{"id":370368,"date":"2026-06-22T17:13:33","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T17:13:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/370368\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T17:13:33","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T17:13:33","slug":"daughter-of-famed-movie-director-william-wyler-and-her-husband-found-dead-in-hot-car-in-northern-california-the-mercury-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/370368\/","title":{"rendered":"Daughter of famed movie director William Wyler and her husband found dead in hot car in Northern California \u2013 The Mercury News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The elderly daughter of famed filmmaker William Wyler and her husband were found dead<\/a> in a hot car in Northern California.<\/p>\n

A California Highway Patrol officer found Judith and Wylie Sheldon<\/a> parked on the side of Interstate 5 north of Redding on June 15, according to SFGATE.<\/p>\n

The art patrons, well known within San Francisco\u2019s art community, were 84 and 86, respectively. Wyler\u2019s father directed classic films<\/a> including \u201cWuthering Heights,\u201d \u201cThe Best Years of Our Lives,\u201d \u201cRoman Holiday,\u201d \u201cThe Big Country,\u201d \u201cBen-Hur\u201d and \u201cFunny Girl.\u201d The Academy Award winner died in 1981.<\/p>\n

The Sheldons were reportedly driving to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.<\/p>\n

Police Lt. Josh Smith told SFGATE a coroner would determine the couples\u2019 cause of death, but he that suspected high temperatures may have been a factor.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the hottest day of the year so far, or second hottest,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m sure there\u2019s always a possibility that excessive heat played a role.\u201d<\/p>\n

The National Weather Service issued an extreme heat warning<\/a> for the Northern California area on that day.<\/p>\n

A longtime friend of the pair told The New York Times the victims had no liquids<\/a> in their Jeep Compass, which didn\u2019t have a working air conditioner. No signs of automotive failure or a crash were evident.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t crash. They stopped,\u201d David Smith said. \u201cThey both just died there.\u201d<\/p>\n

He knew the Sheldons for more than 40 years. Smith said he and other friends became concerned when the victims failed to check into their hotel room and couldn\u2019t be reached by phone.<\/p>\n

The San Francisco Chronicle reported their deaths were \u201cmedically related<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

San Francisco Silent Film Festival artistic director Anita Monga told SFGATE the Sheldons were an integral part of the Bay Area arts community.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were so dear and devoted to one another,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Judy was a board chairperson of the film festival\u2019s committee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The elderly daughter of famed filmmaker William Wyler and her husband were found dead in a hot car…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4846,7,9,8,2523,12577,138,1924,181,1338,2581,100,8567,10238],"class_list":["post-370368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-accidents","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-celebrities","tag-coffee-break","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-film","tag-latest-headlines","tag-morning-wire","tag-national-news","tag-news","tag-news-obituaries","tag-obituaries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}