Danny Lockin

At 34 years old, Danny Lockin has this physical status:

Daniel Joseph "Danny" Lockin (July 13, 1943 – August 21, 1977) was an American actor and dancer who appeared on stage, television, and film.

In the 1969 film Hello, Dolly!, he was best known for his portrayal of Barnaby Tucker. Lockin was stabbed over 100 times by a man he encountered in a Garden Grove, California bar in August 1977.

His killer was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter in September 1978 and sentenced to a four-year prison term.

Early life

Lockin was born in Hawaii and raised in Omaha, Nebraska. At the age of eight, he began dancing at local fairs. Neal Reynolds, an African American boy with whom he would tap dance, tell jokes, pantomime, and do impressions of famous people in his act.

Lockin's family migrated to Anaheim, California, where he graduated from Rancho Alamitos High School during his junior year in high school. He appeared in leading juvenile roles in Gypsy: A Musical Fable, The Music Man, and Time for Everything. He started working as a professional actor and dancer right after graduating.

Later life and death

Lockin married dancer Kathy Haas, who was a bit-part dancer in a production of Hello, Dolly! in 1967, the couple married. In San Francisco, the Mission was launched. Jeremy Daniel Lockin, their son, was born in 1969. In late 1969, the couple divorced.

Lockin returned to tour with Hello Dolly!, in addition to his role as Barnaby. Lockin stayed with the tour until it was over; at that point, he dropped out of work due to heroin use issues, he jumped into his mother's apartment in Anaheim, but he was unable to return to school. Lockin began assisting his mother in running the Jean Lockin Dance Studio in 1974. Lockin took classes at a new dance studio in early 1977.

Lockin went to a gay bar in Garden Grove, California, on the night of August 21, 1977. Charles Leslie Hopkins, a young, 34-year-old hospital clerk who already had a police record and was on probation at the time, left the bar on probation. Several hours later, Hopkins called police to report that a man had invaded his apartment and attempted to rob him. Lockin's body was discovered on the floor of Hopkins' apartment upon arrival. He had been stabbed 100 times and bled to death. Since his death, his body had also been mutilated. Hopkins said he had no idea how the dead body got in his apartment. He was arrested straight away.

Lockin was entombed at Westminster Memorial Park cemetery in Westminster, California, on Sunday.

In Hopkins' apartment, police discovered a book of pornographic photos showing men being tortured during sexual orgies. Prosecutors had hoped to obtain a first degree murder conviction, and that the book would show that Hopkins had planned the murder. Hopkins' trial began in May 1978, but it was postponed for two months after the prosecutor was injured in an unrelated crash. During the delay, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1 (1977), that police will not engage in warrantless searches in the absence of an exigency. The pornographic book was inadmissible as evidence by the trial court on July 31, as evidence. The trial court judge found that the death penalty could not be applied to Hopkins due to a lack of proof of premeditation.

Hopkins was found guilty of voluntary murderer on September 28, 1978, and was sentenced to a three-year prison term. The trial judge increased Hopkins' sentence from three years to four years as the court was allowed to hear suppressed evidence if the facts were not confiscated solely to obtain a longer prison term, but not to "shock the court's conscience." Hopkins is expected to be released in two years if he shows good conduct, according to prosecutors (considering time served).

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Career

Danny appeared in the 1962 film version of Gypsy as one of Dainty June's farm boys, early and uncredited. He appeared in the play Morning Sun in October 1963 with Patricia Neway and Bert Convy, but it was ended after nine performances. "Dances with acrobatic suppleness and engaging freshness," the New York Times said. In the role of Gee-Tar (a role he left on May 3), he made his Broadway debut on April 8, 1964 and appeared in a regional production of Taking Me Along (which he attended on May 8). He appeared in the musical Tom Sawyer, which appeared at the St. Louis Municipal Opera later that year.

In Hello, Dolly, Jerry Dodge was replaced by him in the role of Barnaby Tucker. Betty Grable, Ginger Rogers, Eve Arden, Dorothy Lamour, and Anne Russell appeared on six traveling shows throughout the United States in the winter of 1965. He stayed in the role of Hello, Dolly! when filming ended, he reprised his role in the Broadway version of Hello, Dolly!, where he worked with both Ethel Merman and Phyllis Diller until it was shut down on December 27, 1970. He had mixed feelings about Carol Channing as Dolly, about whom he once said: "Carol Channing is rather disturbing." With those big baby-stare eyes, you'll know she's smiling at you. Then it comes to you that the person behind those eyes is, in show business terms, about 200 years old." Later, he expressed disappointment with the way audiences responded to Merman in the role of Dolly Levi and how the show was changed. "She wasn't up there; she was Ethel Merman in Dolly clothes." ... Of course, the audiences arrived, but they didn't want to see the Ethel Merman version.

But it wasn't Hello, Dolly!

It was her show, now that it had been. They were actors or actresses trying to make a name out of a script. But with Ethel Merman, it was not just her fault, but also with the audience, she was such a character—the majority of us felt like she was either her chorus boys or her chorus line."

Lockin appeared on television and incidentally. On Father of the Bride, Dr. Kildare, My Three Sons, and the Sid Caesar Exhibition, he appeared. He did a screen test for The Sound of Music's 1965 film version but did not get the opportunity. He appeared in a minor role in the film The Graduate in 1967, but he was contractually bound to continue in a regional production of Hello, Dolly! I was in Las Vegas, Nevada, and could not do the job because of the heat.

Lockin appeared in the Hello, Dolly! film from 1969. His dancing was the point of contention. Before being accepted, he went through 13 screen tests. Later, he said that filming was "the love of his life." He felt a strong desire to battle with the film's producer, legendary dancer Gene Kelly. At one point during filming, he did a series of four "butterflies" (a cartwheel in which a person does not place their hands on the ground) while Kelly kept on; Kelly suggested an improvement and, to show, leaped into six technically superior butterflies of his own. According to reports, Lockin was chastised for three days. He appeared on television in April 1970.

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