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Did Art Linkletter’s daughter, Diane, jump out a window while high on LSD? This was one of those indications that the sixties would soon be over. But what really happened? The more one looks, the stranger it gets. Let’s look at the basic story. This is a three part series.070621 070721 070821

“At 9 a.m. on the morning of 4 October 1969, Diane Linkletter lept from the kitchen window of her West Hollywood apartment, plunging six floors to the sidewalk below. She died at County USC Medical Center at 10:30 a.m. The preliminary cause of death was given as “multiple traumatic injuries” according to a coroner’s statement. An autopsy was conducted that afternoon.”

Soon the rumors started to “fly.” Diane was tripping on LSD, thought she was a bird, and jumped out the window. When her father, beloved TV personality Art Linkletter, heard the news, he went into attack mode. He blamed her death on LSD, and those who advocate for its use. Art was still raging eleven years later when he confronted Timothy Leary.

Part of the weirdness was Art Linkletter, who some called the squarest person in America. He hosted an afternoon TV show. Every afternoon, a group of kids would be on. Kids Say the Darndest Things. Art would mug for the camera after every one. This video, hosted by Bill Cosby, showcases the talent. Art was also a popular pitch man for commercials. Two of these commercials featured Diane. (Kellogg’s Corn Flakes Circus Nuts)

Here is the snopes synopsis of October 4. Many things in this account are contradicted elsewhere. “Edward Durston was in Diane’s apartment at the time of the fall. … He arrived at 3 a.m., after Diane telephoned him sounding “very upset” and asked him to come over. She baked cookies shortly after his arrival, and they sat up all night talking.”

“About 9 a.m. … Diane Linkletter went into her kitchen and didn’t return. Durston went looking for her but failed to “reach her as she approached the window … She went over to a window. I tried to grab her and she went out.” She was found lying on the sidewalk immediately below her kitchen window. After interviewing Durston, LA homicide detective Lt. Norman Hamilton was convinced the girl had been in a “despondent, depressed, emotional state,” that she was “concerned with her identity, her career.” She had complained she “could not be her own person.” …

“According to Art Linkletter, Diane had called her brother, Robert, just shortly before 9 a.m. on the morning she died, and he was hurrying to her side at the time she jumped. Art Linkletter asserted … that Diane had taken LSD the night before her death, with her panic over its effects leading to the fatal plunge. (Art spoke for the family on the subject of Diane’s death. It appears, however, he was relying upon Robert’s account of his phone call with Diane for that tidbit of information. By all accounts, Art Linkletter hadn’t had direct contact with his daughter during the last twenty-four hours of her life.)”

Edward Durston … made no mention of Diane telephoning her brother. According to Robert Linkletter, however, after he spoke with Diane, he then spoke with Durston, asking Durston if he could handle things until Robert got there. …

“Whatever the truth of the phone call, Robert’s account of it appears to be the source of all claims that Diane’s death was related to LSD, both the original claims that she had taken drugs the night before and died while on an out-of-control trip, and the later claims that she had experienced flashbacks from a bad trip taken six months earlier and was panicked into taking her own life.” (There are unverified stories about Robert Linkletter.)

Was Diane tripping that morning? We honestly do not know. The toxicology report shows no sign of drugs in her system Of course, the dosages used for LSD are very small. They might not show up in a post-mortem blood test. This source says “LSD was detectable in blood samples taken 16 hours after participants had been given 200mcg of LSD.” This report was written in 2019. The test used might not have been available in 1969. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.

WFMU Beware of the Blog had a tribute to Art Linkletter, after his death, at 98, on May 26, 2010. The story had a link to We Love You, Call Collect, the spoken word entertainment recorded by Art, and Diane, a few months before she self-defenestrated. One of the comments sent me down a google rabbit hole. “Recently, I was poking around for info on Bobby Jameson/Chris Lucey, who put out the enigmatic Songs of Protest and Anti-Protest, in ’65. Turns out Jameson was pals with Diane Linkletter right up until the time of her death. The liner notes to Rev-Ola’s reissue of “Songs of Protest…” (released, apparently, without Jameson’s permission) repeated the falsehood that Jameson had supplied Linkletter with the LSD that killed her.” This story is about to get weird.

Bobby Jameson aka Chris Lucey was a piece of work. He was recently honored by Ariel Pink with Dedicated To Bobby Jameson Mr. Jameson was a neighbor of Diane Linkletter, and roommate of Ed Durston. Mr. Durston was with Diane Linkletter when she took her final step. There is a blog, with many stories. What follows is just one version of October 4, 1969. It is not verified, and will differ from other accounts. Selections from four posts are used. Bobby Jameson died May 12, 2015.

The Rev-Ola Records story appears to be real. “In my hands is the paper fold out from Rev-Ola Records reissue of the Chris Lucey album-cd “Songs Of Protest” from 2002 … distributed by Rev-Ola Records …, without my permission or knowledge … “Art Linkletter had a television program entitled “Kids Do The Damndest Things” and he couldn’t have been more right about that on the night of October 5th 1969. On this date, his own daughter, Diane Linkletter (originally turned on to LSD by none other than Bobby Jameson) apparently took her own drug-induced leap into infinity.”

