What REALLY Happened in Herve Villechaize’s Last Moments?

What REALLY Happened in Herve Villechaize’s Last Moments?

Good evening. I am Lou Young. Ralph Penza is off tonight. And I am Perry Peltz. He was best known for his work on Fantasy Island, but in real life, actor Hervey Villechaize was plagued by health problems, legal problems, and significant difficulties finding consistent work. Tonight, Villechaize is dead after apparently committing suicide. I am standing now in the pulpit of the Little Brown Church in the San Fernando Valley on Coldwater Canyon. This little church is non-denominational, and it is always open, which is a rare and truly sweet quality, as most other churches are locked during the daytime. This is where Ronald and Nancy Reagan were married in March of 1952. It is also where, I believe, over 1,200 weddings have been performed. Furthermore, it is the location where a little piece of Tattoo from Fantasy Island—when he died and was cremated—had his small funeral service held as well. It is a cute, quite sweet little church, and it is nice that something like this still exists.

I was about to say this is a nice, quiet street in North Hollywood, California, in the San Fernando Valley, but we are not on a flight path, and it is Friday afternoon, so there is a lot of traffic going on around here. However, I want to show you this house coming up on the left, which was the last home of Hervey Villechaize, who played Tattoo on the TV show Fantasy Island. It was September 4, 1993. Hervey was actually living in this house on the corner when he expired in the backyard. It is a cute little house, and I am surprised that it is still standing. It is located in one of these neighborhoods where they are constantly knocking down houses, yet this one remains. They actually did it in the backyard of this house.

Hervey was born in France in 1943. He was the youngest of four sons and the only one to be born with dwarfism. A talented artist, he came to Los Angeles in 1964 and found work in the arts. He was quite talented as a painter and a photographer. He also acted, and because of his unusual appearance, he occasionally worked as a model. Like a lot of starving actors, he was not doing well and began living in his car, he claimed, while working as a rat catcher’s assistant in South Central Los Angeles. A few TV and movie roles came around, but his first big break happened when he was cast as Nick Nack in the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun, starring Roger Moore.

Roger Moore did not think much of Hervey. Actually, he called him a “maniac for the ladies.” He said he had a lust for the ladies that was unnatural. He claimed that during that filming, he engaged as many as 35 women for hire. Hervey did confide in Roger Moore, telling him that whenever he stayed at a hotel, he could never get a room above the first floor. When Roger Moore asked him why, Hervey said it was because he could not reach the buttons in the elevator. A few TV and film roles followed, including a stint as the legs of Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street whenever they had to show Oscar actually physically moving himself. But his big break—a huge break—was when he was cast in the TV show Fantasy Island.

The show ran from 1977 to 1984, and Hervey was in 132 of its 154 episodes as Tattoo, the assistant to the maestro of the island, Mr. Roarke, played by Ricardo Montalbán. Now, Fantasy Island was filmed on a backlot, of course, but the exterior scenes were filmed at the Los Angeles County Arboretum in Arcadia, California, and at the famous Queen Anne Cottage that was built in 1885. You can still visit the location, and it really is spectacular. If you are feeling particularly adventurous, you can bring along your Fantasy Island board game and play in the shadow of the Queen Anne Cottage.

During the filming, Hervey gained quite a reputation as a ladies’ man. In truth, he would certainly be considered a predator by today’s standards. He regularly hassled female guests, and he was quite difficult with the producers. Eventually, Hervey became quite arrogant and insisted that he be treated the same as Ricardo Montalbán—exactly the same accommodations and exactly the same salary—and people eventually reached their limit with him. Because of the salary dispute, which the producers were never going to concede on, Hervey quit the show. He was replaced during the last season with an actor called Christopher Hewitt, who is best known as Mr. Belvedere.

There were not a whole lot of roles worthy of mention after Fantasy Island ended. He was in a movie called The Forbidden Zone, where he plays a very active king who wants to make moves on anything that moves. During that time, he was in a relationship with the eccentric actress Susan Tyrrell. They were together for two years, apparently, and she was quite a piece of work. There was no one like her, that is for sure. The acting work dried up completely. It got to the point where he was just spoofing the “Tattoo” character from Fantasy Island in television commercials.

