Robert Durst

Wonder Boy: Tony Hsieh, Zappos, and the Myth of Happiness in Silicon Valley
by Angel Au-Yeung and David Jeans
Published 25 Apr 2023

Paris Hilton: Toplikar, Dave, “Paris Hilton Pleads Guilty in Las Vegas Drug Arrest,” Las Vegas Sun, September 20, 2010, https://lasvegassun.com/news/2010/sep/20/paris-hilton-plead-guilty-vegas-drug-arrest/. Bruno Mars: Ritter, Ken, “Bruno Mars Gets Date for Las Vegas Cocaine Plea Deal,” Las Vegas Sun, February 4, 2011, https://lasvegassun.com/news/2011/feb/04/us-bruno-mars-vegas-arrest/. Robert Durst: Bagli, Charles V., “After a 14-Month Delay, Robert Durst’s Murder Trial Returns to Court,” New York Times, May 17, 2021. The next week, Puoy Premsrirut filed: Ferrara, David, “Attorney Seeks $360K in Legal Fees from Tony Hsieh’s Estate,” Las Vegas Review-Journal, February 16, 2021, https://www.reviewjournal.com/crime/courts/attorney-seeks-360k-in-legal-fees-from-tony-hsiehs-estate-2282089/.

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In fact, although Andrew Hsieh moved to Park City, Utah, to live with Tony Hsieh in the calendar year 2020, that is not an indication of a familial bond as he was offered $1,000,000 annual salary in exchange for said move.” Mimi sued the estate and the Hsieh family for $130 million. She hired high-profile Vegas lawyers David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld, whose previous clients included Paris Hilton, Bruno Mars, and Robert Durst. In Mimi’s creditor’s claims to the estate, she stated she was owed $9 million as part of the fees related to managing Park City properties and the documentary film company venture. She sued for anticipated profit from the film company, claiming she was entitled to $75 million. Finally, she and Roberto said they were owed an additional $25 million for “interference with the contract and the prospective economic advantage.”

Pandora's Box: How Guts, Guile, and Greed Upended TV
by Peter Biskind
Published 6 Nov 2023

“I think that the first thirty years of my work life at HBO were manna from heaven,” she recalls. “I gave my heart and soul to my work without anybody stepping on my toes. After Jeff Bewkes left it wasn’t the HBO that I loved anymore. Richard wanted celebrity [documentaries].” She, on the other hand, was making docs on freaks like Robert Durst (she commissioned The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, which aired in 2015). She ordered up Laura Poitras’s award-winning Citizenfour, about Edward Snowden. According to one source, Plepler would say, “How old is she now?” As for Lombardo, she recalls, “He screamed at me. I couldn’t even have a discussion with him.

Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked
by Adam L. Alter
Published 15 Feb 2017

When the site went live again at midnight, hanatheko, Muzorra, and thousands of other users went back to attacking and defending Camp Guilty, Camp Innocent, and Camp Undecided. NPR’s release of Serial heralded a flood of unsolved real-life crime documentaries. In February 2015, HBO released The Jinx, which tracks the life of Robert Durst, a man who was associated with a number of unsolved murders. The day before HBO released the documentary, Durst was arrested for one of those murders—fueled in part by some of writer Andrew Jarecki’s discoveries. Then, in December 2015, Netflix released a ten-part real-life murder documentary called Making a Murderer.

The Devil's Playground: A Century of Pleasure and Profit in Times Square
by James Traub
Published 1 Jan 2004

The body belonged to Morris Black, a drifter who had lived next door to Durst. Evidence pointed to Durst, who had disappeared. After a nationwide manhunt, he was picked up when he stole a chicken salad sandwich from a supermarket in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Amid intense publicity, excruciatingly painful for this retiring family, Robert Durst was indicted for murder. In the trial, held in the fall of 2003, Durst admitted the killing but pled self-defense. To the amazement of many court experts and observers, he was acquitted. However, the investigation into his wife’s disappearance twenty years earlier was reopened, and Durst remained under a very dark cloud.

Nothing Personal: My Secret Life in the Dating App Inferno
by Nancy Jo Sales
Published 17 May 2021

she asked, scrunching up her face. I had to catch my breath. Sheila was the longtime president of HBO Documentary Films. She was one of the most powerful people in documentary filmmaking in the country. She had produced over a thousand documentaries, including Going Clear and The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst. She had won thirty-two Emmys and twenty-six Oscars. She was a legend. She was also known to be tough. My boss Graydon had suggested that I meet with Sheila and show her some of the footage from my American Girls documentary—footage I had been shooting with Daniel and editing with Spencer, footage I’d shown Graydon because somebody at Vanity Fair had told me that I’d better let Graydon know I was working on a documentary which had grown out of a story for the magazine (my 2013 story “Friends Without Benefits”).

It's Not TV: The Spectacular Rise, Revolution, and Future of HBO
by Felix Gillette and John Koblin
Published 1 Nov 2022

“It was not a priority, we came to realize,” Rich says. “The process was sluggish and frustrating.” With the series going nowhere, McKay went off to direct The Big Short, and Armstrong turned his interest elsewhere. In 2015, he enthusiastically consumed The Jinx, HBO’s multipart documentary series about Robert Durst, the accused murderer and bizarre scion of an uberrich New York real estate family. Afterward, Armstrong buried himself in a stack of books about business leaders and media tycoons. He read biographies of Conrad Black, Tiny Rowland, Lord Rothermere, and William Randolph Hearst. He breezed through Disney War by James B.