Today's Not-So-Fun Fact

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I've been stumbling across lots of random sorts of factoids of this sort lately - jumping on Wikipedia's mid-movie has become my favorite parlor game! - so I figure why not share here and there. Earlier this week I posted about the sad doomed romance-of-sorts between director Rainer Werner Fassbinder and his Ali:Fear East the Soul star El Hedi ben Salem; and last night while staring at my banner (which yesterday was still that shot of Peter Lorre in M) I got to thinking of Lorre and how I didn't really know much about his personal life. So I went looking and thought, hey, this bit's too damned good to pass up sharing.

"He was married three times: Celia Lovsky (1934 – 13 March 1945, divorced); Kaaren Verne (25 May 1945 – 1950, divorced) and Annemarie Brenning (21 July 1953 – 23 March 1964, his death). In 1953, Annemarie bore his only child, Catharine.

His daughter Catharine made headlines after Hillside Strangler serial killer Kenneth Bianchi confessed to police investigators after his arrest that he and his cousin and partner in crime Angelo Buono had stopped Catharine Lorre disguised as police officers with the intent of abducting and murdering her in 1977, but after learning that she was the daughter of Peter Lorre, the pair let her go. It was only after Bianchi was arrested that Catharine Lorre realized whom she had met."

That's some crazy shit right there. Never let them tell you that being a celebrity or the relative of a celebrity doesn't have an unending sting of perks! Like not getting murdered, for example. That's a good one.
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