Muriel Miles was a Ziegfeld Follies showgirl who committed suicide in 1959
She was born in 1897 in New York City. At the age of twenty-one she joined the Ziegfeld Follies. The beautiful brunette was five feet, seven inches tall and weighed 115 pounds. Muriel announced her engagement to a millionaire named Mr. Hoyt in 1920. Tragically he died before they could be married. She began spending a lot of time in France where she enjoyed gambling at the casinos. In 1922 she met Count Henri de Sincay, a Belgian millionaire, in Deuville. Unfortunately Henri had a bad temper and was very jealous, In October of 1922 he came to her hotel room with a gun and threatened to kill them both. Muriel tried to calm him down but he fired the gun at her. Luckily the bullet only made a superficial mark on her temple. She later told him "Thank goodness you didn't disfigure me. It was so considerate of you to aim the bullet where you did".
When reporters asked her about the incident she lied and said she had hurt herself falling in the bathroom. Muriel continued to date Henri but their relationship was rocky. Sadly in November of 1924 he committed suicide. Soon after she returned to New York City and moved into a three room apartment on East 56th Street. As she grew older she had financial problems and suffered from depression. She made out her will and planned her own funeral in 1958. Tragically on August 10, 1959 she committed suicide by taking an overdose of barbiturates. Muriel was sixty-two years old. In a note she wrote "I am too lonely and insecure to fight on in a losing game. I can't go on. I think of nothing else morning, noon, and night. My inner self says 'Have it over with'. I can't look forward to dragging myself around as an old forlorn bat. I see them around and it's too pitiful." She was buried at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.
