Gerald Thomas Andersen was 49 years old when he died on Thursday, April 15, 2010, in Hollywood. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma at 6245 Hollywood Blvd. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department Hollywood Division case.
The address is that of the Frolic Room, one of the oldest bars on Hollywood Boulevard, and Andersen, known to friends as Jerry, worked its door. On the night of April 5, 2010, according to accounts published that June, he escorted a troublesome patron out of the bar near closing time. Moments later he was found unconscious in the bar's vestibule, bleeding from his ears. A guide to Hollywood Boulevard written later said the customer had "refused to pay for his drinks."
Andersen never woke up. He spent about 10 days in a coma, and his mother, Carole Andersen, asked that he be taken off life support. LA Weekly reported that she believed he had been killed, "likely by a beer bottle to the back of his head," by the drunk patron he was leading out. The patron, LA Weekly wrote, "was apparently nowhere to be found," and police told the blogger Legman LA that he was a person of interest. He was never publicly named.
For weeks the police treated the case as a death investigation rather than a killing. A June 2010 column on HuffPost said, "insiders say it is no mystery while police maintain it is not a murder." There were no witnesses, and investigators considered whether he might have lost his balance, fallen and struck his head. The coroner's office reached its own conclusion. It listed the cause of death as the "sequelae of blunt force head trauma" and the manner of death as homicide.
The same columns described the man behind the job. Andersen was "one of five brothers who grew up in a small Midwestern agricultural town" and arrived in Los Angeles about 20 years earlier, "like so many others gifted with good looks and a modicum of talent, to find his way in showbiz." His Find a Grave memorial says he was born on Nov. 22, 1960, in Faribault, Minnesota, and after his death he was taken home to Faribault for his funeral.
The Frolic Room sits beside the Pantages Theatre in the heart of Hollywood, on a stretch of the boulevard lined with stars of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The bar dates to the 1930s, was a favorite haunt of the writer Charles Bukowski and has served as a backdrop in films such as "L.A. Confidential." The block draws tourists, theatergoers and nightlife crowds, and it rarely sleeps.
Homicides in Los Angeles fell steeply in the late 2000s and early 2010s, yet many killings from those years were never solved.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Gerald Thomas Andersen could be found in news archives or public records. More than 15 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Bartenders, regulars, theater staff and passersby on Hollywood Boulevard in April 2010 may remember the patron who left the Frolic Room that night, or heard someone talk about what happened in the vestibule. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a vehicle seen nearby or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can call the Los Angeles Police Department at 877-527-3247 or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS.
