Suicide (pronounced soo-uh-sahyd)
(1) The intentional taking of one's own life.
(2) By analogy, acts or behavior, which whether intentional or not, lead to the self-inflicted destruction of one's own interests or prospects.
(3) In automotive design, a slang term for rear doors hinged from the rear.
(4) In fast food advertising, a niche-market descriptor of high-calorie products deliberately or absurdly high in salt, sugar and fat.
(5) A trick in the game Diabolo where one of the sticks is released and allowed to rotate 360° round the Diabolo until it is caught by the hand that released it.
(6) In Queensland (Australia) political history, as suicide squad, the collective name for the additional members of the Legislative Council (upper house) appointed in 1921 solely for the purpose of voting for its abolition.
(7) In sardonic military slang, as suicide mission, a description for an operation expected to suffer a very high casualty rate.
(8) A children's game of throwing a ball against a wall and at other players, who are eliminated by being struck.
(9) Pertaining to a suicide bombing, the companion terms being suicide belt & suicide vest.
(10) In electrical power, as "suicide cable (or cord, lead etc)", a power cord with male connections each end and used to inject power from a generator into a structing wiring system (highly dangerous if incorrectly used).
(11) In drug slang, the depressive period that typically occurs midweek (reputedly mostly on Tuesdays, following weekend drug use.
(12) In US slang, a beverage combining all available flavors at a soda fountain (known also as the "graveyard" or "swamp water".
(13) As "suicide runs" or "suicide sprints", a form of high-intensity sports training consisting of a series of sprints of increasing lengths, each followed immediately by a return to the start, with no pause between one and the next.
1651: From the New Latin suīcīdium (killing of oneself), from suīcīda and thought probably of English origin, the construct being the Latin suī (genitive singular of reflexive pronunciation of se (one’s self)) from suus (one’s own) + cīdium (the suffix forms cīda & cide) from caedere (to kill). The primitive European root was s(u)w-o (one's own) from the earlier s(w)e and new coining displaced the native Old English selfcwalu (literally “self-slaughter”). Suicide is a noun & verb, suicidal is a noun & adjective, suicider is a noun; the noun plural is suicides. Pedantic scholars of Latin have never approved of the word because, technically, the construct could as well be translated as the killing of a sow but, in medieval times, purity had long deserted Latin and never existed in English. The modern meaning dates from 1728; the term in the earlier Anglo Latin was the vaguely euphemistic felo-de-se (one guilty concerning himself). It may be an urban myth but there was a story that a 1920s editor of the New York Times had a rule that anyone who died in a Stutz Bearcat would be granted a NYT obituary unless the death was a suicide. Suicide is a noun & verb, suicidal is a noun & adjective, suicider, suicidology, suicidalist, suicidality, suicidalness & suicidism are nouns, suicidogenic is an adjective, suicided is a verb & adjective, suiciding is a verb and suicidally is an adverb; the noun plural is suicides.
Terms like “professional suicide”, “commercial suicide” and “career suicide” are, even if the era of trigger warnings, still used as is “political suicide” and it is a word politicians like to use (of their opponents). Paul Keating (b 1944; Prime Minister of Australia 1991-1996), having read the Fightback! political manifesto prepared for the 1993 general election by the Liberal Party’s then leader Dr John Hewson (b 1946; leader of the Liberal Party of Australia 1990-1994), declared it “the longest suicide note in Australian political history”, a critique which seems first to have been made by a member of the Canberra press gallery although a similar phrase had a decade earlier been used in the UK by Labour Party politician Sir Gerald Kaufman (1930–2017) when damning his own party’s 1983 platform. An extraordinary 650(!) pages, Fightback! reflected well on Dr Hewson’s background as an academic neo-liberal economist but as something to persuade voters to vote Liberal it was monumentally bizarre and nobody has since attempted anything like it. Dubbed at the time (for many a good reason) "the unlosable election", lose in 1993 Dr Hewson did and to this day Fightback! is blamed.
Bloody Bob hasn't!, John Clarke (1948–2017) and Bryan Dawe (b 1948), ABC Television 7:30 report, Monday 15 March, 1993.
