Model, Playboy Playmate, and actress Dorothy Ruth Hoogstraten were also known by the nickname Dorothy Stratten. She met club promoter and would-be celebrity Paul Snider while working at ice cream and fast food joints during her high school years.
He convinced her to participate in a nude photo session after they began dating, and the pictures from the shoot were submitted to Playboy magazine’s Great Playmate Hunt for its 25th anniversary in 1978.
Dorothy Stratten’s Date of Birth and Parents
Nelly and Simon Hoogstraten, Dutch immigrants, welcomed Dorothy into the world on February 28, 1960, at Grace Maternity Hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Her father left the family when she was 3 years old. Her mother was remarried, but that union unfortunately didn’t work out.
Her younger step-sister Louis Stratten was born in 1961, and her younger brother John Arthur was born in May 1968. She was raised in a noisy part of Vancouver, but she mostly avoided the problems.
Dorothy Stratten’s Education
Dorothy attended Coquitlam’s Centennial High School for her education. After two marriages and two divorces, Nelly Hoogstraten hardly made enough money working as a nurse to maintain her three children. As a result, she was forced to rely on social benefits.
Dorothy Stratten’s Husband
In June 1979, Dorothy and Snider were wed in Las Vegas. They ran into a number of problems while she was becoming a celebrity.
He began to disturb her when she was filming “Galaxina,” and he also discovered that she and director Peter Bogdanovich were becoming more than just friends.
Snider’s cocaine addiction grew, and he started acting aggressively and abusively more often. According to the movie “Star 80,” Snider could have wasted Stratten’s hard-earned cash by making unsuccessful business investments and spending excessively.
Stratten made every effort to get away from Snider with the help of Hugh Hefner and Rosanne Katon, a friend, and fellow Playboy.
In 1980, Stratten was cast in the romantic comedy “They All Laughed,” which also starred Bena Gazzara and Audry Hepburn, most likely with some assistance from Hugh Hefner.
Stratten and the director Peter Bogdanovich, who had recently ended his relationship with Cybill Sheperd, had an affair when the movie was being filmed in New York in the spring of 1980.
Strangely, Stratten played a woman who is having an extramarital affair while her husband uses a private investigator to try and find out what she is up to, much as Snider did in real life. Later, Stratten and Bogdanovich took a trip to Europe.
When Stratten returned, she had intentions to file for divorce from Snider, who at that point was living under the same roof with a different blonde.
The separated couple arranged to meet on August 14, 1980, to go through the details of their separation. The argument quickly turned into violence, and Snider, who had other ideas, had arrived loaded with a firearm. He sexually assaulted his wife, killed her with a gun, and then killed himself.
The first person to learn about the event was Snider’s private investigator, who made contact with Dr. Cushner via a common friend in order to enter the location of the incident.
According to autopsy results, Stratten was attacked both before and after she passed away. The next morning, several national newspapers carried headlines on the death of the Playmate.
Dorothy Stratten’s Career
She met Paul Snider, a 26-year-old Vancouver promoter and claimed prostitute while working at a Dairy Queen restaurant while still in high school. They immediately began dating.
Later, Snider hired a photographer to snap images of Stratten in her underwear. The Stratten biography “Star 80” suggests that Snider may have faked Stratten’s mother’s signature, so Dorothy immediately requested her to sign the approval form for modeling in the US when Paul submitted those images to Playboy Magazine.
In August 1978, Stratten and Snider took a plane to Los Angeles, where she participated in the 25th Anniversary Great Playmate Hunt. At Snider’s request, she also changed her last name to Stratten.
At the Playboy Club in Century City, Los Angeles, she began her career as a bunny, or club hostess and performer. She then made an intentional effort to move from a career as a Playboy to acting by appearing in episodes of the popular television series “Fantasy Island and Buck Rogers.”
She showed her acting skills when she entered the film industry, becoming especially well-known for comedic parts. In Richard Dawson’s ABC TV Specials, which were filmed inside the Playboy Mansion, Dorothy also rose to fame as an actress.