I see this morning that a Tarrant County jury acquited the host and director of the TV show Cheaters , who were facing charges stemming from the alleged assault of a woman at Bally's Total Fitness club in Arlington in May 2005. You know the story, right? Maria Gutierrez was confronted by the Cheaters gang at the Bally's, where she worked, because she was supposed to be having an affair with a former Fort Worth police captain. She said the crew got all up in her grill and assaulted her. Turns out, not really--at least according to the jury.
The Dallas Morning News has been all over this; guess it's, er, sexy enough to warrant the coverage. But one thing I never saw Debra Dennis mention in her reporting was the fact that the show's director, who was charged with unlawful restraint and hindering apprehension, used to be a movie star. No, seriously.
Thirty-year-old Hunter Carson--who, in the interest of full disclosure, is a friend to whom I haven't spoken in a long time--was the star of Wim Wenders' celebrated Paris, Texas, in which Hunter played the son of Harry Dean Stanton and Nastassja Kinski. Hell, Hunter's old man, Dallas-born and National Film Registry-inducted director and writer L.M. Kit Carson, wrote the thing with Sam Shepard. C'mon, that's gotta merit a mention in the local paper of record, doesn't it?
In fact, Hunter has a pretty fascinating filmography: Not only was he Hunter in Wenders' 1984 film, but he also starred in Tobe Hooper's 1986 movie Invaders from Mars, and he was the original Bud Bundy in the pilot episode of Married with Children. And he's more than just a Cheaters director: A couple of years back he did a short with Tim Roth called With It. Never thought Hunter capable of assaulting anyone; guess there's at least one jury out there that agrees with me. --Robert Wilonsky
