"In 1964, Lauren went to the Philippines for the filming of Once Before I Die (1966), and while there met Nida Blanca, a then-rising Filipino film star. He shunted back and forth between the Philippines and Southern California for over a decade before finally marrying Ms. Blanca in 1979. He then took permanent residence in Manila. Ms. Blanca was the U.S. star equivalent of a Doris Day (I) or Debbie Reynolds (I). Rod functioned as his wife's escort as his own career had dissipated.
On November 6, 2001, Ms. Blanca was viciously stabbed to death in a parking garage. In November of 2003 Rod (who had long returned to his real name of Roger Strunk) was to be charged with her murder after authorities claimed he hired an assassin to kill his wife who had threatened to divorce and disinherit him. In a shot to the poor Manila justice system, authorities allowed Rod to return to the U.S. before charges could be filed against him. Claiming his mother, who lived in Tracy, California, was dying of cancer and he needed to be with her, he managed to resist extradition and resettled in Tracy. More recently he was employed as a camera operator for the city of Tracy's public-access station, Channel 26. The pressures of the ongoing investigation, however, finally took its toll and he ended it all on July 11, 2007, by jumping to his death from a second floor motel balcony in Tracy. He was 67."