Ann Prentiss

[ichabodius]

http://westernboothill.blogspot.com/...-prentiss.html


Actress Ann Prentis died on January 12, 2010 in California. She was born Ann Elizabeth Ragusa on November 27, 1939 in San Antonio, Texas. She was the younger sister of actress Paula Prentiss. Ann appeared appeared in small in films and television from the 1960s to the 1980s. Her best known role as Carter Nash's girlfriend Sgt. Candy Kane in the TV series “Captain Nice”. Prentiss continued acting in the early 1990s and provided the voice of an alien species in the comedy “My Mother is an Alien” co-starring Kim Basinger and Dan Aykroyd. She is sometimes credited as Anne Prentiss. In 1997 Prentis was convicted in a Santa Monica, California court of making terrorist threats, assaults with a firearm, battery and solicitation to commit murder of her brother-in-law Richard Benjamin and her father. She was sentenced to 19 years in jail. Ann Prentis died in prison on January 12, 2010.

[Guest]

I want to know WHY she tried to kill her bro in law and her father...the wiki doesn't say WHY???

[growl]

Wow I never heard that one. I want to know why too! Holy Smokes!!!! I'll bet she was mentally impaired in some way. (but then, aren't we all?)

[Buttercup]

WTH? I have never heard this story about Ann. Wow!

[havoc]

Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss

.

[Desert Ghost]

How did we miss this story until now? I'm skimming the net to see if a motive and/or some details are out there but haven't found anything else yet.

[Buttercup]

How did we miss this story until now? I'm skimming the net to see if a motive and/or some details are out there but haven't found anything else yet.

I know. They only small detail I found is that Ann assaulted her 86 year old father plus made "terrorist threats" and solictation to commit murder of Richard Benjamin and her dad which she was convicted. I heard when she died, but for some reason I had no clue that she was in prison.

[Nicki]

Am I wrong? Doesn't just about every family have one major messed up nut case somewhere in it? Mine was a cousin. Sounds like Ann was Benjamins and Paula's Nut job!

[NewYorkDoll]

Sisterly Menace: Deceased Artiste Ann Prentiss



Sometimes an obit’s juiciest, strangest details are contained at the end. For instance, I was referred this week (by friend M. Faust) to the mini-bio/obit that is circulating around the Net for actress Ann Prentiss, who is best known for three things: being Paula Prentiss’s younger sister; being one of the female leads in Altman’s terrific California Split; and starring in the short-lived but well-remembered superhero sitcom Captain Nice.

She was born Ann Ragusa and had pretty regular TV work in the Sixties, plus bit parts in a few other films. What is most amazing about reading her bios and obits, though, is that she died on January 12th of this year in prison at the age of 69, serving a 19-year sentence for having solicited the murder of her father and her brother-in-law, Richard Benjamin. The conviction was also for “making terrorist threats, assault with a firearm, and battery.” I’m not sure which family member she battered, but this is quite a surprise, as Benjamin and Paula Prentiss have had one of Hollywood’s longer-lasting, quieter marriages over the past few decades. Ann was apparently not the shy, retiring type.

Ann P. is good in California Split (on the right), but she seemingly never quite clicked in Hollywood, perhaps because she looked and acted much like her older sister. I’ve liked Benjamin and Paula P. since my childhood viewings of He and She and Quark. His subsequent career as a director has been very spotty (some titles, after the entertaining My Favorite Year and Racing With the Moon: My Stepmother is an Alien, Mermaids, and Marci X); of course, no matter how really bad his movies have gotten, nobody deserves an armed assault on their ass.

This case certainly didn’t have the “sex appeal” of Lindsay Lohan serving a shortened sentence for a drunk-driving offense, but you’d think Ann’s arrest might’ve been given a little bit of tabloid press at some point. I guess the readers of the Enquirer and TMZ don’t remember The Stepford Wives or Goodbye, Columbus — never mind a critical hit/box-office flop like California Split….

[TIMB1967]

I wonder if she and her sister were close since she didn't threaten her sister with a firearm or solicit anyone to murder her. Family: you gotta love them.

[StudioJoe]

Family: you gotta love them.

That's the problem: if you're in a dead-end marriage, at least there's the prospect and hope of divorce to extricate yourself (physically if not financially). But you can never divorce a psycho family member, you're stuck with them for life, or until someone puts them in the pokey.

[VeuveClicquotNJ]

I just checked Paula's IMDb entry.

