Rebecca Schaeffer

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Rebecca Schaeffer
Rebecca Schaeffer on the TV series, My Sister Sam.
Birth name	Rebecca Lucile Schaeffer
Born	November 6, 1967 Eugene, Oregon, USA
Died	July 18, 1989 (Age 21) Los Angeles, California, USA
Notable roles	Patti Russell in My Sister Sam

Rebecca Lucile Schaeffer (November 6, 1967 – July 18, 1989) was an actress who was shot and killed by Robert John Bardo, prompting the passage of anti-stalking laws in California.

1 Career
2 Death
3 Notes
4 External links

[edit] Career

Former teenage model, Schaeffer co-starred with Pam Dawber in My Sister Sam, a CBS sitcom that ran from 1986 to 1988. During her early life in Portland, Oregon, she was active with her synagogue, in which she was instrumental in expanding a Jewish youth organization to nationwide prominence.

Schaeffer was scheduled to audition for The Godfather Part III the morning she was murdered. She also had a short stint on the soap opera One Life to Live and had been dating film director Brad Silberling. Other credits include the films Radio Days (a very small part as much of her appearance was edited out), Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills, The End of Innocence and the tv movie Out of Time.

In 1989, she became a celebrity spokesperson for Thursday's Child, a charity for at-risk teens.

[edit] Death

Schaeffer was killed by 19-year-old Robert John Bardo on 18 July 1989. He was an obsessive fan who stalked her for three years through letters and attempted entry to the My Sister Sam set. Bardo had read in a magazine how Theresa Saldana's stalker Arthur Jackson obtained Saldana's address through a private investigator. Bardo had used that approach to get to Schaeffer. He paid $250 to a Tucson detective agency which obtained her residential information from the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV),^[1]^[2] and disguised himself as a flower delivery man. Schaeffer was fatally shot once at point-blank range to the heart in the doorway of her apartment building. The next day after her murder, Bardo was arrested in Tucson, Arizona. ^[3]

Partly as a result, California laws regarding the release of personal information through the DMV were drastically changed. The Driver's Privacy Protection Act was enacted in 1994.

In 1989, Schaeffer was dating director Brad Silberling. Her death and Silberling's experience on the aftermath was the inspiration for Silberling's 2002 film Moonlight Mile.