“Nancy Harwood and I ended up subletting an apartment from Timmy Rooney, one of Mickey Rooney’s sons. It was located across the street from the Shoreham Towers, where Diane Linkletter lived on the 6th floor. … We ended up with a roommate in the new place, because he already lived in the apartment. His named was Ed Durston. I didn’t want another roommate, but it was the only way Nancy and I could afford to live there. …”

“The apartment was on the second floor of the building. Below us lived another musician named Jimmy George. … Ed Durston was a shady dude to say the least, but he was highly intelligent and quick witted, so if nothing else, he was fun to spar with mentally and verbally. I had to keep an eye on him though, because his interest in Nancy was obvious. Along with just about everybody else during those times, Ed was a loady, and to some extent that was more of a convenience than a problem. Ed always knew where to get drugs, so he did serve a purpose … Both Timmy Rooney, and his brother Mickey Jr, were always dropping by the apartment to see how we were doing. They were well acquainted with Diane Linkletter. … Nancy and I would get to know Diane as well.”

Here is Bobby Jameson’s October 4 story. “I went up … to talk to Ed Durston after Timmy Rooney told me Ed was in the apartment when Diane jumped from her 6th floor kitchen window. I also wanted to see Jimmy George, who lived below the apartment where Nancy and I had lived with Ed. From what I’d learned, Jimmy had actually been outside his apartment, and seen Diane falling to the pavement below. At first he’d thought someone was playing a practical joke and had thrown something out the window, but then realized it was a person. He didn’t know at first it was Diane, and he’d seen her hit the ground. He was in shock, but ran over to where the person hit the pavement, and that is when he realized it was Diane. He told me he could not do anything for her, and it made him feel like an asshole. He said she was still alive when he reached her, and that she looked up at him but couldn’t speak. He said she was bleeding a lot from her head, and he wanted to help her, but didn’t know what to do. …”

“When I got to Ed, he was doing better than Jimmy, but he still looked like he’d been through the ringer. I asked him, “What the fuck happened Ed, what the fuck was going on?” He looked up at me from where he was sitting and said, ” I don’t know man, I really don’t know. We were just there, the two of us,” he said, “talking a long time about life. You know, like half the night …”

“Then she just started acting crazy.” “Whatta ya mean Ed, crazy how?” I asked. “Well, we were sitting on the couch, and she got up and went out on the balcony, and just started climbing up on the railing like she was gonna jump off. I ran out there and drug her off, and pulled her back into the living room, and pinned her down on the floor and said “What the fuck are you doing Diane? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Ed was ringing his hands as he told me the story. He was having a lot of trouble going over that night. “So did she tell you what was wrong?” I pleaded. “No,” said Ed, “She told me she was just screwing around and everything was OK and to let her up because it was just a joke.” Ed kept rubbing his hands together like he couldn’t get them clean. He just kept rubbing them together. He continued on, “I made her promise me that if I let her up she wasn’t gonna do anything crazy, and she said, “I promise.” “I let her up, and she said she was going to go in the kitchen and get a glass of water, and I said OK.” Ed looked like he might start crying at any second, and I didn’t blame him, because it was too awful to comprehend.”

“She walked into the kitchen and I turned around to watch her and she just climbed up on the countertop by the window over the sink. I ran in the kitchen and tried to grab her, but she just went out the window before I could get there.” He paused for a moment, as if to get his courage up and said, “I had a hold of her ankle man, I had her by the ankle, but I couldn’t hold her, I just couldn’t hold her man.” I stood there in front of Ed with this crystal clear picture of Diane’s kitchen in my head, with her going out the window, and Ed trying to hold her by the ankle. I just broke down and cried like a little boy. I just couldn’t believe that it had happened. I stood there in front of Ed crying, for I don’t know how long. I just sobbed, because there wasn’t anything I could do about it either.”

Art Linkletter Control Freak is the last Bob Jameson post to be excerpted today. It is a doozy. In this post, we will be introduced to Harvey Dareff. We will hear more about him later.

“This is a picture of the Shoreham Towers, the building where Diane Linkletter lived. To the left is Horn Ave. where Nancy and I lived with Ed Durston. As I mentioned earlier, Diane had a major problem with her dad, Art Linkletter, who was a control freak and attempted, successfully, to intervene in every single attempt by Diane to have a boyfriend. When I got to know Diane, she had met and was extremely happy about it, a guy name Harvey Dareff. …”

“When her dad found out about Harvey he pulled his usual bullshit and appeared on the scene to carry out his dirty work. Art Linkletter showed up to meet Harvey one day and shoved a $10,000 check in Harvey’s face and told him to take the money and stay away from Diane. Harvey took the check and tore it into little pieces and threw it in Art’s face and said “No” thus canceling out Art’s theory that all any guy wanted from Diane was her money. …”

“Art liked CONTROL, he would go to any length to get his way, period. More than anything else in Diane Linkletter’s life, this incident proved to be the final straw and catalyst that pushed Diane over the edge. In conversations with me she complained that her life was not worth living in, unless she could get her father to stop fucking up every relationship she attempted to have. She told me she had even started having relationships with other women, because she was so goddamned lonely …”

