Death of a Playboy

At the Stork Club, in Paris, on the Riviera and in London's West End, everybody who was anybody knew Freddy McEvoy. Born to obscurity, the tall, handsome, 44-year-old Australian had the gift of making friends, news, money, and marrying heiresses. His feats of derring-do on the high seas, in the game-filled jungles of Africa and on the icy ski runs of Switzerland gave the international set a vicarious sense of adventure, and earned him the nickname Suicide Freddy. His zesty approach to business matters--he launched the fashion of flowered shirts for men by selling his own right off his back to an Argentine millionaire for $2,000--made him several fortunes. His careless gallantry in the drawing room earned him the undying affection of many, including his first wife, Standard Oil Heiress Beatrice ("Bea") Benjamin, who, even after she divorced him in 1942, refused to revoke a trust fund she had settled on Freddy.

When rollicking Errol Flynn was haled into court in 1943 on charges of statutory rape, Freddy McEvoy stood by to say it wasn't so; Errol was acquitted. When in 1949 Freddy married his third wife, pretty French Model Claude Stephanie, 26, in Miami, Errol stood up as best man.

Last week, heeding the call of the westering sun and the social season at Nassau, Freddy and Claude boarded their 104-ton auxiliary schooner Kangaroo, in Tangier and set sail for the Bahamas. A strong southwest gale was rising as the vessel rounded Cape Cantin off the Moroccan coast. The wind, heavy laden with desert sand, seized the yacht, drove it inshore and dashed it on the reefs. A surging wave flung a steward overboard to his death. Another knocked Claude's French maid Cecile to the deck. McEvoy's crewmen picked her up and lashed her to a mast for safety, but a moment later the wind tore her loose, and she was washed away.

All night long the furies of wind and sea pounded the yacht while Claude clung desperately to a spar. Before dawn the ship's cook went mad and drowned himself. At daybreak three sailors had succeeded in swimming ashore. The last aboard the yacht, Freddy and Claude, both good swimmers, finally decided to chance it. Side by side they dived into the water. Freddy was within two yards of the beach when he looked back and saw his pretty wife in trouble. While Morocco tribesmen shouted from the beach, the playboy-millionaire turned seaward once again. The effort was too much. Just as he reached his wife, Freddy's strength gave out. A great wave engulfed and drowned them both.

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