CORONER TO THE STARS Review: The Story Behind the Most Controversial Chief Medical Examiner of All Time

It’s said that everyone’s life is a story.  And naturally, every story has an ending.

Dr. Thomas Noguchi, the titular “coroner to the stars,” as he’s been called, knows about both aspects of the story.  Quite expertly, though far from simply.

Having served as Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner for the County of Los Angeles from 1961 to 1982, Noguchi’s autopsies were at the literal and figurative hearts of some of Tinseltown’s most famous and most notorious deceased celebrities.  Among these illustrious corpses were no less than Robert Kennedy, John Belushi, William Holden, Sharon Tate, and Natalie Wood. 

Each case proved controversial for Dr. Noguchi, generating headlines for the general public and headaches for him.  As filmmakers Ben Hethcoat and Keita Ideno demonstrate in Coroner to the Stars, the specifics of the subsequent objections differed wildly.  

The good doctor was often accused of grandstanding and/or overstepping his authority (a la the popular crime solving TV coroner based upon him, Quincy, M.E.).  All the while, however, the underlying thread of his naysayers’ suspected discontentment with Dr. Noguchi’s Japanese heritage appears to be a consistent throughline.  Where the truth lies in these matters may or may not be murkier than what is dissected in this new film, though the story it tells -- that of his entire career -- is compelling to the living end.

Without contorting the familiar documentary formula of linear exploration via new interviews and vintage footage (the filmmakers have done well attaining both), Hethcoat and Ideno cut into the story of Dr. Noguchi’s career with a sharp scalpel rather than a bonesaw.  This is accomplished with recollections from various L.A. officials and experts, as well as Star Trek actor George Takei, who petitioned on behalf of Dr. Noguchi back in the day.  

Most vitally, Noguchi himself is interviewed for this project.  Although his presence can’t help but tip Coroner to the Stars very much in his favor, it would be unethical to deny him any say on his own story.  At the time of this writing, Dr. Noguchi is alive and well at 98 years of age.

A lesser version of this film would get sidetracked several times over by the varied intricacies and details of each celebrity death, several of which could sustain their own feature length documentaries.  Coroner to the Stars gives each one relatively equal treatment, understandably in that they are temporary detours from the broader story of Noguchi himself.  

Like Dr. Noguchi, Coroner to the Stars tends to be all business, only allowing for sentimentality in the very end.  As presented, from his notable beginnings as he was brought in for the postmortem on Marilyn Monroe, to the moment he enters the frame for this film’s interview, this famous doctor’s story charts positively and successfully makes its case.