A footnote to the unexpected result in the 1993 election was an exposure of the dangers inherent in pre-recording television material for later broadcast. The conventional wisdom was a significant factor in Labor's impending defeat was that Mr Keating allowed his personal ambition to become prime-minister prevail over the interests of the party and in deposing Bob Hawke (1929–2019; Prime Minister of Australia 1983-1991) who'd won the previous four elections, he'd sacrificed any hope of gaining a fifth term. The satirists John Clarke (1948–2017) and Bryan Dawe (b 1948) produced a skit using their “pseudo interview” technique in which they followed the documentary model of the ABC’s (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Labor in Power series; they depicted the political rivals as two children squabbling over whose turn it was with the toy. The final question asked “Paul” which of them now had the toy to which he replied “Bloody Bob hasn’t!”. The punch-line would have worked had Mr Keating had the decency to lose the election but of course he won so the joke went flat.
UK Prime Minister Lord Salisbury (Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 1830–1903; UK Prime Minister for thirteen years variously 1885-1902) remarked of the long, sad decline of Lord Randolph Churchill (1849–1895) that the deceased had proved to be “chief mourner at his own protracted funeral” and confided to colleagues “the man committed suicide as surely as if he blown his brains out.”. Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859–1941; German Emperor & King of Prussia 1888-1918) remarked of the ill-advised book published by one politician whose career had imploded that it was probably the “…first time a man has committed suicide twice.” Not noted for his wit, that may have been Wilhelm’s finest moment although it does vie with his observation on hearing that, in deference to the state of war between their two nations, the British Royal family was changing its name to “Windsor”. The Kaiser said he hoped soon to attend a performance in Berlin of William Shakespeare’s (1564–1616) “The Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.”.
Comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) arranged a few “suicides” and in a nice touch sometimes appeared at the funeral as chief mourner whereas Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) in similar circumstances seems to have restricted himself to sending a wreath and, for the especially exalted, authorizing a state funeral. Although doubtlessly it's all just bad luck and coincidence, it is striking how many sources on various platforms have compiled lists of the remarkable number of "suicides" in some way associated with Bill (b 1946; US president 1993-2001) & crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013). It's an impressively large toll but, in fairness, Socks (1989-2009; FCOTUS (First Cat of the United States 1993-2001)) did live an untypically long 20-odd years although he escaped the Clinton's clutches after 2001.
Suicide Squads
HH Asquith (1852-1928) and his youthful friend Venetia Stanley (1887–1948).
Although few were quite as vituperative as Paul Keating who once describes the members of the Australian Senate as "unrepresentative swill", governments in the twentieth century often found upper houses to be such a nuisance they schemed and plotted ways to curb their powers or, preferably, do away with them entirely. As the electoral franchise was extended, governments were sometimes elected with what they considered a mandate to pursue liberal or progressive policies while upper houses, by virtue of their composition and tenure (some with life-time appointments) often acted as an obstruction, rejecting legislation or imposing interminable delays by sending proposed laws to be “discussed to death” in committees from which “nothing ever emerged”. This was the situation which confronted the glittering Liberal Party cabinet of HH Asquith (1852–1928; UK prime minister 1908-1916) which in 1909 found the Lords, in defiance of long established convention, blocking passage of the budget. The Lords was wholly unelected, its membership mostly inherited, sometimes by virtue of some service (virtuous or otherwise) by an ancestor hundreds of years before. Successive elections didn’t resolve the crisis and Asquith resolved to pursue the only lawful mechanism available: the creation of as many peers as would be necessary (in the hundreds) to secure the passage of his legislation.
Terry Richardson's (b 1965) suicide-themed shoot with Lindsay Lohan, 2012.
