Pepi Lederer

Common card · No. 445008

Pepi Lederer (born Josephine Rose Lederer; March 18, 1910 – June 11, 1935) was an American actress and writer. She was the niece of actress Marion Davies, the longtime mistress of newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst. After her parents divorced, Lederer was raised in Southern California by her wealthy aunt at her Beverly Hills estate and later at Hearst Castle in San Simeon. As a high-spirited lesbian, Lederer became a popular figure in the gay and bisexual community of Jazz Age Hollywood. She had many sexual relationships with women, including actress Nina Mae McKinney. In May 1935, due to either her drug addiction or sexual orientation, William Randolph Hearst committed Lederer against her will to a psychiatric ward at Good Samaritan Hospital. In June 1935, a 25-year-old Lederer committed suicide by jumping from a sixth-floor hospital window. Although early newspaper obituaries reported her death as a suicide, obituaries in Hearst's papers depicted her death as an accident and...

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