Florence Reynolds -- Through with Mankind Forever

Reynolds (real name Walsh) fell in love with fellow vaudevillian Bruce Healy while acting with him in the Reynolds Trio.  Despite learning that Healy was married, she pawned $500 worth of her jewelry and borrowed money against a life insurance policy to post his bail on a bigamy charge.  Healy repaid the kindness by leaving her.  On May 25, 1928, a housekeeper found the young actress' body in her fourth-floor room at 148 West Seventy-eighth Street in New York City.  Reynolds, clad in a nightgown, lay on the floor with her mouth pressed over an open floor board gas jet.  Two notes found on a dresser in the sparsely furnished room asked that her family be notified and gave instructions for disposing of certain personal effects.  Also lying on the dresser was a five page letter neatly written in green ink addressed "Dear Uncle Charlie."  In it, Reynolds wrote:  "I wish God would take me for I don't see how I can go on and on.  My faith in mankind is gone.  I am through with mankind forever."