Patty Hearst (1988)
- Starring:
- Natasha Richardson, William Forsythe, (more)
- Director(s):
- Paul Schrader
- Theatrical MPAA Rating:
- R
Synopsis of Patty Hearst
A newspaper heiress is kidnapped, brainwashed, and forced to join a group of terrorist bank robbers in this docudrama, based on the saga of Patricia Hearst. In 1974, Hearst (Natasha Richardson), the granddaughter of publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst, was a student at the University of California. On February 4, members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, a radical political group, broke into the Berkeley home she shared with her boyfriend and kidnapped her. Hearst then allegedly spent 57 days locked in a closet as she was indoctrinated into the group's revolutionary beliefs by their charismatic leader, Cinque (Ving Rhames). Eventually, Hearst joined (or at least pretended to join) the SLA, adopted the name Tania and participated in a number of high-profile bank robberies. After several SLA members died in a police fire storm, Hearst and fellow members Bill and Emily Harris (William Forsythe and Frances Fisher) went on the lam and were later arrested. Although she claimed her participation in the group was a ruse carried out to protect herself from further rape, torture, and mind control, Hearst eventually served several years in prison after her 1976 conviction for bank robbery. Based on the novel Every Secret Thing, Hearst's own account of the events, Paul Schrader's film tells the story from the heiress' own viewpoint, with little in the way of conflicting evidence. After President Carter ordered her release from prison in 1979, Hearst went on to act in several films, including Cecil B. Demented, a John Waters spoof whose plot bears some resemblance to her own life story. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi
Complete Cast of Patty Hearst
- Natasha Richardson - Patricia Hearst
- Ving Rhames - Cinque
- Jodi Long - Wendy Yoshimura
- Dana Delany - Celina
- Kitty Swink - Gobi
- Tom O'Rourke - Jim Browning
- Ermal Williamson - Randolph A. Hearst
- Hawthorne James - Tall Muslim
- Jeanne McGuire - Booking Officer
- Anne Marie Gillis - Juror Wentz
- John Petievich - Policeman
- Thomas Wagner - Juror Wright
- Maurice Hill - Judge Carter
- Steven Anderson - Psychiatrist #5
- Pam Rack
- Moss Porter - FBI Man #1
- Jeff Allin - Assistant D.A.
- Byron Clark - Psychiatrist #2
- James Bershad - 2nd Male
- William Forsythe - Toko
- Frances Fisher - Yolanda
- Olivia Barash - Fahizah
- Marek Johnson - Zoya
- Pete Kowanko - Cujo
- Scott Kraft - Steven Weed
- John Achorn - Al Johnson
- Nora Meerbaum - Psychiatrist #3
- Mayah McCoy - Girl #3
- Ron Boyd - FBI Man #2
- Jeff Imada - Neighbor
- Marta Kober - 2nd Female
- Marc Siegler - Charles Gould
- Carey Fox - Hippie
- Jack Slater - Psychiatrist #1
- Gerald Gordon - F. Lee Bailey
- Erich Anderson - 1st Male
- Robert Dickman - Doctor
- Bradford Bancroft - 3rd Male
- Director(s):
- Paul Schrader
- Writer(s):
- Nicholas Kazan, Paul Schrader
- Producer(s):
- Marvin Worth, James D. Brubaker, Thomas Coleman
- Theatrical MPAA Rating:
- R(Not For Children, Nudity, Profanity, Strong Sexual Content, Adult Language, Violence, Adult Situations)
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