Alfalfa's Demise

Carl Dean Switzer portraying Alfalfa

Carl Dean Switzer as Angus in The Defiant Ones

On this day in 1959, Carl Dean Switzer, better known as "Alfalfa" from the Our Gang shorts, was shot and killed in a Mission Hills, California, home. He was allegedly trying to collect money owed him for dog training services. He was 31 years old at the time of his death.

Carl Dean Switzer was born on August 7, 1927, in the town of Paris, Illinois. In 1934, while visiting relatives in California, the Switzer family toured the Hal Roach Studios. Producer Hal Roach was present when six-year-old Carl and his older brother Harold started singing and dancing for diners in the studio's cafeteria. He signed the Switzer brothers to appear in the Our Gang shorts. Harold was known as "Slim" or "Deadpan" while Carl famously became known as "Alfalfa". By the end of 1937, "Alfalfa" had become the most famous member of Our Gang. While he got along with another popular cast member, George "Spanky" McFarland, Switzer's father had several disputes with McFarland's father over how much screen time each boy received and how much they were getting paid. Carl Dean Switzer was also friends with Tommy "Butch" Bond, although Switzer played cruel pranks on the other actors and held up filming with his mischievous behavior.

Switzer left Our Gang in 1940 when he was 12 years old. The following year he co-starred in a comedy called Reg'lar Fellers. He had several supporting roles in films such as Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, Going My Way, and The Great Mike. He reprised the role of "Alfalfa" in the Gas House Kids comedies, released in 1946 and 1947.

After his Gas House Kids stints, Switzer tried to downplay his work as "Alfalfa". He had small roles in It's A Wonderful Life and On Our Merry Way, and his photograph was used in White Christmas to portray "Freckle-Faced Haynes," an army buddy of the movie's main characters. He also began working in television, appearing on The Roy Rogers Show six times and guest-starring on Science Fiction Theatre and The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show.

Switzer would garner a few more movie roles before his untimely demise. In 1953 and 1954, he co-starred with John Wayne in Island in the Sky and The High and the Mighty. He also co-starred with Robert Mitchum in Track of the Cat. His made is his final film appearance in 1958's The Defiant Ones.

While building his film and television resume, Switzer also got married. In 1954, he went on a blind date with Diantha Collingwood, an heiress to the Collingwood Grain fortune. They married in Las Vegas three months after their date and Diantha became pregnant in 1956. Diantha's mother offered them a farm just west of Witchita, Kansas, where Carl and Diantha's son, Justin Lance Collingwood Switzer, was born. Carl, however, soon realized that he was not cut out for life on the farm and divorced Diantha in 1957.

After returning to California, Switzer began breeding and training hunting dogs for such notable clients as Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, James Stewart, and Henry Fonda. In January 1958, while getting into his car in front of a Studio City Bar, he was shot in the arm. The shooter was never caught. In December that same year, Switzer was arrested for chopping down pine trees in Sequoia National Forest and sentenced to a year's probation and payment of a $225 fine.

Shortly before his death, Carl Switzer had agreed to train a hunting dog for Moses Samuel Stiltz. After the dog went missing, Switzer posted a reward of $35 for its safe return. The dog was found and Switzer paid the reward and also bought a round of drinks for the dog's rescuer. While discussing the matter with his friend, 37-year-old unit still photographer Jack Piott, the two men decided that Stiltz should repay Switzer for the reward and the drinks. They headed over to the home of Rita Corrigan, where Stiltz was staying, on the evening of January 21, 1959. Stiltz would testify later before a coroner's jury that Switzer had banged on the front door and shouted, "Let me in, or I'll kick in the door." Switzer was let into the house and said, "I want that 50 bucks you owe me now, and I mean now." Switzer then, Stiltz alleged, struck him with a glass-domed clock, causing injury to his left eye. Stiltz ran into his bedroom where he kept a .38-caliber revolver. According to Stiltz, Switzer was able to grab the gun, causing it to fire into the ceiling. Even though Stiltz was able to get the gun back, Switzer was able to force him into a closet because he was allegedly armed with a knife. Stiltz claimed that Switzer screamed, "I'm going to kill you!" and that's when Stiltz shot him in the groin. Switzer died of massive internal bleeding before he could reach the hospital.

During the coroner's inquest, it was revealed that the "hunting knife" that Switzer had allegedly been armed with was a penknife. It had been found under Switzer's body. Despite this, the shooting was ruled to be an act of self-defense. However, in 2001, Tom Corrigan, son of Western movie star Ray "Crash" Corrigan and stepson of Moses Stiltz, came forward and gave a different version of events. He was just a child when Switzer and Jack Piott arrived at Rita Corrigan's house in 1959 and witnessed the events of that evening. He told reporters that someone knocked on the door and said, "Western Union for Bud Stiltz." His mother, Rita, opened the door to find Switzer, who had been drinking, demanding that Stiltz repay him his $50, $35 for the missing dog reward and $15 for the rescuer's drinks. He and Piott entered the house and said they were going to beat up Stiltz. That's when Stiltz confronted them with the revolver. Switzer and Stiltz started fighting over the gun and, according to Tom Corrigan, that's when Piott, not Switzer, hit Stiltz over the head with the clock. Corrigan confirmed that a shot had been fired into the ceiling and that a fragment struck his leg. His sisters ran for help and Tom Corrigan claimed that he heard Switzer say "Well, we shot Tommy, enough of this." Switzer and Piott then tried to leave Rita Corrigan's house.

Tom Corrigan claimed that he had just stepped out the front door himself when he heard a second gunshot. He turned around in time to see Carl Dean Switzer sliding down the wall, the penknife falling out of his pocket. He also saw Stiltz shove Piott and threaten to kill him too. He says the only reason that his stepfather didn't kill Jack Piott as well was that they heard emergency sirens approaching. Tom Corrigan told reporters that Stiltz had lied to the coroner's jury and that Switzer's death "was more like murder." He said that when he was interviewed by an LAPD detective, he had agreed to testify but was never called upon to do so. "He didn't have to kill him," Corrigan would say decades later.

When Carl Dean Switzer passed away, his death received very little notice in the press, as it was on the same day as the acclaimed director Cecil B. DeMille's passing. Switzer was laid to rest in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. His assailant, Moses Stiltz, died in 1983 at the age of 62.

Related Reading:

Overview for Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer

13 things you never knew about the Little Rascals