Some eighty years ago, on the 30th of July in 1939, a young aspiring actress by the name of Sirkka Sari decides to go on the rooftop of the hotel that she’s staying at with the rest of the film crew. They have just finished filming Rich Girl where she played the leading role, and now a bit of a celebration is in order.
Having seen the tall tower on top of the hotel, Sirkka decides to go and get a better look at the surrounding areas. She is in a good mood, a bit tipsy, accompanied by her dancing partner who is not part of the film crew but has come to the hotel to meet with the film director Valentin Vaala. They take the elevator to the top floor at midnight, and climb the stairs leading to the rooftop.
Sirkka Sari had always been fond of high places. As a child she used to climb trees and hilltops, and even got up in firefighters towers. Once she got to climb up the local air-traffic control tower where she unwaveringly walked on the narrow edge tens of feet above the ground. She just enjoyed looking around the surroundings from any high place she could find.
Standing there that night on the rooftop with her acquaintance, she decides to climb the iron ladder all the way up the steel construction that she believes to be a lookout tower. But she realizes too late that it’s not a lookout tower at all, but a chimney. Too late, because the round area between the iron railings is not covered by anything but air, revealing an ordinary brick-layered chimney that leads a hundred feet straight down. And so she plummets down to a certain death.
People hurry down to help get her out of the chimney, but she is soon declared dead. Her death shocked people in her home country Finland, and made headlines all the way in the United States. And even if there were first some suspicions of foul play, it was quickly ruled a bizarre, tragic accident that ended the life and career of this vibrant teenager.
By the way, that day - July 30th 1939 - was also a start of a show biz career, for it is the birth date of the American director, actor and producer Peter Bogdanovich.
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