Did Lupe Vélez really drown in the toilet?
In the pages of the infamous Hollywood tell-all Hollywood Babylon is the story of early film star Lupe Vélez. While Vélez was known as a fine performer, she is probably best remembered for how she died. Did she really commit suicide as described in the book – i.e., was she really found the next day face down in the toilet? — Jeremy Bridges, Brookhaven, Mississippi Fortunately, I don’t have to bear the burden of being the first commentator to question the accuracy of Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon, a 1959 compendium of Tinseltown scandals recounted in florid prose that suggests tabloid journalism more than sober academia. Anger has been criticized for relying on rumor, hearsay, and innuendo rather than research, and his account of Lupe Vélez’s suicide doesn’t help his case. Anger’s version of Vélez’s demise: Despondent that her lover, who’d gotten her pregnant, refused to leave his wife and marry her, she carefully arranged her bedchamber, left a suicide note, and took what was meant
