The death of Thomas Ince
California, United States, 1924
This case is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places and events in the game do not portray real people. The account below is a factual summary, based on public sources, of the case that served as inspiration.
In November 1924, press tycoon William Randolph Hearst invited producer and director Thomas H. Ince, one of the pioneers of the Hollywood studios, on a weekend cruise aboard the yacht Oneida. The trip celebrated Ince's birthday and was meant to seal a deal under which Hearst's Cosmopolitan Productions would lease his studio. Ince boarded in San Diego on Sunday, November 16, and joined the guests, among them the writer Elinor Glyn.
After the birthday dinner, Ince, who suffered from an ulcer and had eaten salted almonds and drunk champagne, became gravely ill. He was taken ashore and by train to Del Mar, where a doctor and a nurse attended him in a hotel, and then went on to Los Angeles. He died at home in Beverly Hills on November 19, aged 44. The death certificate gave heart failure as the cause, and the body was cremated two days later.
Sources
In the game
Slipper on the Bow
San Diego Bay, Monday, November 17, 1924, 8:00 am. On the anchored yacht Silver Gull, film producer Leland Sorensen, who turned 44 yesterday, was found dead at 2:00 am at the foot of the bow stairs.
About a month later, the San Diego district attorney declared that the death was caused by the heart and that there was nothing to investigate. Even so, a rumor spread through Hollywood that Hearst, jealous of the actress Marion Davies, had shot Ince in the dark thinking he was aiming at Charlie Chaplin, and that everyone aboard had sworn silence. No witness spoke of a bullet wound, Hearst always denied it and nothing was ever proved, but the story inspired books and the film "The Cat's Meow" (2001), by Peter Bogdanovich.
