Pepi Lederer

Acting

1910-03-18 · Chicago, Illinois, U.S.

Pepi Lederer (born Josephine Rose Lederer; March 18, 1910 – June 11, 1935) was an American actress and writer. She was the niece of actress and philanthropist Marion Davies. A high-spirited young woman, Lederer was a lesbian who had relationships with actresses Nina Mae McKinney and Louise Brooks, among others. She became a well-known figure in the gay and bisexual community of Jazz Age Hollywood. Due to either her sexual orientation or a drug addiction, Lederer was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric ward at the behest of Davies's partner, newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst. On June 11, 1935, the 25-year-old Lederer took her own life by jumping from the sixth floor window of her hospital room at Good Samaritan Hospital. A later obituary printed by Hearst's flagship newspaper, The San Francisco Examiner, depicted Lederer's suicide as an accidental mishap, and her involuntary hospitalization was attributed to "a nervous breakdown caused by overstudy." Lederer is buried at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles.