DANCE GIRL’S FATE

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 98, 19 January 1935, Page 18

DANCE GIRL’S FATE

Gave Up All For Career

Behind the death of Toni Carrazzi, IT-year-old London dancer and night dub girl, in St. Luke’s Hospital, Chelsea, lies a secret which may never be revealed. Was that secret the name of a man witli whom Toni was desperately in love? “I know that she wanted to whisper the name of a man, but she died without uttering it,” her heart-broken mother told an interviewer. Jessarosa —not Toni—was her real name. She was one of a gay throng of girls thinking only of parties, pretty clothes and her brilliant future. For gay, vivacious Toni, with her flashing dark eyes, was the personality girl. Her days had been the merry casual whirl of the showgirl—and she was more than attractive to men. “But she did not appear to have any particular preference in that direction,” a dose friend said, “though it was obvious that if she did fall for a man it would be with her whole heart aud soul. “Her soul, however, seemed to be wrapped up iu her dancing. Slie could talk and think of nothing else but her dreams for the future. “She trained herself for stardom by attending a famous West End dancing academy. It seemed that, with her tai-

ent, brains and personality, she would have risen to the top. “She appeared in ‘Two Hearts iu Waltztime,’ ‘Evergreen’ and ‘BreAster's Millions,’ and was booked to appear In many more, had she lived. “She had mon friends, many of them wealthy men with connections in the film world . . . “It was not a suitable marriage, however, at which she aimed, but a brilliant career— dreams which she shared with her widowed mother at their little flat in Chelsea. Then suddenly she disappeared. She just dropped out of everything. She had had a bad spell for engagements and she said she was worried and fed up. “ ‘Things have gone wrong,' was all she would say. Then she was in hospital and a fortnight later was dead.” Toni's father was an Italian who was killed in action during the war. Toni was the only daughter, and her widowed mother has now lost all she holds dear. Mrs. Carrazzi, in her little flat in Radnor Street, Chelsea, said:—“Toni was so anxious to succeed for my sake, but recently she had been without any film work. Where she went and what she did before she became ill I don’t know.”