Rupert Pupkin with a Rainbow Afro

While I was at the gym today, one of the TVs in front of the treadmills had ESPN on, but with no sound. At one point, they did a segment on Rollen Stewart. While the name probably won't ring a bell, the image will: anybody who watched professional sports in the late 1970s and early 1980s will remember seeing a guy with an enormous rainbow-painted fake Afro and a sign that read JOHN 3:16.

That was Stewart, who's lead a life far stranger than his antics at football games. With no sound, I couldn't catch many of the details, but once back home, I found this near the top of a Google search. It's a biography whose details match up almost indentically to the images that ESPN was displaying today, which included this bizarre, tragic ending:

All of this strange behavior finally came to a head in late September of '92, when Rockin' Rollen was arrested after holding a maid hostage in the Hyatt Hotel next to Los Angeles International Airport. Rollen--according to the Sept 23rd LA Times article--held the police at bay with threats that he had a bomb. When the standoff continued well into the evening police officers used what they called "Flash-bang" grenades to stun a wigless Rainbow Man and storm the seventh room floor where he was holding siege. A 38 year old house keeper was found un-injured after having locked herself in the bathroom. The police officers apparently decided to make their move after Rollen threatened to fire a pistol at planes landing at the airport. A few hours after the incident, as the police were driving Rollen away, reporters asked him why he had done it.

"To get the word out ," he shouted back at them flashing his famous whacky smile.

The incident began at 9:15 AM on Sept. 22 when Rollen walked unnoticed into a vacant room at the Hyatt, taking the cleaning lady, Paula Madera, by surprise. Madera immediately ran into the bathroom and wisely locked herself in, figuring rightly that Rollen was some kind of crazy. It was at this point in the proceedings The Rainbow Man for some reason decided to light two small fires that attracted attention to himself.

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Article Author: Ed Driscoll

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