TRUTH ABOUT MAX LINDER

Evening Star, Issue 19143, 9 January 1926, Page 15

TRUTH ABOUT MAX LINDER

LAST DRAMA OP FILM JESTER’S JEALOUSY. Max Linder, the man who was making thousands laugh hy his film comedies before anyone had heard the name of Charlie Chaplin, has died in Paris by his own hand, and people are still asking why (states a London writer). Tlk> truth can he stated very simply. ,Mo killed himself because, life bored hint. It had nothing left to offer to the man who had won fame, riches, and a, romance which in itself might have made the subject of a charming film. Max Linder had won so much from life that, he realised he could win no more; that if he lived he would feel himself always loss happy than he used to he in Ihe days when lie was winning hit; way In the (op of the ladder. He knew that, ho had reached the summit of a, brilliant, career, and he could not reconcile himself to the I act that time and human weakness must inevitably push him slowly down the hill, the road which all men must traverse, to the grave. INTO OBLIVION.

Rome men go downhill contentedly enough, tired and happy in Hie knowledge that, they need no longer climb. They lake to the descent after middle arte as a tired child takes to its cot. Max Linder was not like this. Rather than go steadily down the hill of age lie preferred to hurl himself tram the very peak of manhood into oblivion. His story is more common than many men imagine.

Hero are the facts concerning his death and that, of the young wife who had inspired in him a love that excluded everything else, from his life when once ho knew it. Linder and his wife were Jiving ,m an hotel not tar from the Arc do Triomphe. One night, as he entered to go to his room, the famous comedian .said; “I. am very tired. Do not call us to-morrow morning on any- account.” His order was obeyed, mifil his mother-in-law, calling on the following day to visit- her daughter. was told that the couple had not risen, and that they wore not to he disturbed.

With a mother's intuition that there was something wrong, Madame Peters persuaded the hotel proprietor to burst, open the, door. And there, in their night clothes, lay Mm Linder and his wife, pale,, motionless, and with blood still oozing from gaping wounds in their left wrists’. A bloodstained razor lay whst'o it had dropped Irom the bed, and on a little night, table stood two empty phials. One had contained morphia and the other veronal. FAREWELL LETTERS.

Six letters were found on the, dressing table addressed hy Max Linder and his wife to friends and relations. Contrary to expectations, these letters throw no light, whatever on the reasons which led to tho suicide ot two people apparently in such happy circumstances. " They are simply letters oi farewell' praying for forgiveness and giving certain instructions as to the future of the little girl ot eighteen months who is to inherit Linder s fortune. , . , . Tho roferencos to this hi-De girl rn tho letters show that, both the, film star and his wife, though passionately fond of their child and 'anxious for her future, were so intent on death that they could look quite calmly upon the act, which was to separate thorn, from her and leave her an orphan. During his whole film career Max Linder has plaved only comedies. This, the last act, of his life, was his first tragedy. All the world remembers tho debonair, fashionable young man whoso odventures and eccentricities began to delight tho patrons of the cinema some fifteen years ago. Linder obtained the most comnletu success, and wealth beyond the dreams of most men, when lie 'was still quite young. Success did not seem to spoil him, and his intimate friends knew him as a man who in private life was as gay and as lovable as the character he had made familiar on the screen. BEAL ROMANCE. About three yeans since he became the hero of a real life romance whic-i jrould itself have made an, admirable

scenario. He was on holiday at Chamonix, when he met the eighteen-year old Jeanne Peters, the daughter o. a wealthy manufacturer,- who in her romantic admiration for him forgot that he was twenty years her senior, and ran away with him. There was the traditional hunt of the truant couple hy the girl’s scandalised parents. Linder was furious at the scandal arose, for he was always a hyper-sensitive man, and resented the world’s looking on at this real romance of his as though it had been one of his screen comedies. Four months after their flight the young couple were married in _ Paris, and settled down to what promised_ to be one of the “happy-over-after” kind of unions. Linder now hud all that a man could want. He was healthy, wealthy, and was worshipped by a pretty young bride of whom ho was himself passionately fond. But this summit of human happiness proved a tragic turning point in his life. Within a very short time of his marriage a remarkable change came over the matt who had hitherto faced life with a laugh. The great jester of whom Charlie Chaplin had said: “I look upon him as my master.” became sullen, irritable, and suspicions. Life had given him too much, and ue was beginning (o grow bored. Having no serious cares, lie brooded upon trifles; having no troubles, he began in a morbid way to fear the troubles that, he might have one day. He shrank from the future, knowing that whatever happened. it could not he bettor than the nresent, DRUGS. Tn this case, as in so many others, mnrhu! dreams led him tn drugs, and drugs in their turn to yet. more morbid dreams. He brooded on the fact that when hn was a middle-aged man his girl-wife would still be admired hy young men. She was fond of dancing, and: frankly appm’iat.ed the admiration that she attracted wherever she appeared. The unreasonable fear that one day he might, ho snppbntcd_ hy a vounger rival developed in time into a strong suspicion that his wife _was alreadv growing cold towards him. He often accused her ot it, and even before the honeymoon was over there were terrible scenes of jealousy. It was one of these which led Linder and his wife to take veronal while they were staying in Vicuna. The affair was hushed up at the time as far as possible, and it was represented that they had taken an overdose of a drug to which they had become addicted. This was not. the truth. They had deliberately sought death, and very nearlv had' it. But it was Linder who had led his wife to make the suicide pact with him. Tills lasi, desperate act was to he to the highest, proof she could give him of a very real devotion. So suspicious had he become that no--I,hing less than this would completely satisfy him. . . Some time after the Vienna episode Linder determined to commit suicide alone. He went out one day and bought a revolver; then, telephoning from his flat in Paris to a friend, ho said ho was just about, to shoot himself. and had rung up to say good-bye. The friend hurried round, and was only just in time to prevent the once eheetlul Max from carrying out his resolve. From that moment Linder’s friend, and manv others who had never hoard of this particular incident, were convinced that his suicide could only be a matter of time. To all their friendly arguments and persuasions he opposed the mad obse-ssion of the neurasthenic convinced that the whole world was against him. A few weeks ago Lmcmr abandoned all his work and paid heavy compensations in order to cancel contracts so that he might devote himself entirely to the jealousy and brooding which now filled his life.' He caused his wife to he watched, he continually quarreled with her about trifling incident,s on which his iealous mind built mountains of suspicion.

BEGINNING OF THE END. After one such incident _ Madame Linder went off alone to Switzerland, hut within a few hours of her departure Linder set. out in pursuit. He could not bear, even in quarreling, to have her out, of his sight, and he told a friend that he was setting out to mid her and bring her back. “And this time.” he added in a ennnns tone, I must have her hack for good. This was the beginning of the end. From, that moment either a double suicide or a suicide and murder weio inevitable. In the speculation there has been concerning the truth of the Linder affair some people have suggested that Linder killed his wife and then committed suicide. In support of this theory they point out that Linder lived six hours longer than his wife, but this fact is easily explained by the doctors who have examined the wounds upon their wrists. Both having decided to die together, lie made death easy for his wife hy severing her wrist while she slept under the influence of the narcotic. He found it lass easy to do this for himself, as the nature of hjs wound betrays. It Is mow established beyond all possibility of

doubt that there was a suicide pact in which the wife volunteered to die. Perhaps, however, it was moral murder, for she accepted death os the only convincing answer to an insane jealousy which had become a perpetual challenge to her love.