The Tragic Murder of Screenwriter Adrienne Shelly

 In remembrance of the wonderful writer, director, and actor Adrienne Shelly, we're excited to share again The Writers' Hangout Episode dedicated to her story, which we originally posted in the month she passed. It's a heartfelt chance to get to know this talented and incredible woman, whose life was tragically cut short. We hope you feel inspired and connected through her story.

The PAGE International Screenwriting Awards sponsors the WRITERS' HANGOUT.
Executive Producer Kristin Overn
Creator/Executive Producer Sandy Adomaitis
Producer Terry Sampson
Music by Ethan Stoller

Transcript

0:01

Hello, my name is Sandy Adamis, the social media director for the page, international Screenwriting Awards, and your host for the Writer's Hangout. A podcast that celebrates the many stages of writing, from inspiration to the first draft, revising, getting a project made and everything in between. We'll talk to the best and the brightest in the entertainment industry and create a space where you can hang out, learn from the pros. And have fun. Hi, I'm Sandy Adamis. Hi, I'm Terry Sampson. Terry, you know how we usually chat a little bit in the beginning and yeah, it's my favorite part. I look forward to, hopefully nothing's gonna change. Can we just jump into the story today? I spent the whole day yesterday crying. Oh, no. Yes. And let's just get into it. I've wanted to tell the story of actress, screenwriter, and filmmaker Adrian Shelley since the beginning of the podcast. I want everybody out there to get to know the screenwriters behind their favorite movies, and I do this through true Crime Stories, and this one just hit way too close to home for me. Mm-hmm. I don't want. Adrian Shelly to be forgotten. Adrian. Shelly was born Adrian Levine on June 24th, 1966. Born in Queens, but raised on Long Island and had two brothers. Adrian always wanted to be an actress and began performing when she was about 10 years old. She made her professional debut in a summer stock production of the musical. Annie, when Adrian was 12, her beloved stepfather died. She was away at camp and they picked her up. The family sent a relative to go pick her up, but they told her nothing. So she drove back from camp. She went into her house and there was an obit. For her stepfather on the kitchen table. Oof. And that's how she found out that he died. And then when her mom told her about her stepfather, she pretended not to know. She understood the absurdity of the situation throughout her films. The theme of finding humor in horrible life situation is throughout 1985 with one year left of college. In Boston University, Adrian drops out. What would you have done if your daughter dropped out with one year of college left? I would say to my daughter, you have some explaining to do exactly what are you doing? What are you doing? Although she knew what she wanted to do in her heart and it was the right thing to do for herself, she was terrified of telling her mother, so she practiced her speech on her girlfriends. Adrian dropped out. Moved to New York City to become an actress. That was in 89. Four months later she was sending out headshot, hundreds and hundreds of headshots. I don't think actors even have to do that nowadays. No. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. And having been in production offices my whole entire adult life, they don't even open them. They of course not go right into the garbage. Right. and if. They are opened. There's just a stack of piles in the hallway on an empty desk. On the way to casting. This is the same story for every demo tape that ever was sent out. The same story of every script that was not asked to be sent. Yes. Yes. I mean, that's the reality of this. And, and you know what makes me feel bad about that is that, well, for everybody I know in all the little. Pockets of entertainment that I've been associated with. Somebody sends something somewhere and feeling of dropping that in the mail slot mm-hmm. Is like you, it's like a, you know, it's like a, a tiny little bitty Christmas you go. I can't believe it. Yes. She's dropped outta college. She's been in New York for four months. She's sending out hundreds of head. And she gets plucked out of obscurity to play the lead role in an independent film directed by Hal Hartley, the Unbelievable truth. And now I apologize for saying, sending these things out. Is it worthless every once in a while? Exactly, and it just goes to show how special Adrian was. Now, the unbelievable truth was about a man who returns to his hometown after serving a prison sentence for homicide, and finds that the details of the crime have been forgotten and replaced with local legends and rumors. She was 22 years old and her mom said, thank goodness we made the right choice about you dropping out of school. Ha Terry, here, take a look at these photos of Adrian. Why did you print this? Because it's gorgeous. You have your own little photo lab, don't you? Exactly. It's a little I a little that face. Yeah. She has a very special look. Yes. And says she's just a tiny person and because of her look, she wasn't necessarily. Taken seriously all the time. The unbelievable truth was a hit at the Toronto Film Festival and Merrim Max bought it. The director Hal said that Harvey Weinstein, yeah, I don't even wanna say his name. Uh, this will come as no surprise to anyone out there. He wanted the movie Recut with nude scenes of Adrian. Hal said, no. So good one for the good guys. Oh, and that it was not reshot then? No, it was not reshot and there was no nude, extra nude footage of Adrian shot. You could put some of uh, Harvey in there, but that might have affected sales. Yes, because of the unbelievable truth. Adrian started to get a lot of notice. She was on the cover of magazines, including Interview magazine, and told friends