Diane Linkletter
Diane Linkletter (
October 31,
1948 -
October 4,
1969) was the daughter and youngest child of popular
American radio and television personality
Art Linkletter. Not widely known to the public before she died in
1969, 20-year-old Diane Linkletter jumped out of a window of her high-rise apartment to her death in
West Hollywood, California. Her death was widely reported in the media at the time, and her father blamed her passing on
LSD. Shortly thereafter, Art Linkletter became a prominent anti-drug campaigner.
There is, however, no proof that Diane Linkletter took LSD on the day she died. All available evidence suggests that she was a despondent woman and that her death was a
suicide rather than a drug-related accident. Still, many people continue to believe, due to the way her death was portrayed in the media, that Diane Linkletter's death was accidental and that she was under the influence of
hallucinogens when she died.
Filmmaker
John Waters made a short film in 1969 entitled
The Diane Linkletter Story, based on the events surrounding her death.
Diane Linkletter and her father won the 1970
Grammy Award for
Best Spoken Word Recording for "A Letter to a Teenager" (also known as "We Love You; Call Collect"), which had been, of course, recorded before Diane died.
*
Snopes.com article on Diane Linkletter's death
