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1927 Isadora Duncan freak accident death...
1927 Isadora Duncan freak accident death...
Item # 580841
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September 15, 1927
TAUNTON DAILY GAZETTE, Massachusetts, September 15, 1927
* Isadora Duncan freaky death (1ST REPORT)
* Creator of the modern dance
This 14 page newspaper has one column headlines on 13: "MISS DUNCAN'S LIFE ENDED IN TRAGEDY" "Jerked from Auto by Scarf About Her Neck" which tells of the freak accidental death of the famed dancer involving one the scarfs she was best known for.
Other news of the day including various advertisements. Light browning with little margin wear, but otherwise good. Complete with 14 pages, 17 1/2 by 22 inches.
wikipedia notes: Duncan's fondness for flowing scarves was the cause of her death in a freak automobile accident in Nice, France, on the night of September 14, 1927, at the age of 50. The scarf was hand-painted silk from the Russian-born artist Roman Chatov. The accident gave rise to Gertrude Stein's mordant remark that "affectations can be dangerous."
Duncan was a passenger in the Amilcar automobile of a handsome French-Italian mechanic Benoît Falchetto, whom she had nicknamed "Buggatti" (sic). Before getting into the car, she reportedly said to her friend Mary Desti and some companions, "Adieu, mes amis. Je vais à la gloire!" (Goodbye, my friends, I am off to glory!). However, according to American novelist Glenway Wescott, who was in Nice at the time and visited Duncan's body in the morgue, Desti admitted that she had lied about Duncan's last words. Instead, she told Wescott, Duncan said, "Je vais à l'amour" (I am off to love). Desti considered this too embarrassing to be recorded as the dance legend's last words, especially as it suggested that Duncan hoped that she and Falchetto were going to her hotel for a sexual assignation.
When Falchetto drove off, Duncan's large silk scarf, a gift from Desti, and draped around her neck, became entangled around one of the vehicle's open-spoked wheels and rear axle. As The New York Times noted in its obituary: "Isadora Duncan, the American dancer, tonight met a tragic death at Nice on the Riviera. According to dispatches from Nice, Miss Duncan was hurled in an extraordinary manner from an open automobile in which she was riding and instantly killed by the force of her fall to the stone pavement." Other sources described her death as resulting from strangulation, noting that she was almost decapitated by the sudden tightening of the scarf around her neck.
Category: The 20th Century
No Longer Available
