EVELYN MCHALE: "THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SUICIDE", PHOTOGRAPHED BY ROBERT WILES, AS IT APPEARED IN LOOK MAGAZINE
On May 1, 1947, 23-year-old Evelyn McHale bought a ticket to the observation deck atop the Empire State Building, made the long trek upstairs, took off her coat, and leapt 86 stories through the morning mist to her death. In her determination to clear the building's setbacks, McHale landed on the roof of a United Nations limousine parked at the curb, crushing it, and causing an explosive crash that drew the attention of a young photography student called Robert Wiles who was walking across the street. As a crowd converged around the scene, Wiles posed his camera and took a photograph of McHale, who, despite the damage the impact of her falling body had done to the roof of the limousine, looked incongrously peaceful as she lay amid the rubble. The photograph, which came to be known as "The Most Beautiful Suicide", was subsequently featured in the May 12th issue of Look magazine and, decades later, was revamped by Andy Warhol for a print he called "Suicide (Fallen Body)" which he included with other prints that comprised his Death And Disaster series.
SUICIDE (FALLEN BODY) PRINT BY ANDY WARHOL, FROM HIS DEATH AND DISASTER SERIES (1962-1967)
As McHale made her tragic leap, her white scarf floated down to the street, catching the eye of patrolman John Morrissey, who was directing traffic on Thirty-third Street and Fifth Avenue. Stunned pedestrians who gathered around the crash site noticed a string of pearls clutched between McHale's fingers. But it was the note she left behind that struck the most poignant note of all. Discovered on the observation deck along with her coat and a brown make-up bag filled with family photographs, it read: “I don’t want anyone in--or out--of my family to see any part of me. 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.”
EVELYN McHALE...SMILING FOR THE CAMERA
From the moment Wiles' photograph appeared in Look magazine, Evelyn McHale became an object of fascination in pop culture. Yet, despite the high-profile circumstances of her death, we still know very little about her. What we do know is that she was born on Sept. 20, 1923 in Berkeley, California, the sixth child of Vincent and Helen McHale (she was one of seven), and that after moving to Washington DC where Vincent worked as a Federal Bank Land Examiner, the McHales divorced. Following the divorce, Vincent took custody of the children and relocated to Tuckahoe, New York, where Evelyn attended high school. After graduation, she joined the Women's Army Corps and was stationed in Jacksonville, Missouri. One of the few anecdotes we have from Evelyn's personal life is that, after her discharge from the army, she allegedly burned her uniform.
With her army career behind her, Evelyn settled in Baldwin, New York, living with her brother and sister-in-law, and taking a position as receptionist for an engraving company. It was at this point that she met Barry Rhodes, an ex-GI studying at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. Shortly after meeting, the couple began making plans to marry at Rhodes' house in Troy, New York. The wedding date was set for June, 1947. The day before she died, Evelyn traveled by train to Easton to celebrate her fiance's 24th birthday. According to Rhodes, as the couple kissed good-bye the next morning, "(Evelyn) was as happy and normal as any girl about to be married."
So, what happened between that farewell kiss and the moment when Evelyn McHale made the decision to end her life? We'll never know, of course. That's one of the reasons that McHale's story remains such a source of fascination. That...and the eerily composed look on her face as she lay atop the crumpled roof of that limousine 86 stories below the Empire State Building observation deck. Her last words, scrawled in the note that she left behind, indicate that she was troubled, but without any accompanying details, we can only guess as to the nature of those troubles. There is something undeniably chilling about the final request included in her suicide note: "I beg of you--my family--don't have any service for me or any rememberance for me." The thought that a beautiful young woman, who seemed to have everything to live for, wished, in her final moments, to be forgotten in death may be incomprehensible to those of us who know nothing about McHale's personal suffering, but it speaks volumes about the self-loathing that must have shadowed her life until that moment. And it is, of course, painfully ironic, that, in choosing to end her life in the manner she did, Evelyn McHale achieved the exact opposite of what she had wished for.
That's it for now...from beyond the pale.
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