A FALLING STAR?

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 19033, 10 June 1924, Page 2

A FALLING STAR?

SUICIDE OF COMEDIAN. T. E. DUNVILLE’S DEATH. Mr T. E. Dunville, the well-known eccentric comedian, who had been missing from his London hotel, was found drowned in the Thames. His body was seen in the water off King’s Meadow, near Reading, by two boys, and it was later recovered by the lock-keeper at Caversham and identified by Mrs Dunville. An unexplained mystery is that nearly everything in his pockets, including some banknotes was dry, and there were only one or two spots of water in his watch. ■ He is believed to have got into the water near Clappers footpath weir, where Mrs Dyer, the poisoner, drowned several babies some time ago. Before leaving the Hotel York, Berners Street, W., where he had been staying, Mr Dunville left the following farewell note for his wife: God bless you and Toni. I feel 1 cannot bear it any longer. Goodbye. You are the best little woman in the world. “Toni” is Mr Dunville’s son, now at school in Shaftesbury. Mr Dunville disappeared from the hotel during his wife’s absence. His manner just before had been perfectly normal. Mr Dunville was worried, however (writes a Daily Chronicle representative) by the fear that his popularity was on the wane. He read into slight incidents signs that he no longer occupied the position on the variety stage which was once his.

Recently he complained to a fellow artist at a London music-hall that his name was at the bottom of the bill instead of at the top, and, further, that it was not printed in the large-size letters to which he thought he was entitled.