DEATH OF LUPE VELEZ

Southland Times, Issue 25548, 16 December 1944, Page 5

DEATH OF LUPE VELEZ

TRAGIC NOTE LEFT BY ACTRESS (Rec. 9.30 p.m.) LOS ANGELES, Dec. 15 The film actress, Lupe Velez, was found dead at her home in Beverley Hills. The coroner said she apparently took an overdose of sleeping powder. Lupe Velez, who is a former wife of Johnny Weismuller, died after breaking her latest romance with the French actor, Harold Ramond, for whom she left a note: “May God forgive you and forgive me too, but I prefer to take my life away and my baby’s before I bring him shame or kill him. How could you, Harold, take such a great love for me and our baby when all the time you did not want us. I see no other way out for me, so goodbye and good luck to you. Love, Lupe.” A medical examination showed that Lupe Velez was pregnant. RAMOND’S COMMENT Harold Ramond told reporters: “I am so confused; I never expected this to happen. The last time I talked to Lupe I told her I was going to marry her anyway she wanted. She said then she was not going to have a baby so we parted.” Ramond admitted that he once asked Lupe to agree in saying that he was “only marrying her to give the baby a name.” He added: “I did not mean that. We had a fight and I was in a terrible temper.”