Two depictions of Christine Chubbuck, in (left) Christine and Kate Plays Christine. It’s estimated that only a few hundred people saw the act when it occurred. Her body slumped down, and the stunned tech operators faded the screen to black. On July 15, 1974, a few weeks before her 30th birthday, Chubbuck did a few minutes of Suncoast Digest before reading a strange statement: “In keeping with Channel 40’s policy of bringing you the latest in blood and guts, and in living color, you are going to see another first: attempted suicide.” She drew a revolver from below the desk, placed it behind her right ear, and pulled the trigger. These details are backed up by other articles written at the time, an E! documentary, and new research done for the Sundance documentary Kate Plays Christine. According to posthumous interviews with those who knew her, she suffered from depression and often clashed with higher-ups at the station because she felt they didn’t take journalism seriously. She hosted a show there called Suncoast Digest, which focused less on news and more on local personalities and events. Chubbuck worked at the news station WXLT-TV - channel 40 on the dial in its native Sarasota - in the early 1970s. The specifics of what happened on that day in 1974 have been more or less established by now, much of them outlined in an exhaustive Washington Post profile by Sally Quinn written just a few weeks after the fact. “I’m really on the fence as to whether I think the tape will ever be found.” “It’s very much seen as a Holy Grail,” says Daniel Wilson, head of the Lost Media Wiki, an encyclopedia of hard-to-find documents and recordings. In a twisted bit of irony, much of Chubbuck’s importance rests in the fact that footage of her public suicide has become one of the most mysterious and sought-after pieces of film in the world. Its scarcity makes it an object of fascination and obsession for those who learn about Chubbuck, and the release of the two Sundance movies is sure to only make it more coveted. There are those who claim they’ve seen it, but they can offer no proof other than hazy memories of an era before streaming video. Many people have attempted to track down a video of Chubbuck’s final moments all of them, it seems, have come up empty-handed. What you won’t find there, however, is footage of Chubbuck’s death. Sites like Ogrish and LiveLeak sprung up to service those audiences, and on them today you can find clips of jihadi beheadings, brutal street murders, or the infamous public suicide of Pennsylvania politician R. At the time of her death, Chubbuck was not by any means a well-known newscaster, so for decades afterward, her legacy - inasmuch as she had one - became defined entirely by her final act.Ĭhubbuck’s story gained a second life in the late 1990s, with the rise of internet subcultures that focus on gruesome, hard-to-find videos. In a bizarre coincidence, this year’s Sundance slate included two different movies - one documentary, the other narrative - about a grisly footnote in the history of American broadcasting: the on-air suicide of 29-year-old Florida morning-show host Christine Chubbuck, who shot herself in the head during a live broadcast in 1974. This article has been updated to incorporate new information about the existence of footage of Christine Chubbuck’s suicide.
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