ATTEMPTED SUICIDE

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3400, 30 July 1932, Page 5

ATTEMPTED SUICIDE

BY TEMPERAMENTAL ACTRESS. IN LOVE WITH JACK DEMPSEY. (Press Association.—Copyright.) (Received 10.10 a.m.) Los Angeles, July 29. Lina Basquette, a 29-year-old actress, swallowed poison to-day a few hours after she had announced her engagement to Teddy Hayes, the former trainer of Jack Dempsey, to stifle rumours that she might marry Dempsey. Beside the actress the police found a note addressed to Jack Dempsey, reading: “I love you, only you. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t go on without you.” Physicians said her condition is critical. Lina Basquette, who has been twice married, took a caustic poison after spending the evening- with Teddy Hayes. She had been so despondent that Hayes said that he had telephoned her after he had taken her home. “Are you all right?” Hayes said he asked. “Sure, I’m all right. I have just taken poison,” was her reply. Hayes rushed to the apartment and administered first aid until the police arrived in answer to an anonymous phone call. The actress was then writhing in agony on a divan. The police said it might be several days before she was out of danger. Lina Basquette attempted suicide once before in 1930 after an unsuccessful effort to obtain the custody of her child from Harry Warner, brother of her husband, Sam Warner.