Pauline Armitage was a popular stage actress who committed suicide after getting her

heart broken

She was born Pauline Smith on March 21, 1895 in Kenton, Tennessee  Sadly her father, J.L. Smith, died when she just five years old. After graduating from high school she attended Benton College in Nashville. Pauline began her career on the stage in Chicago. Then she moved to New York and made her Broadway debut in the 1920 play The Cat Bird. The beautiful blonde appeared in numerous hit plays including The Wren, Nancy Ann, and Aphrodite. She had a lovely singing voice and was called “one of Broadway’s most beautiful showgirls.” Pauline said “I’m asked a dozen times a week if I’m not impatient to become a star and no matter how many times I say ‘no’ I don’t think anyone has ever believed me.” In 1925 she landed a small role in the film False Pride.

Soon after her older brother James died in a car accident. During the Fall of 1925 she went on a ten week tour with the play Naughty Cinderella. She began dating Wilson Mizner, a wealthy writer, who was twenty years older than her. When the play closed she told her friends she was marrying him and moving to Florida. Milton abruptly ended their relationship in early 1926. Pauline was so devastated that suffered a nervous breakdown. Tragically on February 16, 1926 she committed suicide by jumping out of a 14th floor hotel window. She was only thirty years old. Pauline was buried next to her father at Sunnyside Cemetery in
Kenton, Tennessee. Wilson Mizner did not attend her funeral and told the press that they were never romantically involved.