His last acting credit was in 1992 on The Ben Stiller Show, where he plays himself and portrays a situation that likely occurred in his daily life. He was married two times, but he was very well known as a womanizer. In 1982, one of his wives sued him for aiming a weapon in her direction. Hervey called the suit “sick, ridiculous, upsetting, and immoral.” There was another incident in 1983 where he got into an argument with someone and demanded that the person leave his house. The guy drove after Hervey Villechaize twice, aiming his car at Hervey and trying to hit him; the actor had to jump out of the way to avoid being struck. Finally, Villechaize pulled an automatic weapon and fired eight times over the vehicle. Clearly, he was not unfamiliar with weapons.

Also, in 1985, Hervey was arrested at the St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank when he walked in smelling of alcohol. His speech was slurred, he was armed with a weapon, and he claimed that someone was after him and that he was receiving threatening phone calls. He was released after posting $1,000 bail. Hervey was plagued with health issues throughout his life. In 1994—or rather, during his later years—he nearly died after a bout with pneumonia. It was really touch-and-go, his agent said at the time, and his agent was genuinely surprised that Hervey made it, but he did.

Because of his bad business decisions, lavish lifestyle, and, frankly, his attitude, these factors contributed to him not getting a whole lot of work in his final years. At his tallest, he was 3 feet 1 inch, and since he was born with dwarfism, he was plagued with persistent health issues. He was continually sick, suffering from breathing issues because his lungs were small and underdeveloped. He had ulcers, gastritis, and a spastic colon. In addition, his heart was enlarged, and his curvature of the spine was worsening. He was also suffering from muscle cramps in his neck and migraines.

He lived in this house with his girlfriend of four years, Kathy Self. A few days before he died, he wrote in a diary: “I’m exhausted. I’m feeling dizzy. I’m getting more depressed. I have a skin rash all over. I’m cramping and I’m out of breath. I’m shaky and weak. I’m fed up with the pain. Medications make me woozy and disoriented most of the time.” Hervey said he never got more than three or four hours of sleep at a time. He said he could not lie down properly because he only had one functioning lung, and he had to set his alarm several times during the night to take his medication.

I had the opportunity to interview Kathy via email a few years ago. The recollections you are going to hear in just a moment are from her directly. On the night that Hervey died, he and Kathy attended a screening of The Fugitive at the Director’s Guild in Hollywood. He and Kathy Self had dinner afterward at a restaurant near their house. When they got home, Kathy went to sleep, and he said he was not coming to bed right away. He said, “You go to bed, Kathy. I have a few things to do.” Kathy went to sleep, and in the meantime, Hervey disabled every phone in the house.

My initial write-up about Hervey was not 100% factual, I suppose. Kathy Self reached out to me and asked if I wanted to ask her any questions. We had an email conversation for quite a while, and she provided me with information. Kathy was a witness to this; it was a horrific event in her life. The person she was in love with was deciding to leave in this way, and she was involved in it. She offered to clarify the details, correct the misinformation, and ensure the truth was known by answering my questions.

Hervey had a tape recorder, and he placed it in a potted plant on the patio. Then he sat on the opposite side of the patio near the back wall, well away from the house. On the recording, there is a huge explosion, the sound of broken glass, and then you can hear him swear. There is about a 10-second pause, and then another shot. Kathy had been asleep, but she was awoken by a shot and glass breaking. She ran out into the patio, though she had trouble seeing because it was dark. Kathy told me, “I believe that he recorded the entire episode to protect me in case the police might think I might be guilty of something.”

Kathy said the recording begins with him going out onto the patio, saying he has pillows in hopes that it will muffle the sound. He says what is on his mind—how he loves everyone and how it is no one’s fault. He tried to hang on, but the pain was just too great. He says that I, meaning Kathy, knew what to do, to let me handle everything, and that he was leaving everything to me. Then he said, “Now I just pull this,” and you hear the shot. He grunts. Then there is a pause, and he says, “Well, I guess I’ll just have to wait.” That is when, on the tape, you hear Kathy come outside screaming and ask him what happened. He says, “It hurts. I’m dying.” And I say, “No, you’re not,” and I go to call the paramedics.

Luckily, Kathy told me he did not remove the batteries from the cell phone, so she was able to use that to call the paramedics. You hear her call 911 on the recording. The operator told her to find the wound and apply pressure to slow the bleeding. She opened his robe and saw the wound. She turned him over and saw that the wound was much bigger on the backside. The paramedics arrived, and before they placed him on the gurney to go to the hospital, he had passed away. He was taken to the emergency room, pronounced dead, and then taken to the medical examiner. It was September 4, 1993, and he was 50 years old.

