Patty Hearst

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Lore & Background

Patty Hearst was born on February 20, 1954, in San Francisco, California, the third of five daughters of Randolph Apperson Hearst and Catherine Wood Campbell. She was raised primarily in Hillsborough and attended the private Crystal Springs School for Girls there, Sacred Heart in Atherton, and the Santa Catalina School in Monterey. She attended Menlo College before transferring to the University of California, Berkeley. On February 4, 1974, 19-year-old Hearst was kidnapped from her Berkeley apartment by the Symbionese Liberation Army. According to her testimony at her 1976 trial, she was held for a week in a closet, blindfolded, and with her hands tied. During this time, SLA founder Cinque (Donald DeFreeze) repeatedly threatened her with death. She later claimed to have been raped by William "Willie" Wolfe and DeFreeze. On April 3, 1974, she announced on an audiotape that she had joined the SLA and adopted the name Tania. On April 15, 1974, she was recorded on surveillance video wielding an M1 carbine while robbing the Sunset District branch of the Hibernia Bank in San Francisco, yelling, "I'm Tania. Up, up, up against the wall, motherfuckers!"

Reader's Guide

At her trial, the prosecution suggested that Hearst had joined the Symbionese Liberation Army of her own volition. However, she testified that she had been raped and threatened with death while held captive. In 1976, she was convicted for the crime of bank robbery and sentenced to 35 years in prison, later reduced to seven years. Her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter, and she was later pardoned by President Bill Clinton. While a fugitive, Hearst helped make improvised explosive devices used in two unsuccessful attempts to kill police officers during August 1975. Marked money found in the apartment when she was arrested linked her to the SLA armed robbery of Crocker National Bank in Carmichael, California, where she was the getaway car driver. On September 18, 1975, Hearst was arrested in a San Francisco apartment with Wendy Yoshimura. While being booked, she listed her occupation as "Urban Guerilla" and asked her attorney to relay: "Tell everybody that I'm smiling, that I feel free and strong and I send my greetings and love to all the sisters and brothers out there." In the 1990s, she began acting in films and television after being approached by film director John Waters.

Did You Know?

• At the time of her arrest, Hearst's weight had dropped to 87 pounds (40 kg).
• Psychologist Margaret Singer described her in October 1975 as 'a low-IQ, low-affect zombie'.
• Shortly after her arrest, her IQ was measured as 112, whereas it had previously been 130.
• Hearst's great-grandmother was philanthropist Phoebe Hearst.
• She was the getaway car driver for the Crocker National Bank robbery in which Myrna Opsahl, a mother of four, was shot dead.