Woman of the Hour true story: What happened to Rodney Alcala and Cheryl Bradshaw?

Note: this article contains discussion of sexual abuse and murder

Netflix's Woman of the Hour is a shocking exploration of violence against women through the crimes of Rodney Alcala, known as the "Dating Game Killer".

It's the directorial debut of Anna Kendrick, who also stars in the movie as aspiring actor Cheryl, based on Cheryl Bradshaw. In 1978, Cheryl participated in a popular TV show called The Dating Game, where she unknowingly matched with a serial killer.

Here we delve into the real story that inspired the movie, and what happened to the main people involved.

Although The Dating Game is the centrepiece of the movie, Woman of the Hour actually spans over a decade as it features some of Rodley Alcala's gruesome murders.

Known as the "Dating Game Killer", Alcala worked as a professional photographer in Los Angeles after graduating from the UCLA School of Fine Arts and studying under Roman Polanski at New York University (NYU).

On September 25, 1968, he perpetrated his first known crime by beating and sexually assaulting an eight-year-old girl, Tali Shapiro. He lured her to his Hollywood apartment by saying he knew her parents.

He fled to New York to escape charges, but was found a few years later and extradited to California. As Shapiro's parents refused to make their daughter testify in the trial, Alcala was only convicted of child molestation and served a sentence of 17 months.

He was arrested again less than two months after his release for assaulting a 13-year-old girl, who he offered to drive to school. Alcala served two more years before he was released again in 1976.

In September 1978, Alcala was a contestant on The Dating Game, hosted by Jim Lange. He won a date with the episode's bachelorette, Cheryl Bradshaw, but she refused to go out with him. In the movie, however, Cheryl does have a very awkward and terrifying date.

By the end of the 1970s, Alcala had assaulted over 100 young men and women by convincing them that he was a professional fashion photographer looking for models for his portfolio. Many of his victims were sexually assaulted and strangled or beaten to death.

He was arrested in July 1979, and convicted for the murders of six women and one girl.

Over the years, as he was immersed in long legal battles, criminal investigators were able to link him to more murders. For example, in 2016, prosecutors in Wyoming charged Alcala with the murder of a 28-year-old pregnant woman, whose body was found back in 1982.

The police were able to connect Alcala to some of his victims due to stolen earrings, which the serial killer collected as souvenirs or trophies, and his collection of photographs.

"You're talking about a guy who is hunting through southern California looking for people to kill because he enjoys it," the Orange County prosecutor Matt Murphy said during Alcala's trial (via The Guardian).

Following two death sentences that were eventually overturned in the early '80s and decades of investigation, Rodney Alcala was finally sentenced again in 2010 and placed on death row.

After more than a decade awaiting execution, he ended up dying of natural causes in 2021 at age 77.

At the end of Woman of the Hour, a teenage runaway named Amy (played by Autumn Best) manages to escape from Alcala and call the police. He is arrested and she disappears.

According to Variety, Amy is a fictional version of the real-life runaway teen who survived an encounter with Alcala, and whose identity remains undisclosed. The character might have been inspired by other two survivors, Tali Shapiro and Morgan Rowan, who were minors when Alcala assaulted them.

In the last scene of the movie, Amy gasps before it cuts to black. Kendrick explained this moment in an interview with Tudum. "As incongruous as it is, that's Sondheim," she said, referring to legendary composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim.

"That's the chord resolving at the end of Into the Woods, and then one last 'I wish' ringing out. Because there isn't a perfect resolution: That character has survived, but it's not as simple as 'She's going to be fine now.' It's meant to evoke dissonance at the very least."

Cheryl Bradshaw was an aspiring actress living in LA in the 1970s, working as a drama teacher.

After participating in The Dating Game, she met her chosen bachelor Rodney Alcala and instantly decided to cancel their date. As the winning match in the show, they were entitled to a tennis lesson together the next day.

"I started to feel ill. He was acting really creepy," Bradshaw told The Sunday Telegraph in 2012 (via Newsweek).

"I turned down his offer. I didn't want to see him again," she added.

After checking with the contestant coordinator of the show, Ellen Metzger, she decided to follow her intuition and cancel their date. Talking to ABC's 20/20, Metzger recalled Cheryl's words: "I can't go out with this guy, there's weird vibes that are coming off of him. He's very strange. I am not comfortable."

The date never happened, and Cheryl avoided what could have been a terrible fate. After this incident, she gave up on the idea of becoming an actor, and started a quiet family life away from LA.

Woman of the Hour is now available to watch on Netflix.

If you've been affected by the issues raised in this story, you can access more information from Rape Crisis England and Wales, which works towards the elimination of all forms of sexual violence and sexual misconduct, on its website or by calling the National Rape Crisis Helpline on 0808 802 9999. Rape Crisis Scotland’s helpline number is 08088 01 03 02.

Readers in the US are encouraged to contact RAINN, or the National Sexual Assault Hotline on 800-656-4673.

Mireia Mullor

Mireia (she/her) has been working as a movie and TV journalist for over eight years. Based in the UK, she is a former deputy movies editor at Digital Spy, and previously worked for the Spanish magazine Fotogramas. Mireia's work has been published in other outlets such as Esquire and Elle in Spain, and WeLoveCinema and GamesRadar+ in the UK. She is also a published author, having written the essay Biblioteca Studio Ghibli: Nicky, la aprendiz de bruja about Hayao Miyazaki's Kiki's Delivery Service.
During her years as a freelance journalist and film critic, Mireia has covered festivals around the world and has interviewed high-profile talents such as Kristen Stewart, Ryan Gosling, Jake Gyllenhaal and many more. She's also taken part in juries such as the FIPRESCI jury at Venice Film Festival and the short film jury at Kingston International Film Festival in London.    LinkedIn