While collaborating as an independent producer and writer with Treefort Media (a podcast-first media company whose clients include I worked on several projects. Two of my favorites included a USA Network TV mini-documentary and three podcast episodes for LA Times Studios. These were related to the reboot of the Betty Broderick Story — part of Dirty John, USA Network’s anthology true crime series. It felt like an interesting turn of events many years after my father handled certain aspects of that case as a judge in San Diego.
If you don’t remember the details, Dan Broderick, a medical malpractice attorney in La Jolla, CA, left his wife, Betty, for Linda Kolkena, a younger woman with whom he was having an affair. They married soon after Dan and Betty’s divorce. And no, the story does not end there.
On November 5, 1989, Betty broke into their house and fatally shot them both while they were sleeping. She was convicted and incarcerated, where she has remained ever since. Denied parole in 2010 and 2017, she will not be eligible again until 2032 — at 84 years old. In a bizarre twist, she seems to have found an identity as some sort of heroine for women who experienced something similar. Even though Betty murdered two people. But the weird prison fan-following thing is another discussion.
The first TV movie, A Woman Scorned: The Betty Broderick Story, aired in 1992 and featured Meredith Baxter and Stephen Collins. Meredith Baxter was not long out of Family Ties, so it received a lot of attention.
The Dirty John franchise remade it as a limited series featuring featuring Amanda Peet as Betty and Christian Slater as Dan. The actors did a magnificent job — nuanced portrayals of complex people in a difficult marriage, keeping us glued to the screen even when we knew the outcome.
Credit: IMDB
Since I was fortunate enough to interview Christian and Amanda, I can also tell you how gracious and humble (and ATTRACTIVE) they are. Some day I’ll share more about how long Christian Slater spent trying to help us properly transfer the audio after the COVID-safe interview. It took forever. He was such a good guy.
Amanda Peet currently plays Beth Galagher in the Fatal Attraction series. But did you know she also wrote and created The Chair on Netflix? It’s an intellectually entertaining series about the chair of a university English department — way more fun than it sounds (of course, I could watch something like that for 25 hours straight).
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Back to Betty: In case you want to watch, I co-produced, co-wrote, conducted interviews, and recorded the voice over for the mini-documentary about Betty Broderick that aired on Bravo / USA Network.
Podcasts
It Was Simple: Dirty John Season 2 – I co-produced, co-wrote, conducted interviews, and recorded V.O. for these documentary supplements to the L.A. Times podcast series about Betty Broderick. If you’re interested, please click to listen. Amanda and Christian are featured in Episode 3.
Bonus Episode 1: To understand why the story of Betty Broderick endures, the creative minds behind the series – Executive Producer, Writer and Director Alexandra Cunningham, along with Executive Producer Jessica Rhoades – explain the importance of the cultural climate of the late 1980s and early 1990s, as well as how they approached this complex case so many years later.
Bonus Episode 2: The creators of Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story share their insights on what it took to bring a fresh approach to this enduring story, including the role of female directors in the re-telling the infamous murder. Among the directors whose work shaped the series are Maggie Kiley and Series Director Alexandra Cunningham, who made her directorial debut.
Bonus Episode 3: In this episode, the actors from Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story talk about prepping for their roles – including the challenges of playing Betty Broderick herself, a character brought to life by Amanda Peet alongside Christian Slater.
Working on this project thrust me back into this tragic case, which seems to generate eternal fascination.
Credit: LA Times