The story of Kim Schmidt and Gig Young isn't your typical Hollywood romance. It’s dark. It's fast. Honestly, it’s one of the most jarring tragedies in the history of the film industry, yet many people only know the broad strokes. You’ve probably seen the grainy photos or heard the name Gig Young in relation to the "Oscar curse," but the woman by his side at the end, Kim Schmidt, is often reduced to a footnote in his bio.
She shouldn't be.
Kim Schmidt was a 31-year-old German magazine editor. She was bright, young, and living in New York City when she crossed paths with a man who was essentially Hollywood royalty, albeit royalty that was rapidly losing its crown. Gig Young—born Byron Barr—was 64 at the time. The age gap was massive. Thirty-three years, to be exact. But in the whirlwind of 1978, they somehow found a connection that led them to an altar in just a matter of months.
A Marriage That Lasted Only Three Weeks
The timeline here is genuinely hard to wrap your head around. They got married on September 27, 1978. It was Young's fifth marriage. He had already been through the wringer with legendary actress Elizabeth Montgomery and had a daughter from a previous marriage that he barely saw.
By the time he met Kim Schmidt, the "light-hearted sophistication" he was famous for on-screen was long gone. The guy who won an Academy Award for They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? was struggling with severe alcoholism and, quite frankly, a crumbling mental state.
They lived in a luxury apartment at the Osborne on West 57th Street. It’s a beautiful, historic building. But behind those doors, things were falling apart almost immediately. On October 19, 1978—just 22 days after their wedding—police were called to the scene.
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What they found was gruesome.
Kim Schmidt was dead. She had been shot in the back of the head with a .38-caliber pistol. Gig Young was lying beside her, having turned the gun on himself. There was a diary nearby, open to the page of their wedding date. "We got married today," it said. It’s the kind of detail that feels too heavy for a movie script, yet it was the cold reality of their final moments.
Why the Kim Schmidt and Gig Young Tragedy Still Haunts Hollywood
People always ask "why?" It's the natural human response to something this senseless. Why would a man who had reached the pinnacle of his career take the life of a woman who had her entire future ahead of her?
Some point to the Oscar.
There’s this long-standing theory that Gig Young never recovered from his 1969 Academy Award win. He supposedly told his friend, the comedian Red Buttons, that the Oscar was "the greatest moment of my life," but it also signaled the end. He couldn't get the leading roles he wanted. He felt like a failure.
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But that doesn't explain the violence directed at Kim Schmidt.
Kim wasn't a celebrity. She wasn't part of the Hollywood machine that had allegedly broken him. She was an editor, a professional, and by all accounts, someone who was trying to build a life in New York. The police never found a suicide note. There were no public warnings. Just a quiet, sudden explosion of domestic violence that ended two lives in an instant.
The Realities of the Relationship
- Age Gap: Kim was 31; Gig was 64.
- Location: The Osborne Apartments, Manhattan.
- The Weapon: A .38-caliber revolver.
- The Duration: 22 days of marriage.
It's easy to look back and see the "red flags" in hindsight. Young was known to be a heavy drinker and had been dropped from several projects, including the Mel Brooks film Blazing Saddles, because he was physically unable to perform due to alcohol-related issues. Kim Schmidt entered this situation during a period where he was arguably at his lowest point.
The Forgotten Legacy of Kim Schmidt
In most retellings of this story, the focus is entirely on Gig Young’s career decline. We talk about his "haunting eyes" and his "sleazy emcee" role. We talk about how sad it was that he couldn't find work.
But Kim Schmidt was a person, not a prop in a star's tragic finale.
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She was part of the international media world. She was someone’s daughter, someone’s friend. Because she wasn't a famous actress like Elizabeth Montgomery, her story is often skipped over. We don't know much about what she thought of him in those final three weeks. Was she scared? Was she trying to leave? Domestic violence experts often point out that the most dangerous time for a victim is when they are planning to exit the relationship. We will never know if that was the case for Kim.
What We Can Learn From the Tragedy
- Alcoholism and Mental Health: Professional success doesn't cure deep-seated psychological issues. Young’s Oscar couldn't fix what was broken inside.
- Domestic Violence Awareness: This wasn't just a "Hollywood tragedy"; it was a murder-suicide. It highlights that no amount of wealth or status protects someone from domestic danger.
- The Importance of Nuance: When we research Kim Schmidt and Gig Young, it's vital to remember there were two victims that night, though one was also the perpetrator.
The story is a stark reminder that the "Golden Age" of Hollywood had a very dark underbelly. While the public saw a sophisticated gentleman on their television screens, the reality in that Manhattan apartment was a nightmare.
If you are looking for more information on this era or the lives of those affected, the best thing you can do is look into the biographies of his contemporaries. People like Red Buttons and Elizabeth Montgomery's biographers often provide more context on Young's volatile behavior leading up to the end. Understanding the patterns of behavior can help us recognize similar signs in modern contexts, ensuring that the names of people like Kim Schmidt aren't just remembered for how they died, but for the life they were denied.
To get a better sense of the timeline, you can look up archival New York Times reports from October 1978, which provide the most accurate police details from the scene at the Osborne.