her into it and got her to act on it on more than one occasion. They'd "accidentally" overdosed on sleeping powder the year before their deaths, or so the official explanation went. Then, in 1925, they wound up drugged up in bed with their wrists slit, hers reportedly slit by Linder just prior to taking his own life. We know, we know: it sounds like this clumsy pair were awfully accident-prone; they even accidentally left suicide notes behind this time.

Unfortunately, this is one of those situations that will remain hard to understand. However, it's safe to assume that Linder's documented history of jealousy and depression played a role in things -- well, safer than trying to psychoanalyze a couple of 100-year-old corpses, anyway. There does, however, seem to be more evidence pointing toward murder-suicide than ... suicide-suicide (twoicide?). News reports from the time mention that Linder's wife wrote her mother a letter saying, "He will kill me," and the couple's daughter claimed years later that her dad shared his plan to kill her mother with a friend (who was clearly experienced in keeping that shit to himself). Oh, and if you're not rushing out to join his fan club just yet, there's one final little addendum worth noting: Linder's wife may have also been underage when they got married, so it would appear that he influenced Chaplin in more ways than one.

Needless to say, this party didn't go as planned for anyone in attendance. Assuming no one in attendance was planning not to prevent one of the dumbest killings imaginable from occurring. Burroughs initially admitted to police that in trying to drunkenly shoot a glass off his wife Joan's head a la William Tell (which is a thing William Tell didn't even actually do since he didn't exist), he'd ... missed ... completely. A chat with his lawyer resulted in him then telling them that he'd dropped the gun by accident and somehow managed to lodge the bullet directly into her forehead.

Don't worry; it gets crazier. While awaiting trial, the lawyer shot and killed someone himself and ran off to Brazil; apparently, the young victim inadvertently did some damage to the lawyer's car (a crime punishable by death, if ever there were one). Burroughs wasted no time getting right the fuck out of Mexico behind him and ultimately received a two-year sentence after some bribery. He later said it was the reason he became a writer. He went on to have a long, successful career, and, according to The New York Times, his hobbies later in life included painting, photography, and "collecting and discharging firearms." You know what they say ... "old habits die hard" ... like your wife ... when you shoot her in the fucking head and then don't swear off guns for the rest of your goddamn life -- that's how that phrase goes, right?

While in the Army, Locklear got his first glimpse at what was known as a "barnstorming" show -- where stunt pilots performed tricks for horrified onlookers -- and irrespective of the sheer batshit nature of the concept, thought it was something worth participating in. One of his specialties was "The Dance of Death," a stunt that involved him switching planes with another pilot ... while they were in the middle of the fucking sky. Hollywood quickly caught wind of his "flying circus" and signed him to a movie deal 50 years before Monty Python made us wonder what the hell those words were supposed to even mean.

Locklear nearly completed two films before a tragic plane crash took his life in 1920 -- to the surprise of precisely no one that knew him in any way, shape, or form. That tragic plane crash, by the way, was captured on film because what led up to it was intended to be a stunt for a now-lost movie called The Skywayman. And as if it weren't bad enough that a huge crowd was watching the failed stunt in real-time, the people at Fox chose to release the movie complete with the death scene and promoted it in ways that make TMZ look downright respectful. Bizarrely enough, a movie that was publicized like so only served to launch its director's career:

The discontinuation of planes suitable for stunts, and some much-needed regulations ate into the profitability of barnstorming after a while, and Locklear's claim to fame soon became a thing of the past. It's insane to think that this was seriously an acceptable profession to have in the last hundred years, though. I mean, here's an Ormer Locklear quote about his job: "I don't do these things because I want to run the risk of being killed. I do it to demonstrate what can be done." We suppose we should be thankful he confirmed for us that crashing to your death while not trying to could 100% be done. And that including the footage of said death in a movie definitely won't prevent a bunch of sick motherfuckers from paying to see it.