From 1983 - 1992 - bupkus

From 1992 - 1996 - 3 roles

From 1996 - bupkus again till 2007.

Richard Benjamin has worked steadily. They have 2 children, which could possibly explain the 1983 - 1992 lull (not sure...kids ages are unknown to me). I would guess that the 1996 - 2007 gap has everything to do with her sister.



VCNJ~

[philbert_wormly]

I have been really curious about the late Ann Prentiss.

Here is what little I know...

She passed on in January in prison and then someone online started writing of her death a goodly while later.

On the SSDI web site it totally reads as though she passed on in prison. It reads that her last residence is "California" and there is not a "last benefit" listed. I learned that through some google group of some sort.

On the web site for the Appellate Courts of California, her case is listed and all of that, but I cannot find out anything past that at all. Her full legal name and date of birth is on it and everything and the years match up with regards to when she was busted. I did all of that my own self just out of curiosity.

What intrigues the dickens out of me are two things...

What the shucks happened to her just like in general?

Why is there not a proper obituary in a newspaper or something?

...I am not quite morbid enough to even think of searching for a death certificate. But, still! There is hardly anything online about this poor gal. Sorry for sounding like an oddball.

Edited to add:

I found a rather recent Paula Prentiss audio interview from 9 mar 11. The gentleman doing the interview refers to the late Ann Prentiss twice. But, he never says (for example) "...your late sister" or anything like that at all.

http://www.thisisnextgen.com/profile...paula-prentiss

Still really curious about all of this for whatever reason.

[franzduff]

That's the problem: if you're in a dead-end marriage, at least there's the prospect and hope of divorce to extricate yourself (physically if not financially). But you can never divorce a psycho family member, you're stuck with them for life, or until someone puts them in the pokey.

Ann was not a psycho. She was disturbed yes, but she was a victim of severe childhood abuse. Her psyche was literally split in half. The very family members she was accused of contriving to kill, she also loved passionately. She was back and forth. She needed mental health care not prison. That is the tragedy in this country our prisons are full of the mentally ill. I know I was in the room with Ann when she died. I myself was incarcerated because of aberrant behavior brought about by the prescription of psych meds. It was not the offence that landed me in the toughest women's prison in the state, it was my failure to appear for a county jail sentence of 31 days. Neither I nor Ann deserved the harsh punishment that was meted out. How I wish she could have been reunited with her beloved sister.

[Dangitbawb]

Gotta say, I'm in absolute shock! I originally thought of Paula when I first saw the obit, and relieved to learn it wasn't her. I had no idea she had a sister, and even more shocked about the crimes she was convicted of. Wow, 19 year sentence, with no priors? Seems like she needed psychriatic treatment more than incarceration, what a horrible way to live out your remaining years. Wish we knew more about this story, it's my first time hearing of this...

[philbert_wormly]

Ann was not a psycho. She was disturbed yes, but she was a victim of severe childhood abuse. Her psyche was literally split in half. The very family members she was accused of contriving to kill, she also loved passionately. She was back and forth. She needed mental health care not prison. That is the tragedy in this country our prisons are full of the mentally ill. I know I was in the room with Ann when she died. I myself was incarcerated because of aberrant behavior brought about by the prescription of psych meds. It was not the offence that landed me in the toughest women's prison in the state, it was my failure to appear for a county jail sentence of 31 days. Neither I nor Ann deserved the harsh punishment that was meted out. How I wish she could have been reunited with her beloved sister.

Please feel free to share Ann's full story in due time, dear.

Welcome to the boards of Find A Death.

[Jerseysucks]

It is a pretty cool story. Why do certain actresses go bat shit? Margot Kidder? Anne Heche? Sean Young?

[mrtibbs1]

I just saw Ann on an episode of "Emergency" and she stood out so much I looked her up. She really looked like her sister, she was lovely. I'm not in CA but if someone was inclined to do so the record should be public on the case including the testimony. It sounds like she was disturbed, and perhaps her family was scared enough that they didn't see any other way to handle this but through the courts or even worse maybe the police uncovered this and they had no idea. If she went so far as the hire or solicit someone to kill her father and Bro in law that is a criminal offense and perhaps the family didn't have any control regarding whether she was put in prison or an asylum. I read her sister had a nevous breakdown in the 1960s and was unable to work for years, maybe the family is predisposed to such problems.

[Mansfield67]

I was just watching Paula in The World Of Henry Orient ! I knew of her sister, but I had no idea that she had died and in prison ! How sad.