That of course required royal ascent and the newly enthroned George V (1865–1936; King of the United Kingdom & Emperor of India 1910-1936), while making his reservations clear, proved a good constitutional monarch and made it known he would follow the advice of his prime-minister. As it turned out, the “suicide squad” wasn’t required, their Lordships, while not at all approving of the government, were more appalled still at the thought of their exclusive club being swamped with “jumped-up grocers” in “bad hats” and allowed the legislation to pass. Actually, “castration squad” might have been a more accurate description because while the Lords survived, Asquith ensured it would be less of an obstacle, substituting the road block of its power of veto with a speed-bump, a right to impose a two-year delay (in 1949 reduced to six months). The New Labour administration (1997-2010) introduced further reforms which were designed eventually to remove from the Lords all those who held seats by virtue of descent and even the Tories later moved in that direction although the efforts have stalled and a few of the hereditary peers remain. As things now stand, the last remaining absolute veto the Lords retain is to stop an attempt by a government to extend a parliament's life beyond five years.
Some upper house assassins however truly were a suicide squad. In Australia, the state of Queensland followed the usual convention whereby the sub-national parliaments were bicameral, the Legislative Council the upper house and like the others, it was a bastion of what might now be called "those representing the interests of the 1%" and a classic example of white privilege. Actually, at the time, the lower houses were also places of white privilege but the Australian Labor Party (ALP) had long regarded the non-elected Legislative Council (and upper houses in general) as undemocratic and reactionary so in 1915, after securing a majority in the Legislative Assembly (the lower house) which permitted the party to form government, they sought abolition. The Legislative Council predictably rejected the bills passed by the government in 1915 & 1916 and a referendum conducted in 1917 decisively was lost; undeterred, in 1920, the government requested the governor appoint sufficient additional ALP members to the chamber to provide an abolitionist majority. In this, the ALP followed the example of the Liberal Party in the UK which in 1911 prevailed upon the king to appoint as many new peers as might be needed for their legislation to pass unimpeded through an otherwise unsympathetic House of Lords. That wasn’t needed as things transpired but in Queensland, the new members of the Legislative Council duly took their places and on 26 October 1921, the upper house voted in favor of abolition, the new appointees known forever as "the suicide squad". Despite the success, the trend didn't spread and the Commonwealth parliament and those of the other five states remain bicameral although the two recent creations, established when limited self-government was granted to the Northern Territory (NT) and Australian Capital Territory (ACT), both had unicameral assemblies.
Across the Tasman Sea (which locals call "the ditch"), the New Zealand upper house lasted another three decades but it’s eventual demise came about not because of conflict but because the institution was increasing viewed as comatose, rejecting nothing, contributing little and rarely inclined even to criticize. Unlike in England and Queensland, in New Zealand the abolition movement enjoyed cross-party support, left and right (although the latter in those days were pretty leftist), united in their bored disdain. One practical impediment was the New Zealand parliament couldn’t amend the country’s constitution because no government had ever bothered to adopt the Statute of Westminster (1931) by which the Imperial Parliament had granted effective independence to the Dominions but in 1947 this was done. Despite that, the Labour Party didn’t act and after prevailing in the 1950 general election, it was a National Party administration which passed the Legislative Council Abolition Act, its passage assured after a twenty-member “suicide squad” was appointed and the upper house’s meeting of 1 December 1950 proved its last. Opposition from within the chamber had actually been muted, presumably because to sweeten the deal, the government used some of the money saved to pay some generous “retirement benefits” for the displaced politicians. New Zealand since has continued as a unitary state with a unicameral legislature.
Pineapples.
In the Far East (the practice documented in Japan, the PRC (People's Republic of China) and the renegade province of Taiwan), fruit sellers offer pineapples for sale of the basis of “Murder” (谋杀 and variants) or “Suicide” (自殺する and variants). Ominous as it sounds, it's just commercial shorthand. Pineapples being more difficult to handle than many fruits, fruit shops offer the “murder” service in which staff will (for a small fee) peel and chop as required. Those prepared to do their own preparation at home can take the “suicide” option and (at a lesser cost) purchase the whole fruit, skin and all. There are many reasons to eat pineapple.
Suicide doors
It wasn’t until the 1950s the practice of hinging doors from the front became (almost) standardized. Prior to that, they’d opened from the front or rear, some vehicles featuring both. The rear-hinged doors became known as suicide doors because they were genuinely dangerous (in the pre-seat belt era), the physics of them opening while the car was at speed had the effect of dragging the passenger into the airstream. Additionally, it was said they were more likely to injure people if struck by passing vehicles while being opened although the consequences of being struck by a car sound severe whatever the circumstances.
