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SCHERBATOFF Mara

 
Born Marie Sherbatoff.

Date of birth : July 24, 1908, Russia

Date of death : June 29, 1956, Roxbury, Connecticut ().

 

Profession  head of the New York bureau of Paris-Match magazine (,).

 

Story

She was a Russian princess.

She died on June 29, 1956 in a car accident on a country road, near Arthur Miller's house, in Roxbury, Connecticut.

This day, Miller and Marilyn held a press conference announcing their wedding, which actually took place secretely later this day. 

She arrived with a photographer, Paul Slade, whose brother, aged 18, Ira, had driven them from New York City to Roxbury.

She had got wind of the fact that before arriving at Miller's home, the couple had stopped at Morton's house, Arthur's cousin, few kilometers from there.

Then she tailed Marilyn and Arthur, that Morton was driving home in a green Oldsmobile.

On Gladmine Road, in a sharp bend, the car of the reporter left the road and hit a tree  

,--,

Morton stopped his vehicle when he heard the collision and drove back to see what had happened.

She had been thrown through the windshield and was horribly injured; as to know if Miller managed to prevent Marilyn from seeing the fatally injured reporter, the opinions diverge; no matter what it was, she was more than panicked.

Nothing could have been done for Mara Scherbatoff, who died 3 hours later, during a surgery which tried to save her, at the New Milford Hospital.

 
Marilyn saw in it an ill omen, the very day of her wedding.

In his autobiography, Miller presents a version of the facts lightly different, maintaining that the accident happened later this day, when Mara Scherbatoff's driver thought that a car coming towards them was Marilyn's one, turned back at top speed and hit a tree.
 

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