Brittany Murphy's Husband's Past in Focus
Just five months after Brittany Murphy's tragic death from what authorities say was pneumonia and drug intoxication, her husband, Simon Monjack, has also died.
It was, observes CBS News Correspondent Michelle Miller, a marriage between a fading young star and an unknown screenwriter with a checkered past.
The 39-year-old Monjack was found unconscious Sunday night in the same Hollywood Hills home where Murphy went into cardiac arrest Dec. 20.
Entertainment Tonight reports that an emergency call was made from the home in the 9 o'clock hour (Pacific time) Sunday night, and that Monjack was pronounced dead of cardiac arrest after medics' efforts to revive him failed, according to Los Angeles police.
It was Murphy's mother, Sharon, who discovered the bodies of both her daughter and her son-in-law, Miller points out.
A neighbor described the scene the night Murphy died, saying, "They were putting tubes in her throat and trying to resuscitate her with paddles. And her husband was … just wandering around in his pajama bottoms just completely dazed and shocked."
Rumors about Monjack flew when Murphy died, Miller says. Some charged he was partly responsible for her stalled film career, that the two were involved with drugs, and that he had a criminal past as a con man.
Last December, Daily Beast Chief Investigative Reporter Gerald Posner talked to "The Early Show" about Monjack's past, saying, "This is a guy ... who was arrested on immigration charges just a month before he married Brittany in 2007. Some people say he married her just to stay in the country."
Miller says Monjack was a screenwriter who hadn't written anything of note. Some claim he drained his own family's fortune on a film he had written.
Monjack had two warrants for his arrest in Virginia for alleged credit card theft, Miller adds. He also had a $500,000 judgment against him by a British investment firm.
And, Miller continued, a former fiancee accused him of giving her a phony diamond engagment ring and said she tried to warn Murphy about him.
Monjack suffered a heart attack just two weeks before Murphy's death and recently had complained of seizures.
No cause of death has been released.