She was able to express her femininity as a teenager using the name Shalimar (after the French fragrance). She was cheerleading captain at school, and was Miss American Samoa Island Queen 1993.
By 1996 she had moved to Los Angeles and begun transition as Atisone Seiuli.
She already had one prostitution conviction, when on May 2, 1997 she was caught by police in the vehicle of film star Eddie Murphy, and arrested for violation of a ruling from the previous conviction. Within a few hours this was a media event. The National Enquirer paid her bail in exchange for an exclusive.
This was her career breakthrough. She acted in a pornography film, and became the ‘House Madame’ at the 7969 nightclub where she performed to celebrities as a dominatrix with live snakes.
She was troubled by death threats from Eddie Murphy fans. On April 22, 1998 she was dead, clad in her underwear only, outside her apartment building. The coroner concluded that she had locked herself out of her fifth-floor apartment and fallen while attempting to swing from the building roof to an open window using a towel.
- Mark Ebner & Jack Cheevers. “The Bagman”. Hollywood Interrupted. March 23, 2006. www.hollywoodinterrupted.com/archives/the_bagman.phtml.
- “Atisone Seiuli”. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atisone_Seiuli.
This was her career breakthrough
ReplyDeleteCareer breakthrough? How do you figure? She was dead less than a year later. This poor person, dead at the age of 21, didn't have a full life, let alone a full career.
-YA
Are you unacquainted with the concept of irony?
ReplyDeleteI'm more acquainted with hero worship and superstar-celebrity bias (in favor of Eddie Murphy)attempting to make it look as if Atisone exploited her brush(along the thigh I believe it was) with fame rather than being ruined by it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for pointing out I missed the nuance--maybe now I've commented no one else reading the bio will make the same mistake.
-YA
-YA
For what it's worth, you all, I got the irony without YA's help.
ReplyDeletesounds like she got done in
ReplyDeleteWow. What a story people do much worse and the irony is not that serious. That's not irony she died out of stupidity who swings from the roof top with a towel? "you read and you learn".
ReplyDelete