Evelyn McHale
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Evelyn Francis McHale (September 20, 1923 – May 1, 1947) was an American bookkeeper who committed suicide by jumping off the Empire State Building in 1947. A photograph taken minutes after her death by photographer, Robert Wiles, is now considered among the most iconic suicide photographs in history, referred to as "the most beautiful suicide". Her body was oddly intact body after her suicide leap from the Empire State Building. Years later, Andy Warhol appropriated Wiles’ photography for a print called Suicide (Fallen Body).
Death
On April 30, 1947, McHale took a train from New York to Easton, Pennsylvania to visit her fiancé Barry Rhodes. The next day after leaving Rhodes' residence she went to the Empire State Building and jumped from the 86th floor observatory. Rhodes did not notice any indication of suicide before McHale left. Detective Frank Murray found her suicide note in a black pocketbook next to her neatly folded cloth coat over the observation deck wall which read:
- “I don’t want anyone in or out of my family to see any part of me. Could you destroy my body by cremation? 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.”
Her body was identified by her sister, Helen Brenner. According to her wishes she was cremated with no memorial, service or grave.
Legacy
The photo of her body taken by Robert Wiles has been compared to the self-immolation of Thích Quảng Đức and is widely regarded as among the most iconic suicide photographs. Ben Cosgrove of Time described the photo as "technically rich, visually compelling and [...] downright beautiful". Cosgrove described her body as "resting [or] napping rather than [...] dead" and appears as if she is "daydreaming of her beau".
Andy Warhol used Wiles' photo in one of his prints entitled Suicide (Fallen Body).
See also