“The trouble with people like Art Linkletter, is that they have constructed a false image of goodness about themselves, and use it to manipulate the world around them to their own satisfaction. Prior to Diane’s death, Linkletter’s oldest daughter’s husband also committed suicide by shooting himself. Maybe someone ought to ask what the fuck was going on in that family that caused 2 young people to end their lives in rapid succession. Art Linkletter used his daughter’s death to blame all things on drugs and thus removing himself as any possible cause for the tragedy. My experience in 1969 with Diane, was that her father Art had more to do with her death than any other single factor there was. ”

This is part two, of a three part series. 070621 070721 070821 Pictures are from The Library of Congress. Image #06663: “Fifth International Pageant of Pulchritude and Eleventh Annual Bathing Girl Revue, Galveston, Texas, August 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1930”

On Halloween, 1948, a fifth child was born to radio personality Art Linkletter and his wife Lois. The couple named the baby Diane. Her godfather was Walt Disney. … Diane’s life was untroubled until her teenage years. Like most teens, she struggled to find herself. Diane’s path to adulthood was complicated when she eloped at age 17 with Grant Conroy (seven years her senior). Diane thought she was pregnant, and Grant offered to “do the right thing.” When she discovered she was not pregnant, her parents had the marriage annulled. Diane and Grant never even lived together.”

“Diane moved into Shoreham Towers, a luxury building in West Hollywood. The building’s residents were older than Diane, so she made friends closer to her age in the neighborhood. One of Diane’s new friends was Ed Durston, who lived with a roommate in a building across from hers. On Friday evening, October 3, 1969, Diane went out with a friend, Robert Reitman, to a show at the Griffith Observatory. Robert dropped Diane off at her apartment about midnight.”

Bob Jameson says “Ed Durston was a shady dude to say the least.” Ed Durston, aka David E. Durston, was with Diane when she took her final step. In the seventies Mr. Durston became the director of gay porn movies, with Manhole and Boy ‘Napped.

In 1985, Mr. Durston went to Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico, with Carol Wayne. She was an actress, best known as the “Matinee Lady” with Johnny Carson. Miss Wayne drowned on January 13, 1985. IMDB says it was “extremely suspicious circumstances.” Ed Durston died May 6, 2010.

SECOND HOMICIDE INVESTIGATION PROGRESS REPORT covers the incident at 10050 Cielo Drive, August 9, 1969 … the murder of Sharon Tate, and four companions. “On Saturday, 10-4-69, Dianna Linkletter committed suicide at her residence by jumping from the 6th floor kitchen window at her apartment. At the time she jumped, Edward Durston (LA 978 312D) was in the apartment. … As result of previous information from an unreliable informant, Durston had come up as a possible suspect in this case. With Sheriff’s homicide investigators cooperating completely (supervised by Lt. Norman Hamilton), Durston was given polygraph examinations … Included in the examinations were some keys in the Tate homicides. The polygraph operator … , and the investigators are convinced Durston was not involved in the Linkletter death or the Tate case.”

“Also connected with Durston in the original information received were three other hippies, all users of drugs and car thieves: Harvey F. Dareff (LA 978 313D), is the boy friend of Dianna Linkletter, and had lived with her for several months and was substantially supported by her. He is presently in New York as of approximately 9-25-69. He has not been eliminated as a suspect. …. Robert Parker MacDonald, aka Bobby Jamison (LA 684-737J), and James Steven Williams (LA 978-318W); these two subjects are presently in the Sunset Strip area and dealing in narcotics. Narcotics Division, LAPD is attempting to build a case on both subjects at this time. Neither has been eliminated positively as suspects. Investigators feel Dareff is a good suspect as some information has been received indicating he may have gone to the Cielo residence on the evening of 8-8-69, to possibly buy or sell narcotics. This information has not been verified–investigation is continuing.”

The Cielo Drive killings were unsolved on October 4. There are other indications that “Linkletter was a friend of Abigail Folger and probably knew Sharon Tate. … Durston was a “speaking acquaintance” of Voityck Frokowski.” You cannot discuss these cases without wild eyed speculation. Some of it involves the players in the Linkletter drama. It can be neither proved, nor disproved.

“Diane Linkletter-Harvey Dareff’s live in girlfriend, supposedly committed suicide in the presence of Ed Durston … (Durston was an early LAPD suspect in the Tate murders.) … Dareff was at the Cielo Drive residence the afternoon of the murders as part of a drug deal. (recall that a large MDA shipment was due to be delivered to Cielo the evening of the murders). … Dareff and Durston’s friend Bobby Jameson are very strongly believed to be two of the hippies in the van who famously drove caretaker William Garretson home from Sunset the evening of the murders … “

This concludes a three part series. 070621 070721 070821 For more accurate information, you can see a John Waters movie The Diane Linkletter Story. There is a book, Diane Linkletter: A Princess Wrongly Accused. At all times, you should be skeptical of everything you hear. ““Inter city beauties, Atlantic City Pageant, 1925” illustrate this feature. This is a repost.