Born Marian Starr Wyman she took her stepfather's last name Faithful in 1925.
From Time magazine, June 29, 1931
The Press: Five Starr Faithfull
"If the bruised body of a pretty girl with veronal in the liver were washed ashore on the sands of Long Beach, N. Y.; if she were found to be of respectable but somewhat eccentric family; if her diary revealed her as a neurotic and alluded to childhood misadventures with an unnamed, elderly and prominent man; if the girl's name were Sadie Schmitz and she lived, say, on West 17th Street, New York; if such a case occurred in cool weather with an abundance of other news breaking concurrently—how would the newspapers treat it? Probable answer: as a good local five-day sex mystery, to be slipped off the front pages of conservative papers if no solution was forthcoming.
The New York World-Telegram and other United Press subscribers embellished Father Faithfull's sad story with facsimiles of erotic pages from Starr's memory book, letters, telegrams. Star writers were put on the lurid story to treat it as an epic of injured innocence, a cause celebre of the decade. Fresh interest, fresh front-page stories (again including the Times) were supplied by the arrival from England of a Cunard Line doctor who revealed that Heroine Faithfull had come to see him on shipboard just before she disappeared from home, that he had sent her away because she was drunk, that she had written him she was going to commit suicide. The doctor's picture now made display material as the epic passed into its third week. Observers marveled at what the great U. S. Press could do with the conjunction of a perfect front-page name, a sexy death mystery and a spell of hot weather."
From Time magazine, June 29, 1931
The Press: Five Starr Faithfull
"If the bruised body of a pretty girl with veronal in the liver were washed ashore on the sands of Long Beach, N. Y.; if she were found to be of respectable but somewhat eccentric family; if her diary revealed her as a neurotic and alluded to childhood misadventures with an unnamed, elderly and prominent man; if the girl's name were Sadie Schmitz and she lived, say, on West 17th Street, New York; if such a case occurred in cool weather with an abundance of other news breaking concurrently—how would the newspapers treat it? Probable answer: as a good local five-day sex mystery, to be slipped off the front pages of conservative papers if no solution was forthcoming.
The New York World-Telegram and other United Press subscribers embellished Father Faithfull's sad story with facsimiles of erotic pages from Starr's memory book, letters, telegrams. Star writers were put on the lurid story to treat it as an epic of injured innocence, a cause celebre of the decade. Fresh interest, fresh front-page stories (again including the Times) were supplied by the arrival from England of a Cunard Line doctor who revealed that Heroine Faithfull had come to see him on shipboard just before she disappeared from home, that he had sent her away because she was drunk, that she had written him she was going to commit suicide. The doctor's picture now made display material as the epic passed into its third week. Observers marveled at what the great U. S. Press could do with the conjunction of a perfect front-page name, a sexy death mystery and a spell of hot weather."
Born Marian Starr Wyman she took her stepfather's last name Faithful in 1925.
From Time magazine, June 29, 1931
The Press: Five Starr Faithfull
"If the bruised body of a pretty girl with veronal in the liver were washed ashore on the sands of Long Beach, N. Y.; if she were found to be of respectable but somewhat eccentric family; if her diary revealed her as a neurotic and alluded to childhood misadventures with an unnamed, elderly and prominent man; if the girl's name were Sadie Schmitz and she lived, say, on West 17th Street, New York; if such a case occurred in cool weather with an abundance of other news breaking concurrently—how would the newspapers treat it? Probable answer: as a good local five-day sex mystery, to be slipped off the front pages of conservative papers if no solution was forthcoming.
The New York World-Telegram and other United Press subscribers embellished Father Faithfull's sad story with facsimiles of erotic pages from Starr's memory book, letters, telegrams. Star writers were put on the lurid story to treat it as an epic of injured innocence, a cause celebre of the decade. Fresh interest, fresh front-page stories (again including the Times) were supplied by the arrival from England of a Cunard Line doctor who revealed that Heroine Faithfull had come to see him on shipboard just before she disappeared from home, that he had sent her away because she was drunk, that she had written him she was going to commit suicide. The doctor's picture now made display material as the epic passed into its third week. Observers marveled at what the great U. S. Press could do with the conjunction of a perfect front-page name, a sexy death mystery and a spell of hot weather."
From Time magazine, June 29, 1931
The Press: Five Starr Faithfull
"If the bruised body of a pretty girl with veronal in the liver were washed ashore on the sands of Long Beach, N. Y.; if she were found to be of respectable but somewhat eccentric family; if her diary revealed her as a neurotic and alluded to childhood misadventures with an unnamed, elderly and prominent man; if the girl's name were Sadie Schmitz and she lived, say, on West 17th Street, New York; if such a case occurred in cool weather with an abundance of other news breaking concurrently—how would the newspapers treat it? Probable answer: as a good local five-day sex mystery, to be slipped off the front pages of conservative papers if no solution was forthcoming.
The New York World-Telegram and other United Press subscribers embellished Father Faithfull's sad story with facsimiles of erotic pages from Starr's memory book, letters, telegrams. Star writers were put on the lurid story to treat it as an epic of injured innocence, a cause celebre of the decade. Fresh interest, fresh front-page stories (again including the Times) were supplied by the arrival from England of a Cunard Line doctor who revealed that Heroine Faithfull had come to see him on shipboard just before she disappeared from home, that he had sent her away because she was drunk, that she had written him she was going to commit suicide. The doctor's picture now made display material as the epic passed into its third week. Observers marveled at what the great U. S. Press could do with the conjunction of a perfect front-page name, a sexy death mystery and a spell of hot weather."
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