NEW HOPE, Pa. (AP) — Dayle Haddon, an actor, activist and trailblazing former “Sports Illustrated” model who pushed back against age discrimination by reentering the industry as a widow, has died in a Pennsylvania home from what authorities believe was carbon monoxide poisoning.
Authorities in Bucks County found Haddon, 76, dead in a second-floor bedroom Friday morning after emergency dispatchers were notified about a person unconscious at the Solebury Township home. A 76-year-old man police later identified as Walter J. Blucas of Erie was hospitalized in critical condition.
Responders detected a high level of carbon monoxide in the property and township police said Saturday that investigators determined that “a faulty flue and exhaust pipe on a gas heating system caused the carbon monoxide leak.” Two medics were taken to a hospital for carbon monoxide exposure and a police officer was treated at the scene.
As a model, Haddon appeared on the covers of Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Elle and Esquire in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as the 1973 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. She also appeared in about two dozen films from the 1970s to 1990s, according to IMDb.com, including 1994’s “Bullets Over Broadway,” starring John Cusack.
Haddon left modeling after giving birth to her daughter, Ryan, in the mid-1970s, but then had to reenter the workforce after her husband's 1991 death. This time she found the modeling industry far less friendly: “They said to me, ‘At 38, you’re not viable,’” Haddon told The New York Times in 2003.
Working a menial job at an advertising agency, Haddon began reaching out to cosmetic companies, telling them there was a growing market to sell beauty products to aging baby boomers. She eventually landed a contract with Clairol, followed by Estée Lauder and then L’Oreal, for which she promoted the company's anti-aging products for more than a decade. She also hosted beauty segments for CBS’s “The Early Show.”
"I kept modeling, but in a different way," she told The Times, “I became a spokesperson for my age.”
In 2008, Haddon founded WomenOne, an organization aimed at advancing educational opportunities for girls and women in marginalized communities, including Rwanda, Haiti and Jordan.'
Haddon was born in Toronto and began modeling as a teenager to pay for ballet classes — she began her career with the Canadian ballet company Les Grands Ballet Canadiens, according to her website.
Haddon's daughter, Ryan, said in a social media post that her mother was “everyone’s greatest champion. An inspiration to many.”
“A pure heart. A rich inner life. Touching so many lives. A life well lived. Rest in Light, Mom,” she said.
FILE - American actress and former model Dayle Haddon arrives for the screening "Where the truth lies" directed by Canadian director Atom Egoyan, at the 58th international Cannes film festival, southern France, Friday, May 13, 2005. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau, File)
FILE - Dayle Haddon attends the first annual Stephan Weiss Apple Awards at the Urban Zen Center on Thursday, June 9, 2011 in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Agostini, File)
Five years ago, video images from a Minneapolis street showing a police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd as his life slipped away ignited a social movement.
Now, videos from another Minneapolis street showing the last moments of Renee Good's life are central to another debate about law enforcement in America. They've slipped out day by day since ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot Good last Wednesday in her maroon SUV. Yet compared to 2020, the story these pictures tell is murkier, subject to manipulation both within the image itself and the way it is interpreted.
This time, too, the Trump administration and its supporters went to work establishing their own public view of the event before the inevitable imagery appeared.
But half a decade later, so many things are not the same — from cultural attitudes to rapidly evolving technology around all kinds of imagery.
“We are in a different time,” said Francesca Dillman Carpentier, a University of North Carolina journalism professor and expert on the media's impact on audiences.
No one who saw the searing video of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin with his knee on Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes on May 25, 2020, is likely to forget it — and Chauvin's impassive face Floyd insisted he couldn't breathe. United in revulsion, demonstrators began one of the nation's largest-ever social movements. Chauvin was convicted of murder.
The footage “caused many individuals to experience an epiphany about racism, specifically cultural racism, in the United States,” legal scholar Angela Onwuachi-Willig wrote in a Houston Law Review study that examined whether white Americans experienced a collective cultural trauma.
