LAS VEGAS — Singer-actress Pia Zadora was arrested at her Las Vegas home over the weekend following a rapidly escalating attempt to impose a bedtime on her teenage son.
The 61-year-old entertainer, whose career peaked in the 1980s, was arrested shortly before noon Sunday, some six hours after police responded to a call at her home.
The spat, which ended with the one-time blond bombshell scratching the faces of her 16-year-old son and husband, began with her attempt to hustle her son to bed so she could get some rest, according to a police report released Monday.
Zadora’s son was hanging out with her husband and his son when she asked him to turn in. When he protested, she sprayed him and his step-brother with a hose, according to her statement to police.
She then began scratching and punching her husband, Michael Jeffries, and his son as they tried to calm her down, according to the 16-year-old’s statement to police.
He later called 911, but his mother attempted to wrestle the phone away from him, according to the report, injuring his ear in the process.
When he got through, the 16-year-old told the dispatcher that “his mother was going crazy and her hands were around his neck.”
He said all three of his family members ultimately prevented him from going to answer the door when police arrived. This led to an hours-long stakeout of the house.
Zadora later told police she grabbed the phone because she thought her son was getting authorities involved because he didn’t want to go to bed.
She also allowed that she might have scratched her husband on the face when he tried to take away her hose.
Zadora was arrested on suspicion of domestic battery and coercion and released after posting $4,000 bail.
The actress’ most memorable moment was likely her star turn in a 1982 Golden Globe pay-to-play scandal.
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association named her rising star of the year after her then-husband wined and dined many voting members at his casino in Las Vegas. CBS dropped the awards show soon after.
A former child actress on Broadway, Zadora has been most-often honored by the Razzies, an Academy Awards spoof that hands out prizes for Hollywood’s lousiest movies on the eve of the Oscars. She won “worst new star of the decade” in 1990.
When her film career failed to take off, Zadora became a singer of popular standards.
In her early 20s, she married a businessman 30 years her senior.
She has been married to her third husband, a Las Vegas police detective, since 2005. The couple met after Zadora contacted police to report a stalking incident.
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