Still used in the 1960s by Lincoln, Ford and Rolls-Royce, they were phased out as post-Nader safety regulations began to be applied to automotive design and were thought extinct when the four door Ford Thunderbirds ceased production in 1971. However, after being seen in a few design exercises over the decades, Rolls-Royce included them on the Phantom VII, introduced in 2003, the feature carried over to the Phantom VIII in 2017. Like other manufacturers, Rolls-Royce has no fondness for the term suicide doors, preferring to call them coach doors; nomenclature from other marketing departments including flex doors and freestyle doors. Engineers are less impressed by silly words, noting the correct term is rear-hinged and these days, mechanisms are included to ensure they can be opened only when the vehicle is at rest. Encouraged by the reaction, Rolls-Royce brought back the rear-hinged door for their fixed (FHC) and drop-head (DHC) coupés although, despite the retro-touch, the factory seems now content usually to call them simply coupés and convertibles.
The combination of the suicide door, the four-door coachwork and perhaps even the association with the death of President Kennedy has long made the convertible a magnet for collectors but among American cars of the era, it is different in that although the drive-train is typical of the simple, robust engineering then used, it's packed also with what can be an intimidating array of electrical and hydraulic systems which require both expertise and equipment properly to maintain. That need has kept a handful of specialists in business for decades, often rectifying the mistakes of others. It was unique; after the last of the even rarer Mercedes-Benz 300d Cabriolet Ds left the line in 1962, Lincoln alone offered anything in the once well-populated niche.
The four-door convertible's most famous owner was Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969) who would use it to drive visitors around his Texas ranch (often with opened can of Pearl beer in hand according to LBJ folklore). While never a big seller (21,347 made over seven years and it achieved fewer than 4,000 sales even in its best year), it was the most publicized of the line and to this day remains a staple in film & television productions needing verisimilitude of the era. The convertible was discontinued after 1967 when 2276 were built, the two-door hardtop introduced the year before out-selling it five to one. The market had spoken; it would be the last convertible Lincoln ever produced and it's now a collectable, LBJ's 1964 model in 2024 selling at auction for US$200,000 and fully restored examples without a celebrity connection regularly trade at well into five figures, illustrating the magic of the coach-work.
A mother watching her daughter enter her 1963 Lincoln Continental, the door held open by the girl's brother. These are two of the family's 2.66 (1964 average) children.
Ford's advertising agency rose to the occasion when producing copy for the four-door convertible. They certainly had scope because it was unique so many superlatives and adjectives which usually were little more than "mere puffery" would in this case have been literally true. It was though a case of making "a silk purse from a sow's ear" because Lincoln adopted the suicide doors only because the car's wheelbase was too short for conventionally (forward) hinged doors to provide a sufficiently wide gap for entry and exit. While that may sound a strange thing to plague a new design, the 1961 Continental was built on the platform of a proposed Ford Thunderbird which would have been available only with a two-door body and despite what the advertising copy suggests, even with the use of suicide doors, access to the rear compartment was tight, something not rectified until the wheelbase (123 inches (3,124 mm) for 1961-1963 & 126 inches (3,200 mm) for 1964-1969) was extended.
Lincoln Continental concepts, Los Angeles Motor Show, 2002 (left) and New York Motors Show 2015 (right).
The Lincoln Continental for decades remained successful after the "great des-sizing" began in 1979 and despite the perceptions of some, the generation which was least-well received was that (1982-1987) based on Ford's smaller "Fox" platform, sales rebounding when the larger eighth generation (1988-1994) made it debut and that was despite the switch to FWD (front-wheel-drive) and the lack of a V8; clearly for Lincoln buyers it was size which mattered rather than the details of what lay beneath and presumably many neither knew, could tell or cared it was FWD, a configuration which anyway increased interior space, something of more tangible benefit to most than what could be achieved on a slalom course. Interest by the late 1990s was however dwindling and the nameplate suffered a fourteen year hiatus between 2002-2016. Unfortunately, the resuscitation (without suicide doors) used as its inspiration the concept car displayed at the 2015 New York International Auto Show rather than the one so admired at Los Angeles in 2002. The LA concept might not have been original but was an elegant and accomplished design, unlike what was offered in NYC fifteen years later: a dreary mash-up which looked something like a big Hyundai or a Chinese knock-off of a Maybach. The public response was muted.
