THE DEATH OF LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 57, 4 September 1937, Page 27

THE DEATH OF LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY

■'. Vivian Burnett collapsed from, heart disease at the wheel of his yawl Delight H{ after rescuing four.persons from an overturned .sailboat and was dead when the yawl reached shore. lie \was; 61 years old. ;,^ r

■.Most of his life he had"'spent in trying tp live down the character his loving mother had attributed to his prototype, For Vivian Burnett served as a model for "Little Lord Fauntle* l'Oy" when his mother, Frances Hodgs6n Burnett, wrote the book which tfecame world famous.

isThe Ajne.riQan boys pf the early nineties resented .being urged to copy Fauntleroy's manners, they opposed ii(avihg hirti held, up as a model of deportment and peUteness, and/they bit-L terly rebelled, at being forced into Lord Fauntleroy suits. They dreaded appearing fpr, Sunday school in the little black velvet suits, ruffled and tijcked, the wide starched collars, the flowing silk ties, and the low patent leather shoes. They led to fights and to later parental troubles.

H But wear them they did, for the American -mothers were, in, love with Little. Lord ■ Fauntleroy-,,:.

Mr. Burnett wft? tbe fecond sion Of the noted writer, Hep masterpiece had been an albatro?s. tp him., Speak, ing-about the character, he inspired, he once said, "You wouldn't call -tt a. .demon, but a jfeuvj pt alter egp«*

*'.'I was a perfectly norwal bPy, M he said, "I got myself jjust as danw dirty as.'the other boys, I write, a. bbPk about .what Fauntlerpy haa done to me. I try to get away frpm it, but I can't." •'; ■ ; ;

The boy who was Faujßtlerpy led, a

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strenuous life, of which the circumstances of his death were a fitting climax.

Born in .? Paris, April, 5, A 876, he spent his childhood in Europe and in Washington. At Harvard, where he was/graduated with the class of '98, he made a name for- himself on the track team, ■...

Soon after he went_ to Denver and became a cub reporter on the "Denver Republican" From Denver he went back to Washington, where he was an early columnist.

S. S. McChire hired Burnett and gave him, a. roving comrnissipn. to report on the state of the nation to "McClure's Maga?ine." With Lincoln Steffens, Ida M. Tarbell, and others, Burnett went about the,country flash--ing the spotlight of realistic publicity oil scandal centres,

In 1927 -he paid his debt to his mother by writing her life story under the title pf "The Romantic Lady." Mr; Burnett only indirectly was the model for the Little Lord Fauntleroy pictures which became known throughout the world, These illustrations of the bppk were drawn .by Reginald ieathurai Birch, an artist who now Jives in New York CUyv frem phptp^raphs pf the boy. Mr, and Mrs. Burnett wer.e entertaining a party of friends aboard the yawl when they saw the small /sailboat pverturn. Mr. Burnett, at tfee helm, immediately put about and manoeuvred his boat into ppsition to pick up the members of the sailing party. The rescue was effected and the yawl was heading for the club wheo Mr. Burnett collapsed at the helm.

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