24.6 How did Savannah die?
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This article is from the Sex Movies FAQ, by director@gti.net (The Director) with numerous contributions by others.
24.6 How did Savannah die?
Allow me to quote Adult Video News. I have edited this for length. The
full text version can be found at my web site. Thanks to Videosan for
originally posting this.
The adult industry's most celebrated star, and perhaps its most
controversial one, apparently took her life in the early morning
hours of July 11 with a self-inflicted handgun wound to the temple.
As AVN went to press, police were investigating, but details were
still sketchy on the circumstances involving the death of actress
Shannon Wilsey who was better known to her fans as Savannah.
From what AVN could gather from the tragic incident, Savannah was
reportedly despondent over a car accident earlier in the evening in
which she supposedly drove her white Corvette into a fence. Upset
by a recent dancing engagement in Las Vegas for which she was still
trying to get paid, Savannah thought she had broken her nose in the
car accident and that it would prompt cancellation of her upcoming
dance appearance which was scheduled at Goldfinger's in Nyack, N.Y.
The dancing engagements were an extremely important part of
Savannah's curriculum, and she was known to earn as much as $5,000
in a single evening. To that extent, Savannah had commented one
time on the Joan Rivers Show, that the best thing she liked about
the porn business was that she didn't have to look at price tags
anymore.
"Savannah lived expensively, but she was in a crunch for money. She
saw her world collapsing," said writer/director and Savannah's
industry confidante, Nancy Pera. Pera was Savannah's manager "as
well as you could manage her," Pera said. "Savannah could be a pain
in the neck, but I was very fond of her."
Savannah, according to Pera, was crying about a possible broken
nose. She called Pera about 2:15 A.M., informing her of the car
wreck. Pera arrived about 2:40 A.M. at Savannah's house in
Universal City. Savannah had just purchased the home this past
October, ironically, for cash because of bad credit.
By the time she arrived, Pera found a fire truck in the driveway.
In the intervening minutes, Savannah had evidently gone to her
garage, produced a 9mm semi-automatic pistol (though police would
neither confirm this detail, comment, nor make a report available)
and put it to her head. Meanwhile, detectives from the North
Hollywood Division, responding to a 911 call, called the Fire Dept.
Medical Unit. The paramedics arrived and transported
Wilsey/Savannah to the St. Joseph Medical Center. Pera said the gun
wasn't something "like Dirty Harry would use, but it was close to
it." Pera found Savannah laying in a pool of blood but was still
breathing.
"I said, 'Stay with us, Shannon.' I thought she would make it,"
Pera said. Savannah was rushed to St. Joseph's Medical Center in
Burbank where she died 1:20 PM after almost 11 hours in a coma.
Pera had last seen Savannah around 7 PM Sunday evening when they
took Savannah's dogs for a walk in the park.
[...]
"Savannah was a very special person," said Vivid president Steve
Hirsch. "And although she hadn't made a movie for us in two years,
it was as though there was a death in the family. We all miss her
very much."
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