The tenth generation (2017-2020) managed what were by historic standards modest sales but by 2019, it seemed clear the thing was on death-watch but Lincoln surprised the industry with a batch of eighty LWB (long wheelbase) models with suicide doors to mark the eightieth anniversary of the Continental’s introduction in 1939. Although there were those who suggested the relatively cheap process of a stretch and a re-hinge of the back-doors was a cynical way to turn a US$72K car into one costing US$102K and was likely aimed at the Chinese market where a higher price tag and more shiny stuff is thought synonymous with good taste, the anniversary models were sold only in the home market. Although even at the high price there was enough demand to induce ford to do a run of another 150 (non-commemorative) suicide door versions for 2020, the retro gesture proved not enough to save the breed and it was announced production would end on 30 October 2020 with no replacement listed. Not only was the announcement expected but so was the reaction; the market having long lost interest in the uninspiring twenty-first century Continentals, few expressed regret. The name-plate however, one of the most storied in the Ford cupboard, will doubtless one day return. What it will look like is unpredictable but few expect it will match the elegance of what was done in the 1960s.
Haile Selassie I (1892-1975; Emperor of Ethiopia 1930-1974) being received by a ceremonial guard after alighting from the 1966 Vanden Plas Princess 4 Litre (DM4) Limousine of the Governor-General of Jamaica, 21 April 1966 (left) and Vanden Plas Princess with suicide doors open (right).
Emperor Haile Selassie’s 1966 state visit to Jamaica and the Caribbean has since been celebrated by Rastafari as “Grounation Day”, the term based on the emperor declining to walk on the red carpet provided in accordance with protocol because he wished to “make contact with the soil”. Among many of the Rastafari (a movement which emerged in the 1930s, taking its name from Ras (the emperor’s pre-imperial name Ras)) Haile Selassie was worshipped as God incarnate, the messiah who delivered the peoples of Africa and the African diaspora to freedom from colonial oppression. The limousine had been delivered to the island some six weeks earlier for the use of Elizabeth II (1926-2022; Queen of the UK and other places, 1952-2022) during her royal tour after which, she returned to London and the car was re-allocated to Government House as the viceroy’s official vehicle. While it looked like something left over from pre-war days, for its intended purpose it was ideal, the rear compartment capacious, luxuriously trimmed and tall, making it suitable for those wearing even the highest plumed hats. Into this welcoming space, occupants stepped through suicide doors which offered unparalleled ease of entry and departure, especially for the diminutive Haile Selassie who would barely have needed to bow his head.
1965 Vanden Plas Princess 4 Litre (DM4) Limousine Landaulette (left) and 1940s advertisement for Dickson automatic rear door-locks.
Based on a car which was even upon its debut in 1952 seemed old fashioned, by 1968 when production finally ended, the Vanden Plas Princess was, stylistically and technically, a true relic and it’s remarkable that complete with a split windscreen of two flat panes, it was a contemporary of machines like the Lincoln Continental, Jaguar XJ6 and NSU Ro80. It was very much a case it being better to be inside a DM4 among burled walnut and West of England Cloth (durable leather was for chauffeurs and other servants who rode up front) looking (and for some, waving) out than on the outside looking in. What must seem even more remarkable was that despite picking up a nickname like “suicide doors”, governments for decades did nothing to compel manufacturers to fit the small, cheap mechanisms (available on the aftermarket for US$3.95 a pair) which would prevent the doors opening while the car was in motion. These potentially life-saving devices were not expensive and if installed in bulk on production lines, the unit cost would not much have exceeded US$1.00. It was another world and not until the 1960s did the rising death toll compel legislatures to take seriously the matter of automotive safety.