that she was unprepared for all the attention. Now in 1991. Adrian went to LA and she did the movie. Big Girls Don't Cry, they get even. And that was about a girl fed up with her quirky, dysfunctional family runs away from home, causing all of them to spend time with each other. The other name in the film was Griffin Dunn, which coincidentally, when we were talking about Poltergeist and we were talking about the actress Dominique Dunn. That was her brother. Okay. Small town. In the nineties, Adrian found herself in crappy roles where she was kind of cast in the sexy roles that she never felt comfortable in. Adrian spent her twenties not feeling alive, she said, and when she got to her thirties, she didn't. To live that way anymore. She wanted to live her life consciously. She started a theater company and funded it and did a series of shorts as part of the theater company, and she wrote Morgan fitting in and in her journal she wrote that she was a nervous wreck. Before it premiered, Adrian felt that the lead was miscast was all wrong, and Adrian vowed to not only right. But to direct. In 1994, Adrian wrote a short and directed it. The short was called Urban Legend. Adrian's writing style would be that she would lock herself away for like four days and her friends would bring her food, but they would knock on the door and she would only open it a crack and reach out for the food because. Her apartment was a mess, and I can relate to that, so that's why we're doing this. That's why we're doing everything here. 2001, Adrian was questioning what happiness was and if she would find a man who wouldn't want to control her to have a family with. She wanted a family. She was scared of having children, but she knew it was something that she wanted. A lot of women feel this way that a baby is going to change them and they, they won't ever be who they once were. Yeah. Adrian met her husband, Andy Ostro on match.com. She was embarrassed and she wouldn't tell her friends that she went on match.com. She kept saying, I met Andy at a political event. You shared a match. She shared a match. We were both smoking cigarettes then. I think it was a political fundraiser. Okay. I love that touch of making the meet up, kind of like a step higher than maybe a bar. Right? Or the post office, he was a divorce father of three and her very first match date, they clicked. Andy is the chairman and CEO of the marketing firm, BII, ATRI. Andy didn't try to diminish Adrian in any way, and he calls himself a man. They had a daughter, Sophie, in 2003. When Adrian was eight months pregnant with Sophie and scared about becoming a mother, Adrian wrote the film Waitress, which starred Carrie Russell, Adrian and Cheryl Hines. Adrian directed the film and said it was a love letter to her baby. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. October 31st, 2006. Adrian and Andy have a Halloween party at their apartment in New York with family and friends. November 1st. Andy, Adrian, and Sophie have a cozy morning together, and Andy said that. You know, things were usually very busy in the morning and very rushed, but that morning they had time to spend together. He dropped Adrian off at her office at 9:15 AM watched her walk away. He did not know that he would never see Adrian alive again. Now, Adrian's office was an apartment building. It wasn't an office building. She just took a a one bedroom apartment and made it her office and he went to work. He had a lot of clients. That day, and he did try to reach out to his wife, but there was no response to emails calls, and it was atypical. It was not like Adrian nor had the nanny heard from Adrian. It started to get. Later and later, and Andy just started to feel really uneasy in his gut. He knew something was wrong. He called his friend Brian, and they went to go check on Adrian. There was nowhere to park, of course, because it's the village. Brian pulls over his car and Andy goes into the building. Adrian doesn't answer the intercom. He gets into the building. He yells her name. He's climbing the stairs. He bangs on the door, and the door opens. Not a good sign. No panic sets in the room was quiet with only CNN and Wolf blitzer on really low in the background. Andy said the room felt like evil. Andy found Adrian in the bathroom. Her body with a sheet tied around her neck was hanging from the shower curtain rod. Whoa. Andy had to tell 2-year-old Sophie. Her mom was never coming home again. Sophie walked to the window and stared out saying, mommy died. She's not coming home. Yeah, at first the police went with Adrian died by suicide, but the family was adamant. Adrian was happy making plans for the weekend. She was working, she was writing. She would never leave, Sophie never. When Andy heard the police believed Adrian killed herself. He says he went into combat mode. He said I had to fight for her. The next day, the detective showed up at Andy's apartment, asked him to come downstairs, and they showed him a photo of a knot and they said, uh, did Adrian know how to tie a knot like that? Andy shook his head no. And said to the detectives, do you? The detective said, no. World renowned pathologist, Dr. Michael Badden did an autopsy of Adrian and he said she fought like an animal. She had bruises to her body, face, and hands. The detectives found a footprint in the bathtub and was checked against everybody. There were no matches. Then they noticed a layer of construction dust next to Adrian's door, and they asked, is there construction in the building? Yeah. In fact, right below Adrian's. Office, they got the name of the worker, Diago Pillco, a 19-year-old construction worker from Ecuador. They went to his apartment in Brooklyn. Detective Irma River, Duffy asked him pedigree questions at first. Where was he from? How long was he in the United States? Diego answered the questions while