As the possible murder of Brittany Murphy in 2009 begins to spark interest again in the wake of a documentary called Brittany Murphy: An ID Mystery (ID being an abbreviation for Investigation Discovery), one can’t help but lament its rather low-budget nature, something of a trashier version of an E! True Hollywood Story (with a similarly short length to match). In certain respects, however, there are moments when it recalls the style of Asif Kapadia’s 2015 documentary, Amy, told entirely in home video clips and voiceovers/talking head narration to sculpt the life and demise of Winehouse. And one wonders if the mystery surrounding Murphy’s death might have been better served by this level of attention to detail and subtler style of storytelling.
Though that isn’t to say there isn’t some adequate use of archival footage to paint a portrait of Murphy’s life. The exposé opens with Murphy’s husband, Simon Monjack, remarking in an interview (one of many he seemed happy to take after her death), “Hollywood is a village, and once you upset the villagers, they talk. And they gossip and they rumor. And they have blood on their hands. And I hope they wash them with very hot water. Because the way they treated Brittany Murphy when she was alive was terrible.” The “ID Mystery” then cuts to a home video style clip of Murphy interviewing people in a mall while in middle school, though it’s unclear for what purpose or why (though at some point a man offscreen asks, “Would you want a job hosting television?”)… just one of many shrugging aspects when it comes to detail-orientedness in this documentary. Though, at the very least, they managed to involve Murphy’s father, Angelo Bertolotti (who has since died in early 2019), an ex-mafioso who, clearly, in his profession, knew how to sniff out a killer–declaring the culprit behind Brittany’s poisoning to be her mother.
As one rando commentator on the matter describes, “Angelo had a shady background, he was in the mob… He met Sharon and hired her to work in one of his clubs” (something about it all smacks of the Michael and Dina Lohan variety). That was in Florida, before “Angelo’s flashy ways” no longer interested Sharon (which likely meant when the cash stopped flowing and he started going to jail, she bolted). So she picked up and left with her only child for Edison, New Jersey where Sharon took a job “in advertising.” Usually the first sign someone is willing to sign a contract with the devil.
Among other “crime journalists” commenting on Murphy’s path to Hollywood, the British Bryn Hammond describes Sharon as “Brittany’s pillar,” more like a sister than a mother–this, too, forewarns of an inevitable betrayal stemming from the inherent competitiveness and jealousy of such a dynamic, with Brittany soon transforming into the mother figure once they moved to Los Angeles and she started making money off her acting. Most notably, obviously, with 1995’s landmark teen movie, Clueless.
After reading a script from Monjack based on the book The White Hotel, Murphy met with him to discuss it. Glamored by his “English charm”–somehow masking his bullfrog appearance that Brittany presumed kissing would render him as a prince–she perhaps took his one viable movie credit–2006’s Factory Girl–to heart the same way everyone else did. Not knowing that the “writer” had only secured a credit on the film out of placation from the filmmakers when he kept claiming they had stolen his script idea. To avoid a frivolous lawsuit, they gave him what he wanted, not knowing how effective it would be in cultivating his ability to mitigate the fact that he was an impostor.
One who liked his high-intensity prescription drugs–a love of which he instilled within his new wife, who died of a toxic cocktail of hydrocodone, acetaminophen, L-methamphetamine and chlorpheniramine, resulting in cardiac arrest. Her causes of death were subsequently listed as severe anemia and acute pneumonia–occurring just before Christmas on December 20, 2009 (proving, once again, that pop culture died in 2009, as a certain Instagram account is named). Murphy’s career had already been dwindling since early 2006, with Sin City being her last major studio movie in 2005. Many posited that it was no coincidence her acting roles started to fade away as much as her body when Simon entered the picture, as many stated he was extremely controlling about who she could talk to and what parts she could take. It didn’t help that her once unblemished reputation took a turn for the Lindsay Lohan, as many directors found her unreliable and disoriented, reflected in her performance and difficulty remembering lines (all side effects of her new RX-dependent lifestyle). Thus, the films she appeared in toward the end of her life were either “indie” or full-stop direct-to-video, starring in one ominously titled The Dead Girl (though that is a fantastic and underrated film that one should watch if they have the stomach).
Monjack’s mother, Linda Hall (whose occupation is, tellingly, a hypnotherapist–perhaps where Monjack got some of his own skills in the art from), is also interviewed in the documentary, insisting his love for Brittany was pure, non-malicious. She being proof that “a mother’s love” can never see things objectively as she dismisses any reports of Simon being an opportunist and a phony. With Simon and Sharon both banding together to rally against an autopsy of Brittany’s body, the two appeared like a grim sideshow on Larry King to defend themselves against rumors of foul play. Simon did little in the way of damage control as he described, “To us, it was such a shock–this pristine body that was curvy in all the right places, her skin like silk–how could I say in front of her mother, ‘Cut her up’?” It was one of the skeeviest examples of Simon’s nature ever broadcast. Though there was soon after another instance of his tastelessness as he invited gossip rag, Radar, into Murphy’s home–the one he was still leeching on, along with Sharon–to show them the infamous bathroom where it happened, along with riffling through her clothes and generally acting like the whole thing was an episode of “lifestyles of the rich and dead.”
A sinister image of Simon and Sharon holding up a framed still of Murphy pictured as a sort of coked up glamor doll lends an eerie iteration throughout the doc: these two were puppeteering Murphy for their own sick, disingenuous purposes–and she wrongly trusted them with her life and well-being. Her father, on the other hand, was desperate to find out what the hell really happened, managing to get a sample of her hair tested in 2013 that revealed the possibility of deliberate heavy metal poisoning, with high levels of barium and antimony, among many other chemical elements.
When Simon, too, died almost five months to the date of Brittany’s death on May 23, 2010–of the exact same cause as his wife–suspicions of foul play were stoked anew. So it is that the question is left: what would be Sharon’s motive in poisoning both her daughter and her son-in-law (who, by this time, in the documentary, is sharing his wife’s bed with her as he enjoys prescriptions in the name of Sharon “Monjack”)? Some have stated she didn’t like the idea that Simon wanted to move to New York with Brittany, leaving Sharon behind as they started a family. Furthermore, Simon was quick to drain his wife’s accounts and tell Sharon to vacate the house (despite the fact that she was his bedfellow)–something she likely didn’t take kindly to.
As Angelo continued to try to sue L.A. County for the rights to exhume his daughter’s body for an autopsy–something Sharon, in the powers conveniently left behind to her in Brittany’s Last Will, repeatedly refused to consent to–the corpse decomposed beyond a state of serving any longer as a gateway to viable evidence about what might have actually transpired.
It all has the insane drama of a Lifetime movie, but as it is said, there is no fiction stranger than the truth. Ultimately, however, that is precisely how the documentary comes across: as a wannabe Lifetime movie (and so would Amy Winehouse’s own story, without the filmmaker striking the right note). And once again, Murphy deserved better than that for a story as delicate and arcane as this one. Granted, it seems that any documentary that tells her story would be unable to ever categorically inform us what tales of ill repute were happening in that Hollywood Hills House of Horrors–which, incidentally, was previously owned by Britney Spears. When Sharon later tried to pin their deaths on toxic mold after previously writing the theory off as ridiculous, one almost wonders if living there was part of what made Brit Brit go crazy in 2007.
