Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Wikimedia Commons/Getty
Famed silent film producer Thomas Ince, known as the “Father of the Western,” loved boating. It was a cherished hobby that he incorporated into several of the more than 100 movies he made. In his obituary, the New York Times even reported that he once ran away from home to sign onto a ship’s crew. Luckily his parents stopped him—they thought acting was a more solid career choice for the boy.
Needless to say, when legendary newspaperman and member of the American aristocracy William Randolph Hearst invited him on a jaunt on his yacht Oneida in November of 1924, it must have seemed like the perfect way to celebrate his 44th birthday. An A-list group of Hollywood machers and stars enjoying only the best food and Prohibition-be-damned drinks on a fancy 200-foot-long sailboat off the coast of California? What could go wrong?
That trip would come to overshadow the filmmaker’s legacy and imbue those on the boat with a persistent stain of scandal. After one day at sea, Ince was quickly evacuated back to shore. He died shortly after. While his cause of death was by all accounts accurately reported—heart troubles—the actions of those left behind could fill a manual on how to accidentally create a fake scandal that will tarnish your reputation. Since that day, rumors have swirled suggesting that, rather than dying after a night of overindulging, Ince was murdered.