Martha Mansfield - really old news

I got stuck in a List Loop on Facebook the other day. I hate that!
Anyway, one of them was a list of celebrities who had died on set. As you'd suspect there was the old standbys - Vic Morrow and the two kids, Jason Lee, Tyrone Power but I ran across a few that surprised me.

Martha Mansfield was a silent film star who, in 1923, was filming a Civil War movie on set in Texas. She was taking a break, sitting in a car in her hoop skirt and ruffles when a lit match was thrown in the window and set her clothing on fire. She was burned badly and died in the hospital less than 24 hours later.

And this is where the Websleuth thing comes in...they never found out who did it. I'm sure it was an accident, but it's odd there was no apparent investigation.

Pretty girl.

From the San Antonio Express, September, 28th, 1924:

"Beautiful Martha Mansfield was making a picture in San Antonio of Civil War times, and a pretty costume of that period was made for her, all filmy and fluffy, dainty as a portrait. Miss Mansfield lit a cigarette while working on location, the broken end of her match slipped from her hand and in a second her costume was a pillar of flame."

http://betweentherailroadandtheriverwalk.blogspot.de/2012/11/ziegfeld-girl-catches-fire-in.html

But this report November 1923 is contradictory. And it says there was so much secrecy Martha's mom had to appeal to San Antonio police for information about her condition.

'On Thanksgiving Day 1923, Mansfield, according to the Evening News, ”had completed the last of the scenes in which she appears and was sitting in an automobile with a party of friends watching other ‘takes.’ One of the men in the party lighted a match, which ignited the filmy costume which Miss Mansfield was wearing.” '

That shutdown of information was the studio's work, I suspect. They'd also been telling press Martha was only slightly injured, her face and neck were saved from burning by her leading man, and filming would be continuing.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/vault/...burns-in-1923-freak-accident-on-s-a-film-set/