“MYSTERY WOMAN” DEAD

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 July 1933, Page 3

“MYSTERY WOMAN” DEAD

HOLLYWOOD’S WEALTHY HERMIT The Man in the Iron Mask did not hide his face more securely from the world than did Miss Margaret Keith, a millionairess hermit, whose death’was recently reported from Los Angeles. For 30 years she lived in seclusion, in one or other of her two mansions in Beverly Hills surrounded by film stars whose faces are familiar to people the world over; but the number of people who looked on Miss Keith’s face in that time could be counted on the fingers of one band. Was she ugly? Was she disfigured? No. Her sister, who also lives in Hollywood, says she had a kind, sweet face. « The woman’s own reason for her idiosyncrasy was: “1 do not like people. I like to read, to hear good music, and to gaze on the sea, trees, and flowers.” With this ideal firmly fixed in her mind at the age of 19, Miss Keith left St. Mary’s Academy, in Chicago. She then possessed £1,250,000 in her own right. She renounced the pleasures that her wealth might have brought in the way of a host of friends and world-wide travel, and built two homes at Beverly Hills at a cost of £50,000 each. The archi-

tect never saw her, all communication between them being in writing. To her lawyers she was equally inaccessable, although frequent litigation caused her to employ them constantly. She kept a retinue of servants in each establishment, but all they saw of her was a slight form moving silently and mysteriously from room to room. She might, leave instructions in notes, or speak with the servants over the elaborate telephone system installed in her homes: but she never allowed them to approach her. A Japanese chauffeur relates that once in the dead of night he saw her unveiled when she roused him from sleep to pay a hurried visit to her other home. Miss Keith planted trees and flowers throughout her properties. At night floodlights lit up the house, although she delighted in personal obscurity, according to a Home exchange. She had a passion for cats. When one of her pets died she buried it in her cat cemetery with obsequies that cost her £2OO. Miss Keith committed suicide at the age of 49. Her instructions were that for three days her body should

rest in a room set apart, as a funeral chapel and that an orchestra should play all the time. Flowers, changed daily, filled the room.

Holes large enough for a cat but too small for dogs —she- did not like dogs—were cut in her high wall as an inducement to wandering cats to enter. Night, and morning fish and milk were placed in the open for them. One of her messages read: “Kindly do not allow anyone to look at me. I did not care to be exhibited when alive and do not want to be gaped at when dead.” Tile musical programme according to her wishes, included Beethoven's “Moonlight Sonata,” Gounod’s “Ave Maria,” and Schubert’s “Unfinished Symphony.” Her instructions were all obeyed, and the orchestra included 20 players. Her body was cremated and her ashes lies strewn among the flowers and trees, which to this millionaire spinster were more real than human beings.