15 Movie Stars With Disturbing Pasts
15. Woody Harrelson
He’s been particularly successful playing violently psychotic characters like Mickey in a classic called “Natural Born Killers”, Charlie in “Seven Psychopaths,” or playing hypocritically religious and morally challenged investigator Marty in a recent hit series “True Detective.”
But it seems that he nails these parts because he simply learned to glean the experience from his own troubled past.
It turns out, Woody’s father, Charles Voyde Harrelson, was in fact a contract killer. He was convicted of killing U.S. District Judge John H. Wood, and grain dealer Sam Degalia, Jr., for a sum of money – so, by definition Charles was a true hitman.
Charles received 15 years in prison for killing Sam Degalia in 1973, but was paroled and released from prison after only 5 years.
One year later, he was arrested for allegedly killing Judge John Wood. Charles denied having killed the Judge, claiming he was in Detroit at the time. However, a taped conversation between Joe Chagra and Jamiel Chagra revealed that Charles Harrelson had himself claimed to have killed the judge.
Woody reportedly didn’t have any contact with his father between 1968 and 1981, but after Charles got arrested and ended up in prison serving his sentence, Woody frequently visited him and even tried to get him a new trial.
He failed.
