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Aug 19, 2024 · Let me tell you the tale of Dominique Dunne, the girl who brought Dana Freeling to life in ‘Poltergeist’. She didn’t just face horrors on the screen—she lived through her own real-life nightmare. In a sickening turn of events, Dominique’s story ended in tragedy at the hands of domestic violence.
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Dana Freeling is the hexatagonist in the original Poltergeist. She is a college student.
Poltergeist
Dana Freeling is the 16-year-old daughter of Steve and Diane and the older sister of Robbie and Carol Anne. One night, while the family sleeps, their pet dog E. Buzz trots around each room looking for scraps of food. When entering Dana's room, he begins to lick her face, causing her to roll over and exposing Lays potato chips under her. E. Buzz grabs the bag, causing chips to scatter across the bed, and eats the leftover crumbs on the hallway carpet. Dana and the other family members are awakened to Carol Anne yelling at the television downstairs that she can't hear the voice coming from it. Dana, Diane, and Robbie stare down as Carol Anne answers unspecified questions to the television as she presses her hands against the screen. The next morning, Dana is seen in the kitchen of the Freeling household eating a pickle as one of her father's friends barges through making a mess. As the man's beers explode and he knocks down the kitchen table chairs, Dana yells, "Jesus H. Christ!". Later, when Diane and Carol Anne hold a funeral for the family pet bird Tweety, Dana attends and rolls her eyes at Carol Anne's prayer, cracking small jokes as Diane tells her to stifle it. Later that night, after Steve tucks Robbie and Carol Anne into bed, he creeps towards Dana's bedroom and catches her on the phone. He quickly tells her goodnight and to get off the phone, which she begrudgingly agrees. The next morning, Dana eats breakfast with her younger siblings and she and Robbie tease one another. When Diane questions Carol Anne saying "They're Here!" earlier the night before after the house shook, Dana suggests the fault line runs directly under the house and it could've been the cause of it. Dana and Robbie squabble some more until the glass of milk Robbie is drinking spontaneously combusts and spills on his older sister's homework. She berates her younger brother and says that she has class in twenty minutes before quickly leaving. As Dana goes outside and wheels her bike, the construction workers working on the pool begin to catcall her, causing her to flip them off in an amusing way and cause the construction workers to laugh. Diane, watching from the kitchen window, chuckles. That evening, Diane and Carol Anne witnesses the "TV people" playing around with the kitchen furniture, only revealing it to Steven when he returns home from work because Diane claims Dana would blab and Robbie would have nightmares. Later in the night, the tree looming over Robbie and Carol Anne's bedroom breaks through the window and takes Robbie. While Steve, Diane, and Dana rush downstairs to rescue him, the closet in the children's bedroom begins to glow and starts to suck up everything in the room, including Carol Anne. Outside, Diane and Steve rescue Robbie from the tree as it's uprooted and taken away while Dana watches inside in horror. She rushes out and tells her parents a tornado took the tree. When Steve asks where Carol Anne is, Dana says she left her upstairs. The family races into the kid's bedroom and tear through the rubble in the closet until reaching a blanket covering something. Diane and Dana sob and pull the blanket to reveal it's merely a clown doll. While Dana and Diane quietly chuckle, the family begins to scatter to find Carol Anne, with Dana checking the bathroom. Robbie eventually discovers that Carol Anne has been transported into the television set. After the Freelings hire three private ghost investigators, the family explains the strange mishaps in their home. While contacting Carol Anne through the television, Dana begins to sob in her father's arm and says she cannot stay here. She soon stays with a friend named Lisa while Robbie and E. Buzz are sent to the family's paternal grandmother. After rescuing Carol Anne, the family plans on moving out of their home. As the Freelings stock up the moving van, Dana says goodbye to her mother, going out with some friends, and asking if they'll be able to leave by tonight. Diane confirms and says Dana might want to get a ride at a local hotel near the highway, to which Dana murmurs she knows where that is. When Diane asks what does she mean by that, Dana quickly changes the subject and asks if Diane will keep the two gray streaks of hair she acquired after rescuing Carol Anne. Diane jokingly asks if it makes her look cool, causing Dana to smile, kiss her mother, and leave. Later that evening, she returns home to find her home beginning to collapse. As she leaves her friend's car, Dana becomes hysteric while screaming "What's happening?!" and her family pulls up in the car. The house has been built on a cemetery where the corpses have begun to terrorize the family. Dana calls out for her father and climbs into the car as the family and her friend's car pull away. The family leaves the town in the pouring rain and their house ceases to exist, shocking the neighborhood. That night, the family checks into the hotel with nothing left. Dana holds onto E. Buzz by the collar as the Freeling family trudges in silence to their hotel room. As they walk in, Steve quickly throws the television set outside and closes the door.
•When Dana arrives back home at the end of her house, her hairstyle has strangely changed. When she left, it was in a hairband straight down. When she returns, it's now in a side ponytail full of hairbands.
•When Dana arrives back home at the end of the film, she also noticeably has hickeys on her neck.
1 day ago · The first actor to meet a tragic and unforeseen fate was Dominique Dunne, who played the original older sister Dana Freeling. In 1982, the actor separated from her partner John Sweeney.
Mar 1, 2015 · Dominique Dunne played Dana Freeling, the eldest daughter in Poltergeist (1982). On 30 October 1982, just a few months after Poltergeist was released, she was strangled to death in her driveway by her ex-boyfriend, a chef named John Sweeney.
Apr 27, 2024 · Perhaps one of the most grisly and tragic "Poltergeist" deaths was that of 22-year-old actress Dominique Dunne, who played the eldest sister in the first film, Dana Freeling.
Dunne played the eldest sister, Dana Freeling, in the first film, and her absence in the second film is explained as the character being in college.
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In 1982, the actress appeared in her first ever feature film, ‘Poltergeist,’ in which she played Dana Freeling, the young daughter of a couple whose family house is taken over by ghosts. Directed by Tobe Hooper, the flick became a hit and went on to earn over $122 million at the box office on a budget of $11 million.
