From Wikipedia
Born Isidore Louis Bernard Edmon van Dommelen,[2] he was the
illegitimate child of army lieutenant Isidore Louis Bernard Edmon Tellegen
(1836–1902) and Anna Maria van Dommelen.
He left his birth town, Sint-Oedenrode, to make his stage
debut in Amsterdam in 1903, and over the next few years built a reputation to
the point where he was invited to perform in Paris, eventually co-starring in
several roles with Sarah Bernhardt, with whom he was involved romantically.
In 1910, he and Bernhardt travelled to the United States,
where The New York Times first published, and then retracted, the announcement
of their impending marriage. (She was 37 years his senior.) Back in France, in
1912 they made their second film together, Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth
(Queen Elizabeth), and the following year, Adrienne Lecouvreur. The latter is
considered a lost film.
Tellegen's marriage to Farrar did not last (they divorced in
1923). Tellegen married a total of four times, the first being a countess in
1903 (this union produced a daughter), the second to Farrar in 1916. His third
marriage was to actress Nina Romano (real name: Isabel Craven Dilworth). His
fourth marriage was to silent film star Eve Casanova (real name Julia Horne).
He became an American citizen in 1918.
Tellegen appeared in numerous films before his face was
damaged in a fire on Christmas Day 1929, when he fell asleep while smoking,
preparing for an out-of-town tryout for a play. He had extensive plastic
surgery in 1931.
One memorable roles was as the villain in John Ford's
Western 3 Bad Men (1926), in which Tellegen wore a white hat instead of the
stereotypical black hat. Fame fading, employment not forthcoming, and ridden
with debt, he filed for bankruptcy. He was diagnosed with cancer, though this
information was kept from him, and he became despondent. In 1931, he wrote his
autobiography Women Have Been Kind.
On October 29, 1934, while a guest in the Cudahy Mansion at
1844 North Vine Street in Hollywood (now the site of the Vine-Franklin
underpass of the Hollywood Freeway), Tellegen locked himself in the bathroom,
then shaved and powdered his face. Then while standing in front of a
full-length mirror, he committed suicide by stabbing himself with a pair of
sewing scissors seven times (supposedly while surrounded by newspaper clippings
of his career), resulting in lurid press coverage.
