Yvonne Hughes ~ The Murdered Ziegfeld Girl

 

Yvonne Hughes was a Ziegfeld Follies star and actress who was tragically murdered

She was born Evelyn Marie Hughes on July 5, 1902 in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. Her Uncle, Charles Evans Hughes, was the Governor of New York. Yvonne attended Miss Morrison's school for girls in Pittsburgh. At the age of fifteen she married a clerk named Charles Feick. Their son, Charles Feick Jr, was born on August 30, 1918. Two years later she left her family and moved to New York City. She started her career dancing with the Ziegfeld Follies. In 1923 she made her film debut in Law Larcency. The dark haired beauty also appeared in the films Big Brother and Zaza with Gloria Swanson. Yvonne married Gordon Godowsky, son of famed pianist Leopold Godowsky, in 1928. That same year she was in the Broadway musicals Rio Rita and Whoopee. She and Gordon separated in 1929 but remained legally married.

Tragically he committed suicide in 1932. By this time her show business career was over and she had a serious drinking problem. Yvonne was hospitalized in October of 1932 after she was found wandering the streets in her pajamas. She began dating John McDonald, a cab driver, in 1936. The couple lived together at the Ashland hotel in New York City. On December 26, 1950 John brought Birger Nordkvist, an apple picker, back to the hotel. Yvonne and Birger spent the night drinking together. When she rebuffed his advances he strangled her to death with a handkerchief. She was only forty-eight years old. Birger Nordkvist confessed and was sentenced to ten years for manslaughter. Yvonne was buried in an unmarked grave at McKeesport and Versailles Cemetery in McKeesport, Pennsylvania.

                                                                                                          With Gordon Godowsky