One drowned when he was a boy. Another was found dead in a hotel room. A third committed suicide. A fourth died from an overdose. A fifth shot himself in the head. Of six brothers, only one survived to confront the family “curse”.
The Von Erichs were stars of professional wrestling in the early 1980s, entering the lore of Dallas, Texas, alongside the assassination of John F Kennedy, the Dallas Cowboys football team and fictional oil baron JR Ewing. Their story is told in a new film, The Iron Claw, starring Zac Efron and written and directed by Sean Durkin, who describes it as part family drama, part gothic horror and part sports movie.
