Comatose Heiress Sunny von Bülow Dies
After spending 28 years in a coma, heiress Sunny von Bülow, 76, has died, according to the NYT. She was first discovered unconscious on the floor of her Newport, R.I., mansion in 1980, and her husband Claus von Bulow was convicted, but later acquitted, of attempting to murder her with an insulin injection. With characters like "Prince Alexander von Auersperg" (Sunny's son who pushed for Claus' prosecution) and "Maria Schrallhammer" (Sunny's maid), the Dynasty-like tale generated a media frenzy and served as the basis for the Jeremy Irons-Glenn Close film Reversal of Fortune.
Though it's largely forgotten today, the case also served as something of a prequel for the O,J. Simpson legal-media collaboration of the 1990s. Alan Dershowitz (whose book served as the basis of the film) represented Claus in his appeal, while Dominick Dunne wrote extensively on the case, such as his 1985 Vanity Fair story, "Fatal Charm: The Social Web of Claus von Bülow." As for Claus, he's now 82 and living in London, according to a Daily News report last year, enjoying life: "I go to Covent Garden [an opera house], I go to music festivals, I go to Paris."