Netflix’s latest true-crime drama, Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut Woman of the Hour, is a gripping, stylish, twisty story about a woman who crosses paths with a serial killer on a dating show. Pitch Perfect star Anna didn’t just direct the film, but stars in it as aspiring actress Cheryl Bradshaw. Woman of the Hour debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival last September, and has now arrived on Netflix. But what viewers might not realise is that Woman of the Hour is based on a true story.
The film follows Anna as Cheryl, a woman living in Los Angeles in the late 1970s who is convinced to appear on the dating show The Dating Game to further her career. There, she crossed paths with Rodney Alcaca (Daniel Zovatto), one of the bachelors attempting to woo her. Rodney won the episode; nobody knew that Rodney was a serial killer, who would later be found legally responsible for the deaths of seven women, but is suspected to have killed many more. Police detectives compared him to Ted Bundy; one called him a ‘killing machine’.
The real Cheryl – whose name was actually spelt Sheryl – died before the film began production. Asked in a recent interview what she’d want to ask the real woman who survived a killer, Anna said, ‘I would ask her what it felt like for her to trust herself.’
The true story behind Woman of the Hour
Woman of the Hour tells the story of Rodney Alcaca, AKA ‘The Dating Game Killer’. Born in 1943, Alcaca was a convicted sex offender who was found guilty of brutally murdering seven women and girls, often using strangulation. However, the real number of his victims is likely much higher – some authorities estimate Alcaca may have killed as many as 130 people.
Born in Texas in 1943 but raised in Los Angeles, Alcaca first alerted police attention in 1968 when he raped and beat an eight-year-old girl. Two years later, he raped and murdered a flight attendant. Alcaca fled to New York and was put on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, yet still managed to get a job at a girls’ camp under the name John Burger. Two of the campers reported him after recognising his photo, and he was extradited back to Los Angeles and pleaded guilty to child molestation.
Alcaca was made to register as a sex offender, and served just 17 months of his three-year prison sentence before being paroled in 1974. However, he was arrested again within two months of his release for assaulting a 13-year-old girl, and served another two years. On his second release in 1977, he flew to New York and murdered Ellen Jane Hover, 23, who he is believed to have tricked into doing a photoshoot with.
When he returned to LA, Alcaca convinced hundreds of young people – male and female – that he was a professional fashion photographer, taking photos of them for his ‘portfolio’. He killed multiple women during this process, some of whom he was only charged with in the 21st century. When the photos were later discovered, many of them contained graphic sexual imagery. Most of the photos’ subjects were never identified, and are believed to be cold case victims.
Around the time he was committing these heinous crimes, Alcaca bizarrely appeared on an episode of The Dating Game using his real name. He was described by host Jim Lange (portrayed in The Woman of the Hour as ‘Ed Burke’ by Tony Hale) as a professional photographer with an interest in skydiving and motorcycling. Along with two other men, he competed for the chance to go on a date with actress Sheryl Bradshaw. One of the other bachelors on the show described Alcaca as a ‘very strange guy’.
While in the film, Cheryl goes on a date with Alcaca and just escapes his grasps, the real Sheryl (the spelling of her name was changed for the film) refused to go on the date altogether. In a 2012 interview, she recalled, ‘I started to feel ill. He was acting really creepy. I didn’t want to see him again.’
The show’s contestant co-ordinator also later remembered, ‘She said, “Ellen, I can’t go out with this guy. There’s weird vibes coming off him. He’s very strange. I’m not comfortable. Is that going to be a problem?” And of course, I said, “No.”’ Alcaca killed at least three more women soon after appearing on the show. In 1980, he was sentenced to death for the kidnapping and murder of Robin Samsoe but the sentence was overturned. He was sentenced to death again in 1986, only for it to be overturned again.
In the years that followed, new DNA evidence linked Alcaca to the murders of multiple women. He stood trial in 2010, during which his Dating Game appearance was shown. He was found guilty of all five counts of first-degree murder and two years later pled guilty to two other murders. Alcaca was sentenced to 25 years to life behind bars, and died in 2021 aged 77.