Isadora Duncan - Death

Death

Duncan's fondness for flowing scarves was the cause of her death in an automobile accident in Nice, France, at the age of 50. The scarf was hand-painted silk by the Russian-born artist Roman Chatov, and was a gift from her friend Mary Desti, the mother of American film director Preston Sturges.

On the night of September 14, 1927, Duncan was a passenger in the Amilcar automobile of a handsome French-Italian mechanic Benoît Falchetto, whom she had nicknamed "Buggatti" . This is the reason that many writers have erroneously said she was killed in a Bugatti car.

Before getting into the car, she reportedly said to her friend Desti and some companions, "Adieu, mes amis. Je vais à la gloire!" (Goodbye, my friends. I go to glory!), however, according to American novelist Glenway Wescott, who was in Nice at the time and visited Duncan's body in the morgue, Desti admitted that she had lied about Duncan's last words. Instead, she told Wescott, Duncan said, "Je vais à l'amour" (I am off to love). Desti considered this embarrassing, as it suggested that she and Falchetto were going to her hotel for a tryst. Her silk scarf, a gift from Desti, draped around her neck, became entangled around the open-spoked wheels and rear axle, breaking her neck.

As The New York Times noted in its obituary: "Isadora Duncan, the American dancer, tonight met a tragic death at Nice on the Riviera. According to dispatches from Nice, Miss Duncan was hurled in an extraordinary manner from an open automobile in which she was riding and instantly killed by the force of her fall to the stone pavement." Other sources described her death as resulting from strangulation, noting that she was almost decapitated by the sudden tightening of the scarf around her neck. The accident gave rise to Gertrude Stein's mordant remark that "affectations can be dangerous." At her death, Duncan was a Soviet citizen. Her will was the first of a Soviet citizen to be probated in the U.S.

Isadora Duncan was cremated, and her ashes were placed next to those of her children in the columbarium at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. The headstone of her grave contains the inscription in French: "Ballet School of the Opera of Paris." (École de Ballet de l'Opéra de Paris).