113: The Kidnapping of Patty Hearst; Or, When Theater Kids Go Too Far

Feb 20 2024 • 1 hr

Happy Birthday, dear Patty, haaaappy birthday to you! Who's Patty, you ask? Why, Patty Hearst, of course! Today not only happens to be Ms. Hearst's birthday, it's also the 50th anniversary of the year she was kidnapped by, and then apparently joined with, a far left domestic terrorist organization. How did that all go down? Guess you'll have to listen to find out...

Rob teaches Ray and Daniel about Patty (sorry, Patricia) Hearst's relatively mundane upbringing as an heir to the Hearst journalism fortune; the rise of the Symbionese Liberation Army (most of whom got their start in drama school - yes and motherf*&^ers!); how her status as the granddaughter of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst marked her as a target for the SLA; her tramautic experiences at the hands of the SLA; how Patty's transformation into "Tania" and her seeming cooperation with the SLA shocked the world; the biggest shootout in American history; and the controversial question that continues to surround the aftermath of her kidnapping: did Patty really become a terrorist, or was it a case of Stockholm Syndrome gone horribly awry?

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