BARBARA ANN THOMASON
I was always a fan of Kenneth Anger's 'Hollywood Babylon' book (the second one not quite so much) the first volume of which I discovered as an art student and it still figures as a prized possession but here's an account that fits right in
Barbara Ann Thomason was a 50s & 60s beauty queen/B-movie actress best known for being the unlucky fifth of Hollywood manlet Mickey Rooney’s nine wives She was allegedly murdered by her Serbian gangster lover Miloš Milošević, but a deeper dive throws a lot of suspicion on jealous husband Rooney.
Barbara was a Hollywood starlet who was cast in low budget exploitation movies. In 1958 at the age of 21, she met 5 ft 1″ 38-year old Rooney at a nightclub. She was out of his league and thought he would be an easy sugar daddy, but their relationship was toxic and she tried to kill herself several times.
After ODing on sleeping pills, she finally got Mickey to marry her. They had four kids together, but he was a broke gambling addict who kept cheating. When he cuckolded her with a Sophia Loren lookalike, Barbara finally cheated with his friend Milos Milosevic .
He was an arrogant Yugoslav gangster who had worked for Alain Delon who was described as “very pleasant but nuts. He would drive sports cars and aim for people. They would have to jump out of his way. This was always a big laugh to him.” They had a passionate affair with Milos moving into Mickey’s own home while he was filming the Philippines.
Milos also had sex with Delon’s wife Nathalie, which pissed off Delon terribly. After Mickey sued Barbara for a divorce which would’ve left her in poverty, she tried to reconcile with him in 1966.
On the night of Jan. 31, Barbara told a calm Milos that she was dumping him and reuniting with her husband. At 8:30 p.m. they disappeared into the master bedroom. At noon the next day, the maid and houseguests broke into the unresponsive couple’s room and found them dead on the bathroom floor with bullets in their skull.
They were shot with a .38 revolver purchased by Mickey Rooney in 1964. According to police, it was a simple murder-suicide. But why had no one heard the sound of bullets that night; neither the maid, or the three children down the hall; nor the two other houseguests? How had Milos gotten access to Mickey’s gun? Why was the bed still made? The official story was fishy.
There were rumors in Serbia that Milos was killed by Hollywood insiders. According to the Yugoslav Kinoteka site, an autopsy found traces of violence against Milos; including a swollen face and blue bruises. There were no fingerprints on the gun, and he was also said to have a skull fracture and broken arm. An examination in Belgrade found barbiturate-laden whiskey in his body.
At Barbara’s funeral, the reverend gave her a touching euology: “This beautiful girl was like a spray of roses, now only the fragrance remains.” That same year, a sleazy Mickey Rooney married Barbara’s BFF Margie Lane, who was with Barbara on her last night of life at the Daisy restaurant.
Two years later, Milos’ cousin Stevan Marković who was also a bodyguard of Delon was kidnapped and shot dead in Paris. In 1973, Milos’ ex-wife Cynthia Bouron was found beaten to death in the trunk of her car in California, after suing Cary Grant for the paternity of her baby.
- Death of a Beauty Queen: Barbara Ann Thomason & the Dark Underbelly of 60s Hollywood Glamour
Source edited from Lost Girls
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