76) Anny Ahlers

Anny Ahlers (1907 – 1933). German actress and singer. 

Ahlers began her career at the age of four, appearing as a dancer in circus acts. At seven she studied at the Operatic School of Dancing in Hamburg. Her breakthrough role was in the operetta Casanova, composed by Ralph Benatzky. This role established her popularity in Berlin.

On 14 March 1933, while appearing in London, she died in controversial circumstances after jumping out her flat window in an apparent suicide. Her death has been blamed both on morphine that she had taken while suffering from tuberculosis, and on sleeping pills she was taking due to insomnia.

- "After her death Sir Merrik obtained a lock of her red hair, which he had set under glass in the lid of an antique French box, and personally wrote an inscription in her memory, which was placed in the box." http://www.jssgallery.org/…/Philip_Al…/Miss_Anny_Ahlers.html