![]() “She replied, ‘Well Rob, I had this really nifty idea. “I asked her why she thought she needed a gun,” he told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune soon after the incident. Hall) in Christine.Įight days before her death, Chubbuck told Rob Smith, a news reporter at the station, she had purchased a gun. “You’re not always the most approachable person,” Chubbuck is told by Ryan (Michael C. It’s also suggested that, as she approached her 30th birthday, her lack of personal relationships, a secret crush on her co-anchor George Ryan and the fact she was still a virgin led to further depression. Rebecca Hall as Chubbuck in Antonio Campos’ film Christine. While some said Chubbuck didn’t seem to be experiencing mental health issues, her mother revealed she had suffered from depression, suicidal tendencies and had been under psychiatric care. But the crux of the situation was that she was a 29-year-old who wanted to be married and who wasn’t.” “We had just been through a particularly violent week, with a kidnapping-and-hostage situation, a shootout between some cops and someone else, and these had bumped a couple of her feature stories. “That incident didn’t happen because of our editorial policy,” he told the Ocala Star-Banner in 1977, three years after her death. ![]() As her final words suggest, it’s said she “detested” what TV news had spiralled into: a medium that exploited blood to pull in viewers.īut the station’s news director, Mike Simmons, disagreed that was enough to motivate the reporter to do what she did. Police gave Chubbuck’s family the only copy of the tape and they destroyed it.Īt the time of her death, and in the years since, reports have described a conflicted woman. ![]() Unlike modern times where off-script moments, no matter how tragic, can be captured and posted online by thousands of users, this footage is impossible to come across. It’s also claimed that an operator in the control room dumped the footage before it aired and instead cut to black before viewers could see Chubbuck open fire. Newspapers at the time describe Chubbuck slumping forward, striking her head on the desk and falling to the floor before cameras cut to black. There are conflicting reports about what happened next. “I think it was a culmination of a lot of things,” her brother, Tim Chubbuck told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune at the time. While both will try to shed light on her motivations, why Chubbuck’s life ended the way it did has never been clear-cut. The documentary Kate Plays Christine follows actress Kate Lyn Sheil as she prepares to play the role of Chubbuck in a film. The struggles the Florida TV news reporter was facing and her motivations for shooting herself that morning in 1974 will be the focus of two new films at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.Īntonio Campos’ Christine, starring Rebecca Hall, follows the final days of Chubbuck’s life and is getting high praise from critics. More than 40 years later Chubbuck’s story continues to fascinate. She was rushed to hospital in a critical condition and died. Live on-air, her large, hollow eyes staring down the barrel of a TV camera, Christine Chubbuck said these words before holding a gun to her head and shooting herself. “IN KEEPING with Channel 40’s policy of bringing you the latest in blood and guts and in living colour, you are going to see another first - attempted suicide.”
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