EVA MAY : AUSTRIAN ACTRESS : DIED BY SUICIDE AT AGE 24 : ROSS VERLAG : RPPC For Sale

This vintage real photo postcard features Austrian actress, Eva May (1902-1924). Her parents were in the performance industry. Her father, Joe May, was a successful film producer and director, and her mother, Mia May, was a noted actress. Both parents were Austrian and her father was Jewish. Eva was born seven weeks after their marriage. Eva killed herself at the young age of 24. She selected a very lethal method of suicide, she chose gunshot wound. She had a history of several suicide attempts. Eva made her film debut at the tender age of fourteen in a film directed by her father. At age sixteen she married director Erik Lund. The two paired up in making movies. Eva wrote film scripts. In the 1920\'s she made films with her father. Eva developed a reputation for being difficult to work with. It was posited that she was jealous of her mothers beauty and great success. Her most successful starring roless were in Paganini (1923) with Conrad Veidt and Old Heidelberg with Paul Hartmann (1923). Eva was married and divorced three times. After director Fritz Mandl stated he would not marry her, Eva committed suicide by shooting herself. A year earlier she had attempted suicide by slashing her wrists. The cause of her self destructive act was a broken engagement. Her fiance left her and married Marlene Dietrich. Poor Eva was clearly emotionally unstabe. Her multiple marriages and engagement and her multiple suicide attempts paints a portrait of a very troubled young woman. In her final suicide note she wrote \"always there is something to mar my happiness - Life is not worth living\". It is interesting that her three marriages were to directors, the same profession as her father. The IMDb indicates that Eva had more than thirty film roles between 1914 and 1924. This card was published by Ross Verlag as part of a series (No.269/4). Miss May\'s photograph on this card was taken by the Becker and Maas studio. This vintage postcard portrait is in very good condition (see scans).