The Washington times., 1923-01-21
Barry Baxter, the
Popular English
Matinee Idol, Whose
Love AHeir With
Miss Gerard
Was Ended by
His Death.

tAugeEs w AO
Named Miss Gerard v
in Her Divorce Suit.
with the second Mrs. Thomas, but on q
scant fraction of the huge income that at
one time made life pleasant for him.
Then there was Barry Baxter. Barry
Baxter came of an extremely good Eng
lish family and was popular juvenile in
social drama and comedy. Miss Mary
Landon Baker, the Chicago heiress, whose
five, or is it ten? fittings of young Alistair
Mccormick have aroused so much COM
ment from time to time, was very fond of
him indeed. So much so that Barry found
it necessary to deny in the public prints
when he was in this country playing in
"Bluebeard's Eighth Wife," that her af-
lection for him had anything to do with
those frequent postponements of her mar
riage with young Mccormick.
But there wasn't any doubt that Barry
Baxter loved Teddy Gerard And the
gossip in London was that here at last
was the man Teddy was going to marry.
Baxter, a most likeable little chap, was
in New York. Teddy was scoring sue
cess in London and the bill for cables the
two exchanged was 'ruinous
Then, just as everything appeared to be
settled, according to their friends, Barry
Baxter caught pneumonia and died. That
day Mary Lan1on Baker, for the fourth
or fifth time, broke her engagement again
with Mccormick. But Teddy Gerard or
dered by cable lovely floral piece with
Barry Always in. my memory" on it,
and cancelled her engagements and came
over for his body, which she took back to
England with her
Latest of the men to love her is Prince
Dimitri Pavlovitch. Pavlovitch is the man
who drew lots with Prince Youssupoff to
determine which would kill the monster,
Rasputin who destroyed the dynasty of
the Romanoffs. Prince Dimtri, under the
old regime, could never have married
Teddy, but with all ranks wiped out in
Russia, there Was no reason why he should
not. The Prince pursued the lovely South
American with such ardor that Paris was
sure of d happy and romantic outcome.
But suddenly the Prince began to be
mixed up in inurigues political. And now,
so it is reported, much, if not all, of what
he managed 20 save from the Bolshevik
debaclc has gone Nor is the Prince the
dashing, romantic figure that he was. He
has grown gloomy, secretive, no longer
the gay frequenter of salon and cafe.
1t may not be long before he treads the
black road--the road of Raymond, or
Howard or little Barry Baxter.
1t * Of these men that Paris and Lon
don think as they watch Teddy Gerard
reaping new laurels on the stage. 1t is
of them they think and why they wonder
will there be next? And what will
happen to him?
The idea that there are women who are
"unlucky'' to those who love them is a
very old one, and the many legends are
based, no doubt, upon just such coinci-
dences AS those related here. The old
and naive explanation was that the
woman, through no fault of her own,
is loved by demon or evil spirit who
keeps mortal rivals away by visiting death
or misfortune on them.
AS an instance, there is the Book of
Tobit, one of the Apocryphal books of
the Bible. In this book it is related that
a maiden, Sarah, was loved by demon
who had done away with seven young
men on their wedding nights with her. In
the Greek version the eighth lover Tobit,
is counseled by the Archangel Raphael,
and for three nights he pretends not to
be married at all to the unfortunate
Sarah. This hoodwinks the demon, who
is then driven away forever by suitable
incantations, which, however, would not
have been effective had it not been for
the confluence practiced by the BRIDE
groom.
In the Arabian Nights is precisely
similar legend of an "unlucky' maiden
freed at last by strategems, and the Jaw
anese, Hindu, japanese and Chinese folk