Patty Hearst

Patricia Hearst Shaw
Patricia Hearst from a Symbionese Liberation Army publicity photo
Born	Patricia Campbell Hearst February 20, 1954 (1954-02-20) (age 56) San Francisco, California
Nationality	American
Other names	Patty Hearst
Occupation	Heiress, socialite, actress
Known for	Symbionese Liberation Army
Spouse	Bernard Shaw
Children	Lydia Hearst-Shaw Gillian Hearst-Shaw
Parents	Randolph Apperson Hearst Catherine Wood Campbell
Relatives	William Randolph Hearst (grandfather) George Hearst (great-grandfather) Anne Hearst (sister) Amanda Hearst (niece)

Patricia Campbell Hearst (born February 20, 1954), now known as Patricia Campbell Hearst Shaw, is an American newspaper heiress, socialite, actress, kidnap victim, and convicted bank robber.

The granddaughter of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst and great-granddaughter of millionaire George Hearst, she gained notoriety in 1974 when, following her kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), she ultimately joined her captors in furthering their cause. Apprehended after having taken part in a bank robbery with other SLA members, Hearst was imprisoned for almost two years before her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter.^[1] She was later granted a presidential pardon by President Bill Clinton in his last official act before leaving office.^[1][2]

Early life

Hearst was born in San Francisco, California, the third of five daughters of Randolph Apperson Hearst and Catherine Wood Campbell. She grew up primarily in the wealthy San Francisco suburb of Hillsborough. She attended Crystal Springs School for Girls in Hillsborough and the Santa Catalina School in Monterey. Among her few close friends she counted Patricia Tobin, whose family founded the Hibernia Bank, a branch of which Hearst would later aid in robbing.

Kidnapping and the SLA

Patty Hearst yelling commands at bank customers^[3]

On February 4, 1974, the 19-year-old Hearst was kidnapped from the Berkeley, California apartment she shared with her fiancé Steven Weed by a left-wing urban guerrilla group called the Symbionese Liberation Army. When the attempt to swap Hearst for jailed SLA members failed, the SLA demanded that the captive's family distribute $70 worth of food to every needy Californian – an operation that would cost an estimated $400 million. In response, Hearst's father arranged the immediate donation of $6 million worth of food to the poor of the Bay Area. After the distribution of food, the SLA refused to release Hearst because they deemed the food to have been of poor quality. (In a subsequent tape recording released to the press, Hearst commented that her father could have done better.) On April 3, 1974, Hearst announced on an audiotape that she had joined the SLA and assumed the name "Tania"^[4] (inspired by the nom de guerre of Haydée Tamara Bunke Bider, Che Guevara's comrade).^[5]

On April 15, 1974, she was photographed wielding an M1 carbine while robbing the Sunset District branch of the Hibernia Bank at 1450 Noriega Street in San Francisco. Later communications from her were issued under the pseudonym Tania and asserted that she was committed to the goals of the SLA.^[6] A warrant was issued for her arrest and in September 1975, she was arrested in a San Francisco apartment with other SLA members.

While being booked into prison, she listed her occupation as "Urban Guerilla" and asked her attorney to relay the following message: "Tell everybody that I'm smiling, that I feel free and strong and I send my greetings and love to all the sisters and brothers out there."^[7] However, according to Hearst interviewer Margaret Singer, the noted authority on Prisoner of War and terror victims including Maryknoll priests^[8] recently released from the People's Republic of China in the 1950s, this is not unusual in such cases and strongly pleaded for understanding in Hearst's behalf before, during and after the trial. Court appointed Dr. Louis Jolyon West as well as interviewers Drs. Robert Jay Lifton and Martin Theodore Orne agreed.

