The Murder
Stanford White was known to have seduced Thaw's wife, showgirl Evelyn Nesbit. During the opening-night performance of Mam'zelle Champagne, audience members noticed Thaw repeatedly glaring at White. Thaw eventually got up, crossed over to White's seat and shot him point-blank while the show onstage was in the midst of a number titled "I Could Love a Million Girls". It has never been established whether the subject matter of this particular song was a factor in prompting Thaw to take action at that particular moment.
The murder is central to the plot of E.L. Doctorow's historical novel Ragtime, and in the 1981 movie veteran actor Donald O'Connor sings "I Could Love a Million Girls". The song "I Could Love a Million Girls" is also featured in The Simpsons episode 7G10: "Homer's Night Out".
Read more about this topic: Mam'zelle Champagne
Famous quotes containing the word murder:
“Some time ago a publisher told me that there are four kinds of books that seldom, if ever, lose money in the United States—first, murder stories; secondly, novels in which the heroine is forcibly overcome by the hero; thirdly, volumes on spiritualism, occultism and other such claptrap, and fourthly, books on Lincoln.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“One can endure everything except hunger. If I were a man, maybe I would have committed murder to fill my stomach. But as a woman, I became a prostitute.”
—“Manju” (b. c. 1973)