RIFLE RANGE BOY: FBI, KGB, SAVAK, Stasi, SB, what's the difference?

Seberg (2019)
Director: Benedict Andrews

Heard on a conspiracy theory podcast about a certain American actress from the New Wave of French cinema who was the talk of the tabloids in the 60s. She started her career in Hollywood on a few big productions, but did not do very well. She was offered a role in Breathless (1960) in France and became a sensation. She shuttled between Europe and the US, did a few memorable movies, and is also remembered for her many affairs with co-stars, including Clint Eastwood and Warren Beatty.

All her troubles with the FBI started at the height of her career in the late 1960s when she became sympathetic to the civil rights and anti-war movements. She was a generous contributor to the Black Panther Party's (BPP) coffers. Seberg was having an affair with Jamal Hakimi, a member of the BPP. Both were married to others at the time. The FBI was busy setting up surveillance and phone tapping on them.

Somewhere along the way, in 1970, Serberg became pregnant, and the FBI came to know about it. At a time when interracial relationships were frowned upon and would hurt an actress' career, the FBI clandestinely leaked the news to Newsweek and rumoured that her baby was coloured. Serberg had a mental breakdown and a subsequent premature delivery. The baby girl died on day 2 of life. To prove everyone wrong, the funeral was conducted with an open casket to prove that the baby was as white as white can be.

Funny that the FBI allegedly continued surveillance even into the late 70s. Her paranoia and suicidal thoughts also continued. She made many unwise decisions, too, like marrying an Algerian man ten years her junior, who may have squandered her money to invest in a restaurant business that never saw daylight.

One evening in 1979, her husband reported her missing. Nine days later, her decomposed body was found in her car, parked not far from her apartment. Police were perplexed that they had not found the car earlier, even though they had been extensively combing that very area. Postmortem results suggested that her alcohol levels were too high, suggesting that it could have been given parenterally, raising suspicion that it could have been an unnatural death.

Declassified FBI documents admitted their hand in the fabrication of false information about her pregnancy and their surveillance. The whole story, however, is not in the open.