TRAGIC ROMANCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21598, 19 March 1932, Page 11

TRAGIC ROMANCE

' “QUEEN OF SCREEN VAMPS” LONDON, March 10. The tragic secret romance of Lya da Putti, “Queen of the Screen Vamps,” is revealed by the suicide in a Budapest hotel of the former millionaire and landowner, Zoltan de Szepessy, who married her in 1915. Although divorced in 1920 because de Putti was unable to endure the monotony of life on a great country estate, says the Vienna correspondent of the Daily Mail, de Szepessy idolised his wife. He became melancholy when she died in New York in November last. He told his friends that he was unable to endure life any longer. The tragedy disclosed that de Putti was the mother of de Szepessy’s two daughters, and, although he adored his wife, he refused her access to her daughters. After the divorce he told them that their mother was dead, and frequently took them to place flowers on a grave inscribed “Lya de Spzessy, died 1920.” Although de Putti frequently spoke of her love for the children, none of her associates realised that she was their mother.