Pages

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Lew Mason -- They Always Leave a Note

"The people who may know me
Will not miss me when I'm gone,
They have sacrificed their birthright,
With their souls put up in pawn.
I've put my house in order,
Insofar as just I can
And I'm going to meet--I wonder!
But I'm going like a man."

Mason, an assistant casting director for film producer Edward Small, penned his intention to make the "Grand Exit" weeks before inhaling gas in his room at the Christie Hotel in Los Angeles on May 18, 1924.  Friends found the unconscious film man next to an empty bottle of champagne and clutching a picture of an unidentified woman.  In a note filled with several postscripts, Mason left all his belongings to Marcella Daly, a young film actress.  Prefacing the suicide letter with "This is the note.  They always leave some kind of note," Mason observed that life was too fast paced for him, and advised his readers never "to lose their sense of humor."  Mason was removed to the Hollywood Hospital, but died the next day after failing to respond to blood transfusions taken from two of his actor friends.

No comments:

Post a Comment