Are there such a thing as curses? I know they exist. I’ve read about them. But are they valid? Do they work? Hopefully, I have never been at the brunt of one, and hopefully never will be.
Curses play a significant role in certain cultures. There are Voodoo curses, African curses, Indigenous curses, Ancient curses, and on. And then there are the unexplained curses, those veils which seem to drop over a circumstance or a thing.
All of this came to my attention because I read about the details of the death of Carl Switzer. He was the actor who played Alfalfa on Our Gang.
Oh, Our Gang. When I was a kid, I loved that show. I was rapt by their antics, and especially enamored with their dog, Pete the Pup. I longed to have Petey in my life. I think I asked for a dog at least once a month. But, instead, I had to live vicariously through the dogs of television, like Pete, and Lassie, and even Toto.
Anyway. Back to Alfalfa, Carl Switzer. On January 21, 1959, he was killed in a fight. The argument was supposedly about some money. It happened at a home in Mission Hills, California. Good old Alfalfa. That freckle-faced kid with the giant cowlick coming straight out the top of his head. He was 31 years old when he got in the fight and probably looked a little different by then.
Alfalfa in the Our Gang series. The other ruffians in ht group included Spanky, Buckwheat, Porky, Froggy, and Darla. And more. Back then, Our Gang was considered groundbreaking in that it featured white and black child actors interacting equally. Now we see those roles as being offensively slanted with racism, sexism, prejudice, and other misdeeds.
Regardless, that is how things went back then. Switzer played Alfalfa from the mid-1930s to the early-1940s. In 1955, the Our Gang films were turned into a hugely popular TV series called The Little Rascals. Unfortunately, Switzer never received royalties from the show. No dollars.
After Our Gang, Switzer’s days in Hollywood were pretty much over. He had to make money working odd jobs, like bartending. Subsequently, squeaky clean Alfalfa was not so clean. He had several run-ins with the law.
Who knows what else he got into. But on the night of his death, he went to the home of a guy named Moses “Bud” Stiltz to collect a deb — said old “Bud” owed him money. A fight broke out. Moses “Bud” Stiltz produced a gun and killed Switzer. A jury later ruled the incident justifiable homicide.
But he wasn’t the only Little Rascal to die a rascally death. People began calling it “The Our Gang Curse.” Here is how some of the other leading players went.
Scott Beckett (“Scotty”)— Suffered post-Rascals problems with divorce, violence, alcohol, drugs, and crime. Committed suicide by barbiturate overdose at age 38.
William Thomas, Jr. (“Buckwheat”) — Died of a heart attack at age 49.
Darla Hood (“Darla”) — Died of hepatitis at age 47.
Darwood Kaye (“Waldo”) — Killed by a hit-and-run driver at age 72.
Robert Blake: (“Mickey”) — Arrested in April 2002 for the murder of his wife; acquitted at trial in March 2005. Still alive at age 81.
William Laughlin (“Froggy”) — Killed at age 16 when his bicycle was hit by a truck.
Matthew Beard, Jr. (“Stymie”) — Had post-Rascal problems with drug addiction and served time in prison. Died of pneumonia at age 56.
Some people try to explain away the “Our Gang Curse,” listing other players on the show who lived a long time. Nonetheless. It’s a bit odd, I see.
There are many other famous curses in the world. There is the Curse of King Tut’s Tomb. The Curse of Tippecanoe. The Curse of Timur’s Tomb. The Curse of Ötzi. And, among countless others, the Curse of the Hope Diamond. This Hope Diamond thing is a bit scary. I won’t visit this gem if I am at The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in D.C. I won’t.
Maybe they are real, and maybe they are not. But I still love the old saying. “It’s better to be on the safe side.” Uh-huh.
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“Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
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“When things were very bad his soul just crawled behind his heart and curled up and went to sleep”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
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“At times the world may seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe that there is much more good in it than bad. All you have to do is look hard enough. and what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events may in fact be the first steps of a journey.”
― Lemony Snicket
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Our Gang. Curses, I say. Curses.
