An Obsessed Fan Posed as Martin Scorsese's Assistant to Get Near a “Raging Bull ”Actress, Then Stabbed Her 10 Times

Virginia ChamleeFri, February 6, 2026 at 12:30 AM UTC

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Actress Theresa Saldana

Harry Langdon/Getty

Theresa Saldana was nearly killed in 1982, when a drifter became obsessed with her and stabbed her repeatedly

The man became fixated on the actress after seeing her in the 1980 films Defiance and Raging Bull

After hiring a private investigator, the man found Saldana's mother's phone number and eventually, her address

Theresa Saldana was a star on the rise in 1982, just two years after she appeared in the Martin Scorsese film Raging Bull, playing the sister-in-law of boxer Jake LaMotta, and acting alongside Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci.

But on the morning of March 15, 1982, Saldana would find herself victim to a brutal attack, when a man approached her on the street outside her West Hollywood apartment and repeatedly stabbed her.

The man was Arthur Richard Jackson, a 46-year-old drifter from Aberdeen, Scotland, who had become fixated on the actress after seeing her in the 1980 films Defiance and Raging Bull.

Jackson became so obsessed that he hired a private investigator who tracked down Saldana's mother's unlisted phone number. He can called the number and posed as Scorsese's assistant, saying he needed her residential address to contact her for a film role.

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Theresa Saldana, Joe Pesci, Raging Bull

TCD/Prod.DB / Alamy Stock Photo

After traveling to her home, he waited outside with a hunting knife, approaching her as she went to unlock her car and stabbing her so intensely, a PEOPLE article in 1989 detailed, that the knife bent.

Several other people were in view of the stabbing but it was only one — Jeff Fenn, a delivery man — who rushed to her aid, ultimately pulling the knife from Jackson's grasp.

As PEOPLE detailed, by the time paramedics brought Saldana to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, "most of the blood had drained from her body and her heart had stopped." She required heart and lung surgery and 26 pints of blood, but she survived.

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Jackson, meanwhile, was arrested and convicted of attempted murder and inflicting great bodily injury. At his trial, per PEOPLE's reporting, Jackson ''would just sit there and stare at Theresa,'' Los Angeles prosecutor Michael Knight said. He was given the maximum sentence of twelve years in prison, though his sentence was extended after he was convicted of sending threatening letters to Saldana from Vacaville State Prison, per the Los Angeles Times.

Theresa Saldana Harry Langdon/Getty

One of those letters was sent to producer Jonathan Felt, who worked with Saldana and detailed, cryptically, "I am capable of alternating between sentiment and savagery, romance and reality. Police or FBI protection for T. S. won't stop the hit squad."

After his release, Jackson was turned over to British authorities to face murder charges in London related to a 1967 London bank robbery.

As detailed in PEOPLE's 1989 report, Saldana would go on to marry actor Phil Peters, and the two had a daughter, Tianna Saldana Peters.

"I'm very happy," she told PEOPLE in the earlier interview, which took place while she was six months pregnant. "Newly married, having a baby — my mom's first grandchild. We have a lot of exciting things happening. I don't live my life thinking about Arthur Jackson. I really don't."

A wheelchair bound Theresa Saldana at a 1982 trial i

George Fry / Los Angeles Times via Getty

Saldana would go on to be nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in 1994. for her role as Rachel Scali, the wife of Police Commissioner Tony Scali, in the 1990s television series The Commish.

She died on June 6, 2016, at age 61, after being hospitalized with pneumonia.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”