ACTRESS’ QUEER ILLNESS

Taranaki Daily News, 1 August 1932, Page 9

ACTRESS’ QUEER ILLNESS

TANGLED LOVE AFFAIRS

HER LOVE FOR JACK DEMPSEY. ENGAGED TO FORMER TRAINER* ! I-' ,!R -" STRANGE LOS ANGELES DRAMA, By Telegraph—Press Awn. — Copyright. Los Angeles, July 29. Lina Banquette, a 25-year-old actress, allegedly swallowed poisOn to-day a few hours after ehe had announced her engagement to Teddy Hayes, former trainer of Jack Dempsey, to stifle rumours that ehe might marry Dempsey. Beside her the police found a note addressed to Dempsey reading; “I love you and only you. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t go on without you.” The physicians eaid Banquette’s condition is critical. Baequette, who has been twice married, is alleged to have taken a caustic poison after spending the evening with Hayes. She had been so despondent, Hayes aaid, that he had telephoned her after he had taken her home. ■* .

“Are you all right!” Hayes said he asked her.

“Sure, I’m all right. I have just taken poison,” was her reply. He rushed to the house and administered first aid until the police arrived in answer to an anonymous ’phone call. The actress was writhing in agony on a divan. The police said it might be several days before she was out of danger. Banquette attempted suicide once before in 1930, after an unsuccessful effort to obtain custody of her' child from Harry Warner, brother of her husband, Sam Warner. . "ALLEGED SCARE” BY ENEMIES. ; CONTRADICTION OF POISONING. Rec. 5.5 p.m. Loa Angeles, July 29. The Police Court report of attempted suicide by Lina Basquette is matched by statements, by a police Burgeon and her personal physician, which vary from the police record. . — Dr. J. H. Sugarman, her physician, said she had eaten onion soup and that the ambulance call to her apartment and the suicide scare were perpetrated by enemies. Dr. Ivo Lopizich, police surgeon, made a final report in which he said he found no traces of poison.