Vanden Plas did in 1968 belatedly plan an update of the DM4 which sort of "brought it into the 1950s" although for the target market, that may have been no bad thing. By then however Harold Wilson's (1916–1995; UK prime minister 1964-1970 & 1974-1976) Labour Party government had engineered the "great coming together" which was the ultimately doomed British Leyland and with Jaguar also in the conglomerate, their much more advanced Daimler DS420 (1968-1992) limousine was obviously superior and there was no place for the "modernized DM4", the grafting of quad headlights and a one-piece windscreen not enough to save the relic from extinction. Along with New Zealand's curious hybrid model of the 1970s, the Wilson government was the West's only serious attempt to combine political freedom with a quasi-socialist planned (if not quite command) economy and the reactions to the lessons provided by British Leyland (and other state ventures) contributed to the hegemony of the neo-liberal model which for the last four-decades odd has done what it's done.
When used by the wedding and hire car industries, some operators took advantage of many of the English limousines from the 1950s & 1960s being fitted with version of the GM (General Motors) Hydramatic automatic transmission, installing in each centre-post a dead-bolt activated by an electrical solenoid, the system triggered by “on” by the shift lever being in drive (locking the rear doors) and “off” by moving the lever to neutral (withdrawing the bolt). Vanden Plas did at least on some models include on the dashboard a pair of red lights which brightly would glow if the corresponding left or right door was not completely closed. The much more expensive Rolls-Royce limousines had no such “safety lights”; passengers in those were on their own. It was not a theoretical problem because there were many documented cases of passengers, especially those sitting (without seat belts) in the jump-seats leaning against the doors, sometimes pressing down the handle, cause the door to open.
1960 Facel Vega Excellence EX1.
The four-door Facel Vegas featured suicide doors which were among the most potentially dangerous because of the dubious (though elegant) engineering in the locking mechanisms. Note also the "dog leg" of the A-Pillar (windscreen), a styling trend borrowed from Detroit which caused many injuries to knees and one victim was Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) who who in August, 1960 suffered a hit during his doomed campaign for that year's presidential election. It resulted in a staphylococci infection which for two weeks confined him to bed in Walter Reed Hospital at a time when his opponent (John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963) was travelling the country campaigning and for a born politician like Nixon it wouldn't have been much consolation that his bedside well-wishers included Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater (1909–1998; Republican Party nominee for the 1964 US presidential election); hearing those two were walking down the corridor, he may have wondered if he could fake his own death. One biographer suggested the injury happened because his team deliberately chose to use a cheaper Chevrolet rather than a "larger" Cadillac in order to project a less elitist image. While the reason for the choice of car was true, the impact injury would anyway likely have happened because, beginning with the 1959 range, for reasons of production-line rationalization, Chevrolet & Cadillac (along with corporate stable-mates Buick, Oldsmobile & Pontiac) all shared GM's corporate C-Body platform and while between divisions there were sometimes dimensional differences (notably in wheelbases), the front doors, A-Pillars and seat mounting points were identical in all.
If compatible (which seems improbable given the novelty of this French approach to door-latch design), the Dickson locks would have been a worthwhile addition for the Facel Vega Excellence (1956-1964) which, in a triumph of fashion over function, had no B-Pillar (ie the central one between the doors) at all, the suicide doors secured only by a locking mechanism in the door sill, something which worked well in static testing but on the road, lateral stresses induced during cornering meant the doors were apt to “fly open”, something to ponder in the pre-seat-belt era. The completely pillarless look did however look good so there was that. One of the most glamorous machines of the era, many celebrities were drawn to Facel Vegas but the most infamous association was with the author Albert Camus (1913–1960), killed instantly when the FV3B in which he was a passenger crashed into a tree; the car was being driven by his publisher, Michel Gallimard (1917–1960), who was mortally injured, dying within days. Although the accident happened on a long, straight section of road, the conditions were icy and the official cause was listed as "...a loss of control while travelling at an excessive speed for the conditions". The FV3B was a two-door coupé so there was no link with the suicide doors used on the Excellence, the possibility of tyre failure has always been speculative and there's now little support for the conspiracy theory (which long circulated) suggesting the KGB may have sabotaged the car because of the author's anti-Soviet stance. Powered by a variety of Chrysler V8s (the "Hemi", "Poly" & "Wedge" all at times used), the "big" Facel Vegas (1954-1964; some 506 coupés, 156 sedans and a reputed 11 cabriolets) were France's finest cars of the post-war years but the decision to produce a smaller range doomed the company. The concept was sound, the market existed and the product was well-designed but the French-made four-cylinder engine proved chronically (and insolubly) unreliable; by the time a version powered by a robust Volvo unit was ready, warranty claims and the costs of the re-engineering had driven Facel Vega bankrupt.