What you are going to see now are very rare images. I do not think anyone else has ever had these pictures of the inside of the house. In 1999, my friends Terry Rios and Sarah Weathers visited the home. You can see in this photograph that it was a duplex, and Hervey and Kathy were renting the part on the right. The bottom arrow represents the front of the house where the garage is, and the arrow on the very top shows the backyard where that cinder block wall is located. Just by sheer luck, the residents who were renting the home at the time generously allowed them to come inside and take photographs. There are still holes in the kitchen cabinets from the first discharge. Kathy Self confirmed that those are 100% legitimate; this was a few years after Hervey died, so they were still there.

Now, Hervey was on the opposite side of the patio near that brick wall in the back, well away from the house. The first discharge went through the glass patio door, shattering it, and it rattled around the house. My own friend, E.J. Fleming, described it like a BB in a tin can. It went on a trajectory through the kitchen, causing holes that you can see in these cabinets. Thankfully, Kathy was not awake at the time. It passed through these cabinets and ultimately landed in the shower stall of the master bathroom behind the kitchen. That is where Kathy found it. When I corresponded with her, she said she still had that in her possession.

The next day, Kathy found a note that Hervey left on the desk next to an $11 residual check for his appearance on Taxi. It is practically illegible, but in the probate file, they did a pretty good job trying to decipher what he wrote: “I have to do what’s right. At 6 years old, I knew there was no place for me. Please know Kathy has the right of attorney over my health and my belongings belong to Cathy Self, including the right to a script and movie and writings, etc. I love you all too much. It’s one of just of my problems. Mom, my brothers, you didn’t exist to my heart. You never care about only yourselves since 1955. You remember Kathy did her best. You didn’t, so she deserves everything. No one knew my pain for 40 years or more. I have to do it outside. Less mess.”

It looks like at 2:30 a.m. he wrote, “Am scared after I set up everything, phone cut off, etc.” Then at 3:00 a.m. he says, “I can’t miss with a dumb-dumb bullet. Haha. Never one knew my pain for 40 years or more. Have to do it outside. Less mess. Very good. Small in, big out.” I believe that is the wound he is referring to; it goes in as a very small hole and makes a very large hole when it exits. Hervey wanted his body donated to science, so he was transferred to the UCLA Medical Center to a doctor who specialized in dwarfism. There, they removed skin and cartilage samples, which is all they needed. His body was then released to the Neptune Society, where he was cremated. Kathy Self said she scattered 100% of his remains at sea.

There was a funeral for Hervey at the Little Brown Chapel. It was put on, Kathy says, for self-promotion by a wannabe actress whose name I have forgotten. Hervey’s ashes were not in attendance. I had them and dumped 100% into the ocean. Hearing about his death, Ricardo Montalbán released a statement: “I considered his contribution to Fantasy Island as one of the keys to the tremendous success that that show enjoyed.” Over the years, Hervey was involved with several charities—children’s charities, animal charities—and my friend Nick met Hervey once at the Magic Castle in Hollywood, the club that is for magicians and their guests. He was sat next to Hervey at dinner, and he said that Hervey was very passionate about Little People of America, which offers medical care to people who cannot afford it, and he spent a good deal of time talking about it. He also presented Nick with this business card, which Nick then presented to me. So, this is an addition to our archives. Thank you to Nick for doing that.

Lastly, one of my favorite places around the Los Angeles area used to be the Movieland Wax Museum in Buena Park, south of Los Angeles, not too far from Knott’s Berry Farm and Disneyland. Outside, they had sort of a mini kind of Grauman’s Chinese Theater with footprints and handprints of stars who usually came out to dedicate their own wax statue. I was able to take a little tour of that before it was removed. I do not know what happened to Hervey’s footprints, but it is a real shame that they just allowed that to happen.

On that note, I will say thank you to those who subscribe to my Patreon page. If you do not mind, I have a link in the description of the video below. For a couple of bucks a month, I post exclusive content. I usually post videos ahead of time, and I correspond with everyone who is on that page. So, feel free to join my Patreon page. I would be so grateful. Thank you all for watching. I appreciate your time. I appreciate your attention. And never forget.