holding a prayer card. Detective Irma asked if Diego had any kids and he said, no, but my sister has four. The detective asked their ages, Diego listed them, and the youngest named Tiffany is two. The detective said. Sometimes when you do things, God doesn't punish you. They punish someone in your family. Diego put his head down, looked back up and said, okay, I did it. Irma said she got a chill going down the back of her neck like Adrian was thanking her. That her daughter didn't have to go through life thinking her mom killed herself. Diego said that Adrian complained about the noise from downstairs. She yelled at him and slapped him. Diego got mad and that's when he attacked Adrian. He did change his story and said he needed to send money home to his mother, so he would rob the apartments where he was sent to do construction. He went to Adrian's door, and when he leaned his. Ear to the door. It opened. He went inside and saw a purse and he took out the money. Adrian came out from the bathroom and yelled at him that she was calling the cops. When she turned to pick up the phone, he went behind her, put his hand over her mouth, and told her not to call the police. I lost my mind. I was choking her with my hands. I took my hands away and let her go. Her lips were blue. I killed her. I took her to the bathroom and I hung her. When asked, did you think you got away with it? He said, yes. Waitress, which Adrian never knew, made it to Sundance and became the quirky, independent, and famous movie that it is today. It became a musical on Broadway. Wow. In 2015, August 19th, 2015 was the first performance of Waitress and it ran for four years. Adrian's name was up in Lights on Broadway. Nice. My research for this piece. Was the documentary her husband made about Adrian, and it's on HBO max right now. And I beg all of you, please go watch it. Adrian really was a special person, and it's a wonderful documentary. You get to see a lot of Sophie, you know, Sophie's a young woman now, right? And she is definitely a combination of both her parents and. It's so moving to see Sophie talk about what it was like to grow up without Adrian, and it does give you a sense of satisfaction that you know that Andy stepped up and gave Sophie such a wonderful, stable life, but what it could have been, sure if Adrian. Was allowed to raise her and I thought about it all last night. What she probably would be doing today if she was still alive. Right. Yeah, I'm very suspicious of Diego and his story in the sense of he portrayed it as a man out of control. Oh, Diego got 25 years, by the way. I was gonna say. Yeah. Hopefully it's worse than 25. Five. Yeah, he got 25 years. And Andy says that at the time they thought of that as a victory, but Adrian died at 40 and he'll get out at 45. Yeah, doesn't seem fair. That doesn't work. Now the thing about Diego, you know, portraying himself as a man that just lost control, but. I wouldn't think of Nana in making it look like suicide. I know it's one thing to black out and kill someone, but then you're calm or or panicked and you can figure out how to make it look like a suicide. Isn't that sophisticated? When you finally said. He got caught doing something and then panicked Yes. And killed her. Yes. I think that made sense. Uh, not up to that point. Yes. Agree in, in the way of describing what had happened. It doesn't make sense, of course they ever do anything like that, but the point is I can see where that was. Now the, the next part, the only thing I. Add to this is that if you are a person who, this is now a regular part of your living Yes. This horrible thing of, of stealing while you do this other job, you are going to play in your mind what the possible side of this would be. You're gonna have this thing in your mind of saying, if I get caught, I'm going to, and you'll have a little list and Oh, you're right. And I think that was part of his. Makeup at that time, which is hideous in every way. Yeah. But I see him saying, if I have to, I'll, I'll kill somebody. And, and how would I get rid of the body? Well, that makes sense to me. Yeah. He's, uh, he need, it's all about escaping. This guy's life is all about escaping. He's left, whatever, right. Country. And he's, he's here and he's got this gig and it's not covering enough. And he's got all this. Pressure about sending money back and being a hero to his mother and his family. And he says, well, you know, I'm smarter than everybody else, but if anything would happen, you know, I think you, you're my clients. I think it, I think you got it. Yeah. In the documentary and confronts Diego and really I, yeah, he goes, that goes to the prison on camera. I have to watch this now. And Yes. And I was going to talk about that. In this podcast, it's so powerful and such a moving scene. No, go watch it. Yeah, go watch it. Admire Andy. Uh. I look forward to hearing what he has to say. Yeah. I, I really admire the man when you see what a great young lady Sophie is, and when you see him have the wherewithal, the guts, the fortitude to go and talk to this man. He wrote him a letter first and he said, look, I'm not going to attack you. Uh, I have to know what happened that day. Yeah. So powerful. Sure. And, and I think our audience should view it on their own. But when something like that happens, it opens the door. For pain for the people that are left behind. This is the 16th anniversary of Adrian Shelley's death. It will continue with her daughter Sophie. Gone and never forgotten. Yes. That's a wrap for the Writer's hangout. Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, like, and thrive till we get to hang out again. Keep writing. The world needs your stories. The Writers Hangout is sponsored by the Page, international Screenwriting Awards executive producer Kristin Verne, producers Terry Sampson and Sandy Adamis. Music by Ethan Stoller.