Marguerite Calvert -- Zing Went the Strings of Her Heart

Calvert, a popular 24-year-old vaudeville dancer and violinist, was married for less than a year to W.D. Harris, a New York-based automobile tire dealer, when she took her life in San Francisco's Palace Hotel on October 22, 1922.  Days before arriving at the hotel following an exhausting cross-country car trip, the pair had visited the grave of Calvert's brother in Portland, Oregon.  At the hotel, Calvert's depression and fatigue were exacerbated by a quarrel with her husband over his attentions to other women.  Good-naturedly teased by another couple in attendance, Calvert burst into hysterics, and locked herself in the bathroom.  When a night clerk opened the door, the alarmed spectators found the violinist lying on the bathroom floor with the muzzle of a gun pressed against her heart.  Ignoring their pleas not to harm herself, Calvert pulled the trigger.