Lure of the tragic
Predictably, it’s the suicides of celebrities (however defined) which attract most interest but there’s a fascination also with those by young women and that’s understandable because of the lure of youthful beauty and tragedy. The photograph remembered as “the most beautiful suicide” was taken by photography student Robert Wiles (1909-1991), some four minutes after the victim's death. Evelyn Francis McHale (1923–1947) was a bookkeeper who threw herself to her death from the 86th-floor observation deck of New York's Empire State Building, landing on a Cadillac limousine attached to the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) which was parked on 34th street, some 200 feet (60 m) west of Fifth Ave. The police would later find he last note which read: “I don’t want anyone in or out of my family to see any part of me. Could you destroy my body by cremation? I beg of you and my family – don’t have any service for me or remembrance for me. My fiance asked me to marry him in June. I don’t think I would make a good wife for anybody. He is much better off without me. Tell my father, I have too many of my mother’s tendencies.” It was reported her mother suffered from “an undiagnosed and untreated depression”.
Mary Miller and the "Genesee Hotel Suicide". Earlier postcard of the Genesse Hotel with eighth floor ledge indicated by yellow arrow (left) and Mr Sorgi's photograph (centre) of the suicide's aftermath (right).
In many parts of the world, it’s now unusual if someone is not carrying a device able instantly to capture HD (high-definition) images & video footage but until relatively recently, cameras rarely were taken from the home unless to use them at set piece events such as vacations or parties. Not only are people now able to record what they see but within seconds, images and clips can be transmitted just about anywhere in the world, some “going viral”. This proliferation of content has had many implications, one noted phenomenon it seeming now more likely someone will film another at imminent risk of death or injury than offer to assist; psychiatrists, sociologists and such have offered views on that but the behaviour, at least in some cases might be better explained by lawyers and economists.
In 1942 it was mostly professional photographers who routinely would have to hand a camera and the devices were not then like the instantly available “point & shoot” technology of the digital age, the process then a cocktail of loading physical film-stock, assessing the light, adjusting the aperture and maybe even swapping lens. The photograph (the lens wide-open and the shutter was set to a 1000th of a second), of Mary Millar (1907-1942), mid-flight in her leap to death from an eighth-floor ledge of the Genesee Hotel in Buffalo, New York was a thing most unusual: an anyway rare event happening when someone stood ready to take the picture. When published, the photograph was captioned “Suicide” or “The Genesee Hotel Suicide” but the popular press couldn’t resist embellishment, one using the title “The Despondent Divorcee” which was in the tabloid tradition of “making stuff up”; Ms Millar had never been married and not in a relationship. She left no suicide note.
Ignatius Russell Sorgi (1912-1995) was a staff photographer on Buffalo’s Courier Express who on 7 May, 1942 happened to take a different route back to the office when he saw a police car speeding down the road, sirens blaring. Accordingly, in the “ambulance chasing” tradition, he followed, not knowing what he’d see but knew it might be news-worthy and gain him a front-page credit: “I snatched my camera from the car and took two quick shots as she seemed to hesitate…As quickly as possible I shoved the exposed film into the case and reached for a fresh holder. I no sooner had pulled the slide out and got set for another shot than she waved to the crowd below and pushed herself into space. Screams and shouts burst from the horrified onlookers as her body plummeted toward the street. I took a firm grip on myself, waited until the woman passed the second or third story, and then shot.”