Lifton went so far as to state after a 15 hour interview with Hearst that she was a "classic case," about two weeks being needed for almost all persons undergoing that level of mind control to shuck off a good deal of the "gunk" that has filled the mind, as happened in his opinion with Hearst's case. "If (she) had reacted differently, that would have been suspect" and Hearst was "a rare phenomenon (in a first world nation)... the first and as far as I know the only victim of a political kidnapping in the United States" were direct quotes from Hearst's autobiography attributed to the doctor. Dr. West firmly asserted that while Donald DeFreeze, also known as Cinque, and other movement members had used a rather coarse version, they did employ the classic Maoist formula for thought control; Hearst was young and apolitical enough to be at extreme risk and, in his professional experience, that it would have even broken many experienced soldiers.^[9]

In her trial, which commenced on January 15, 1976 (and in her dozens of previous interviews by FBI agents Charles Bates and Lawrence Lawler—any reference to which was not allowed by the presiding judge to be included in the trial), Hearst's attorney, F. Lee Bailey, claimed that Hearst had been blindfolded, imprisoned in a narrow closet and physically and sexually abused. They claim that her actions were the result of a concerted brainwashing program; this was central to her defense.

Prosecution countered with two experts: Dr. Joel Fort, who, unsolicited, had previously offered favorable testimony in paid service to the Defense team, which was refused, and Dr. Harry L. Kozol, noted expert on brain disorders, sex offenders and high-profile mentally ill criminals. Dr. Kozol in particular claimed Hearst "a rebel in search of a cause" and that the robbery had been "an act of free will."^[10]

Bailey argued that she had been coerced or intimidated into taking part in the bank robbery. However, she refused to give evidence against the other captured SLA members. This was seen as complicity by the prosecution team.

Hearst was convicted of bank robbery on March 20, 1976. She was sentenced to 35 years' imprisonment, but her sentence was later commuted to seven years. Her prison term was also eventually commuted by President Jimmy Carter,^[1] and Hearst was released from prison on February 1, 1979, having served 22 months. She was granted a full pardon by President Bill Clinton on January 20, 2001.^[1][2]

Family life

After her release from prison, she married her former bodyguard, Bernard Shaw. She now lives with her husband and two children, Gillian and Lydia in Garrison, New York.

Hearst's daughter, Lydia, and niece, Amanda Hearst, are both models.

Hearst owns French bulldogs; in 2008, CH Shann's Legally Blonde was named Best of Opposite Sex at the Westminster Kennel Club show.^[11]

Documentaries about Hearst

• Hearst's 1982 autobiography, Every Secret Thing, was made into the biopic Patty Hearst by Paul Schrader in 1988, with Natasha Richardson portraying Hearst.
• Robert Stone in 2004 directed Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst,^[12] which focuses on the media frenzy surrounding the Symbionese Liberation Army, and includes new footage and interviews. (The film was released in some countries under the title Neverland: The Rise and Fall of the Symbionese Liberation Army.)

Material produced by Hearst

• Dissatisfied with other documentaries made on the subject, Hearst produced a special for the Travel Channel entitled Secrets of San Simeon with Patricia Hearst in which she took viewers inside her grandfather's mansion Hearst Castle, providing unprecedented access to the property. (A video and DVD were later released of the special.)

• Hearst co-authored a novel with Cordelia Frances Biddle titled Murder at San Simeon (Scribner, 1996), based upon the death of Thomas Ince on her grandfather's yacht.

Acting roles

Hearst has cultivated a career as an actress.

• Her notoriety intersected with the criminal obsessions and camp sensibilities of filmmaker John Waters, who has used Hearst in numerous small roles in films including Cry-Baby, Serial Mom, Pecker, Cecil B. DeMented, and A Dirty Shame.
• Hearst appeared in the films Bio-Dome and Second Best.
• Hearst supplied the voice for the character Haffa Dozen, an ex-stripper appearing on the October 19, 2005, episode of the Sci-Fi Channel's animated TV series Tripping the Rift.^[13]
• She appeared in an episode of The Adventures of Pete & Pete as Mrs. Krechmar, the nicest housewife in the world.
• Notably playing against type, Hearst played a crack-addicted prostitute on an episode of the comedic Son of the Beach.
• Hearst's voice was used as a caller in the Frasier episode, Frasier Crane's Day Off in 1994.
• She appeared as Anthony Clark's mother on the sitcom Boston Common.
• She appeared in a season 3 episode of Veronica Mars portraying Selma Hearst, the granddaughter of the founder of Hearst College and college board member, who had faked her own kidnapping. Although Hearst College is fictional, it strongly echoes the real Stanford family history, with the founder being a railroad tycoon rather than a media baron.

