A SLIGHT CASE OF SUICIDE

Her final answer simply raised more questions.

Above you see two photos of actress Carole Landis, dead on the bathroom floor of her Pacific Palisades home, where she was found today in 1948. She had been dumped by her married lover Rex Harrison the night before, and responded by killing herself with an overdose of prescription medication. She had tried suicide before but had been rescued by friends. This time she took forty Seconal tablets, which leaves little doubt as to her firm intent—one fifth the amount would have killed her. She fell into a coma early in the morning with her head resting on a jewelry box, which is the reason for its elevated position. She also left a note on her dresser for her mother:

Dearest Mommie – I’m sorry, really sorry, to put you through this but there is no way to avoid it – I love you darling you have been the most wonderful mom ever and that applies to all our family. I love each and every one of them dearly – Everything goes to you – Look in the files and there is a will which decrees everything – Good bye, my angel – Pray for me – Your baby

Hollywood suicides are part of the town’s lore. Landis’s is more remembered than most, not for what Landis did, but for what those around her did. Harrison had been calling her throughout the morning but her maid had told him she wasn’t awake. She wasn’t going to disturb her employer, so Harrison dropped by himself, entered her bedroom and found Landis non-responsive. He felt her wrist and said he felt a faint pulse, but instead of calling an ambulance rifled through her address book, hoping to call her private doctor and thus keep

the disaster under wraps. While he did that, Landis died. After failing to find the number he sought, he went home, called studio head Darryl Zanuck, and set about damage control. The maid, left to deal with the situation, asked a neighbor to call police.

It wasn’t unusual for press to have access to death scenes, as we’ve documented frequently in our Naked City posts. Landis’s death photo appeared on the fronts of hundreds of newspapers by the next morning. By then questions had begun to arise. Some said Landis had written a second suicide note that Harrison destroyed. When asked at a coroner’s inquest whether there was a note, he said no. Her friend Florence Wasson said there was a second note, but it only asked that the cat be taken to the vet because it had a sore paw. The inquest was closed with no new findings, but years later a policeman who had been at Landis’s house that day said he had seen a second note addressed to Harrison, and that the cat had seemed in perfect health.

Landis’s family claimed Harrison was guilty of murder—and not just for dithering about when he thought he felt a pulse. They claim he killed her outright to keep news of his affair from damaging his career. However, his relationship with Landis was a poorly kept secret, and tabloids were making sly references to it, identifying Harrison and Landis by their initials. Also, Harrison already had a terrible reputation. People behave irrationally in high stress situations, and Harrison made bad moves at every stage, especially when one considers that there was no way he could hope to hide his involvement. But that shows merely cold-hearted concern for himself, and possibly a lack of awareness how near death Landis was. Add it all up and you have one of Hollywood’s most storied suicides—one where an act meant to be a final answer left endless questions.

Los Angeles, Pacific Palisades, Carole Landis, Darryl Zanuck, Rex Harrison, Florence Wasson, suicide, deaths

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

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