Death of '70s Playmate Star Stowe
Frank
DONNA PAZDERA, "STAR'S FALL A DARK TALE AFTER WORLD OF GLAMOUR,"
Sun-Sentinel [Fort Lauderdale, FL](March 23, 1997):1B.
She called herself Star, and for a while, she lived like one:
girlfriend to rocker Gene Simmons of KISS, partying with Elton John
and posing in a G-string with a Rickenbacker guitar for the February
1977 centerfold of Playboy.
But Star fell far from the world of celebrities and glamour and
into one of drugs, alcohol and prostitution.
On March 16, the fall of Ellen Louise "Star" Stowe, 40, ended when
some boys found her half-naked body in bushes behind a Coral Springs
Eckerd store. She had been strangled, possibly by the same man who
strangled and discarded the body of another prostitute three weeks
earlier.
"She had a problem ... she couldn't cope with her life," said a
former boyfriend of Stowe, who asked not to be identified. "But there
was more to this woman than meets the eye."
Detectives think there is an uncanny similarity between Stowe's
death and the killing of Sandra Kay Walters, 32, of Fort Lauderdale.
Walters had a history of drugs and prostitution and had physical
features similar to Stowe's. Police think Walters was picked up by a
customer in Fort Lauderdale on Feb. 25, strangled and left, naked,
behind a Palm Beach County adult movie theater.
Though there are parallels, police say they have no solid leads in
the deaths.
Stowe, who was 5 feet 6 inches tall, dark-eyed with honey-colored
hair, grew up in Little Rock, Ark., with ambitions of being a dancer.
When she was a teen-ager, she moved to Las Vegas and later Los
Angeles.
Friends say she was discovered by Playboy while dancing at an adult
club in Los Angeles.
She got her nickname when she couldn't get into a nightclub because
she was a minor. The man she was with quoted the title of the Rolling
Stones' song: "Star, Star, can't get in the door."From there, the name
stuck.
"Some people think it's egotistical to call myself Star," she told
Playboy 20 years ago. "But it's not in the Hollywood sense at
all."Instead, it was about her love of stars that glitter in the sky,
she said.
She also was drawn to rock stars.
She met Simmons, the lizard-tongued bassist for the heavy-metal
band KISS, at the elevators of Las Vegas' Hotel Sahara, where the
group was playing. Simmons wasn't wearing his trademark shocking-white
face paint and black bat wings around his eyes. But Stowe told Playboy
that she liked his laid-back manner so much that she hung around with
the band for a while.
For her Playboy spread, titled "Star-Struck," Stowe looked like an
innocent teen-ager. Aside from the requisite nearly nude shots, there
were photos of her with KISS and at a party Hugh Hefner threw for
Elton John.
Life after Playboy wasn't good for Stowe. It isn't clear what
happened, but the fling with Simmons was short-lived.
Sometime after 1977, Stowe met and married Peter Maligo. They had a
son, Michael Maligo, now 14, and later divorced.
Stowe moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1986 with hopes of becoming a
dancer at an adult club such as Pure Platinum or Solid Gold, her
ex-boyfriend said.
When Michael was 6, Stowe sent the boy to live with his grandmother
in Little Rock, but stayed in touch through frequent visits and weekly
telephone calls.
"It was like talking to your best friend," Michael said. "I thought
she was so cool. I really enjoyed being around her."
Michael's fondest memories of his mother are of playing board and
video games with her and eating the beef stir-fry she made.
Stowe's hopes of becoming a dancer didn't work out, and eventually
her life spiraled into an abyss of drugs and prostitution, said her
former boyfriend, who met Stowe in 1991. She told him she was ready to
give up drugs and walking the streets.
He told her he'd provide for her, so she wouldn't have to sell her
body anymore.
During the five years they were together, Stowe's criminal record
stayed clean. She cared for the couple's animals, cleaned house and
tended to their garden.
They split up in August after what he described to be a drunken
argument. She ended up with a nasty bump on her head. He never saw her
again.
But, through friends, he heard that she was back on the streets,
selling herself, doing drugs and drinking.
Stowe's path isn't particularly unusual for a former centerfold,
said Bill Farley, director of communications for Playboy Enterprises
in Los Angeles.
"Some girls take advantage of the lifestyle, but others drift off,"
Farley said. "They marry badly or get involved with the wrong man."
The last time Michael talked to his mother was almost two weeks
ago. While he was aware of her lifestyle, they did not discuss it
much. Instead, she told him about some new bands she'd heard and how
she liked the new Nine Inch Nails album.
She last was seen in her old neighborhood, working the streets. It
was between 3 and 5 p.m. March 16. Police think she was picked up,
killed and dumped sometime after that.
When Playboy's Farley heard the news about the former centerfold,
he said, "God, that's so sad."