Claus von Bulow RIP (?)

The infamous Claus von Bulow has died -- the lifelong socialite hustler who married an extremely rich woman and was convicted and then acquited of trying to murder her.

This case was the big society scandal of the 1980s. Von Bulow was accused of trying to poison his wife with insulin which knocked her into a coma (she never actually died but spent decades in this coma). The fact that he was convicted before getting aquitted in a second trial, and the various confusing Rashomon-like nature of the case, fascinated and divided the public -- years before Lorena or OJ or Monica did. 

This case is also famous for what and who it spawned -- namely the 1990 movie Reversal of Fortune that garnered Jeremy Irons a Best Actor Oscar; von Bulow's defense lawyer Alan Dershowitz who got the man off the hook and became a celebrity out of this trial; and two of Dershowitz's Harvard Law School students who helped on von Bulow's defense -- Jim Cramer (yes, that guy!) and former Governor Eliot Spitzer (who himself became infamous).

Compared to later scandals, the von Bulow case was almost boring but it was a perfect example of how wealth, glamous, marriage and murder forever fascinate.

So long, Claus.