She eventually concluded that didn't happen and that the impact diminished with time. The rollback of diversity programs with the second Trump administration offers evidence for her argument.
“The people who are writing the cultural narrative of the Good shooting took notes from the Floyd killing and are managing this narrative differently,” said Kelly McBride, an expert on media ethics for the Poynter Institute.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem labeled Good, who was demonstrating in opposition to ICE enforcement of immigration laws, a domestic terrorist — an interpretation that Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey dismissed with an expletive. Both President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance suggested the shooting was justified because Good was trying to run Ross down with her vehicle.
On the night of the killing, White House border czar Tom Homan was cautious in an interview with the “CBS Evening News” when anchor Tony Dokoupil showed him the most widely distributed video of the incident, taken by a bystander and posted by a reporter for the Minnesota Reformer. The veteran law enforcement official said it would be unprofessional for him to prejudge before an investigation.
Later that evening, Homan issued a statement calling the shooting “another example of the results of the hateful rhetoric and violent attacks” against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol officers.
Video of the incident has been generally inconclusive about whether Good's vehicle actually hit Ross before he opened fire. Even if she did, many experts question whether that represented grounds for firing his weapon. Clearly, however, that would bolster public sympathy for the officer.
“These ICE videos do present irrefutable facts — a woman drove her car and then she was shot dead by an ICE agent,” said Duy Linh Tu, a documentarian and professor at the Columbia University journalism school. “What the videos can't show is the intent of the woman or the officer. And that's the tricky part.”
Good, obviously, can’t speak to what motivated her to put her SUV in drive and move on Portland Avenue South.
Several news organizations have carefully examined the forensic evidence that has emerged. The Associated Press wrote that it was unclear if Good's car made contact with Ross. The Washington Post wrote that “videos examined by The Post, including one shared on Truth Social by Trump, do not clearly show whether the agent is struck or how close the front of the vehicle comes to striking him.”
The New York Times said that “in one video, it looks like the agent is being struck by the SUV. But when we synchronize it with the first clip, we can see the agent is not being run over.”
Video that emerged Friday from the Minnesota site Alpha News showed the incident from Ross' perspective. It, too, left many questions and no shortage of people willing to answer them.
Vance linked to the video online and wrote: “Many of you have been told this law enforcement officer wasn't hit by a car, wasn't being harassed and murdered an innocent woman. The reality is that his life was endangered and he fired in self-defense.”
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer wrote online that “how could anyone on the planet watch this video and conclude what JD Vance says?” Schumer said the administration “is lying to you.”
When one online commentator wrote that Good did not deserve to be shot in the face, conservative media figure Megyn Kelly responded, “Yes, she did. She hit and almost ran over a cop.”
Poynter’s McBride said the media has generally done a good and careful job outlining the evidence that is circulating around in the public. But the administration has also been effective in spreading its interpretation, she said.
There are more camera angles available now than there was with Floyd, but “I don't know if that adds clarity or more fog to this case,” Tu said. “I think that people will see what they want to see. Or, rather, they'll pick the angle that aligns with what they already believe.”
That nagging sense of uncertainty left by the videos leaves experts like Tu and Carpentier to conclude they will pale in impact compared to the Floyd case. With each passing year, the public is becoming more desensitized to images of violence — as the online spread of footage showing Republican activist Charlie Kirk illustrated, she said.
The spread of AI-enhanced fake images is also teaching the public to question what it sees, she said. Before Ross was identified, BBC Verify said false images were being spread online speculating about what the masked agent looked like, and fake video of a Minneapolis demonstration spread.
“Now you can't believe what you're seeing,” Carpentier said. “You don't know if what you're seeing is the real video or if it has been doctored. I don't think AI is being a friend in this case at all.”
David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.
Federal immigration officers make an arrest as bystanders film the incident Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Bystanders film a federal immigration officer in their car Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)
