Hugh (Bud) Ernst -- The Reporter's Friend

Ernst, a radio producer and husband of Betty Furness, the actress who was then doing the Westinghouse commercials on the CBS television program Studio One (1948-1958), called a newspaper reporter on the afternoon of April 10, 1950, and told him that if he went to his room at New York City's Westbury Hotel at 15 East Sixty-ninth Street he would get a good story.  The newspaper called Furness at her Park Avenue home and she went to the Westbury.  While Furness waited in the lobby, a bellboy entered Ernst's room to find that the 39 year old had apparently placed a 20-gauge shotgun between his knees, closed his mouth over the barrel, and pulled the trigger.  In a note addressed to Furness, Ernst claimed that he was "tired of everything."