Bibliography

• Boulton, David (1975). The Making of Tania Hearst. London: New English Library. ISBN 0-450-02351-6. 
• Graebner, William (2008). Patty's Got a Gun: Patricia Hearst in 1970s America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226305226. 
• Hearst, Patricia Campbell; with Alvin Moscow (1988). Patty Hearst: Her Own Story. New York: Avon. ISBN 0-380-70651-2.  First published in 1982 as Every Secret Thing.
• McLellan, Vin; and Paul Avery (1977). The Voices of Guns: The Definitive and Dramatic Story of the Twenty-two-month Career of the Symbionese Liberation Army, One of the Most Bizarre Chapters in the History of the American Left. New York: Putnam. ISBN 0-399-11738-5. 
• Weed, Steven; with Scott Swanton (1976). My Search for Patty Hearst. New York: Crown. ISBN 0-517-52579-8. 

Media and others

• A musical based on documentary material about Patty Hearst premiered in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 2010.^[14]
• In the game Destroy All Humans! Big Willy Unleashed, one of the villains is named Patty Hurst and based on her.
• In the novel American Woman by Susan Choi, a fictionalized account of the Hearst kidnapping in the year 1974, the character Pauline is a fictionalized version of Patty Hearst.
• The Misfits song "She" was based on Hearst and her actions during the bank robbery according to band friend Eerie Von. ("She walked out with empty arms, machine gun in her hand, She is good and she is bad, no one understands, She walked in in silence, Never spoke a word, She's got a rich daddy, She's her daddy's girl")^[15]
• The Smoke or Fire song "The Patty Hearst Syndrome" was also based on Patty's life.
• The Hall and Oates song "Rich Girl" was based on the trial of Patty Hearst.
• In the TV series The Sopranos, Pussy is referred to as having "the worst case of Stockholm Syndrome... since Patty Hearst".
• The Warren Zevon song "Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner" ends with the line, "Patty Hearst... heard the burst... of Roland's thompson gun, and bought it".
• She is the subject of the Camper van Beethoven song "Tania".
• The Indelicates song, "We love you, Tania" from their album Songs for Swinging Lovers, is all about Patty Hearst
• In Will and Grace Season 3, Episode 4, Karen Walker, portrayed by Megan Mullally, quips upon seeing Grace in a beret "Grace, I thought we talked about the beret. Patty Hearst couldn't even pull one off, and she had money and a gun."
• Referred to as pioneer by Frank Turner in an Unpublished and Untitled song

References

Fictional accounts

• Choi, Susan (2003). American Woman. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-054221-7. 
• Sorrentino, Christopher (2005). Trance. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 0-374-27864-4. 
• Davis, Brian Joseph (2007). I, Tania. Toronto: ECW Press. ISBN 978-1550227826. 

External links

• CNN Patty Hearst Interview Transcript
• Who2? Bio
• The story of Patty Hearst on Crime Library
• Patricia Hearst at the Internet Movie Database
• Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst PBS web site
• Works by or about Patty Hearst in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• An excerpt from Patty’s Got a Gun: Patricia Hearst in 1970s America by William Graebner

Symbionese Liberation Army Founding members Donald DeFreeze · Angela Atwood · Patricia Soltysik · Camilla Hall · Nancy Ling Perry · Emily Harris Later members Patty Hearst · Wendy Yoshimura · Kathleen Soliah Victims Marcus Foster · Myrna Opsahl