Jennifer Syme

In tribute, David Lynch dedicated his film Mulholland Dr. to her memory. Her suicide has gathered a cruel but grimly amusing story, made into a film by Andy Warhol in 1965 as Lupe. Jennifer Symes was buried next to her daughter. The drug did not work, instead upsetting her stomach; she actually was found dead in her bathroom, having drowned in the toilet. Syme's relationship with Reeves ended shortly after the child's death but they remained friends until her own untimely passing as a result of an automobile accident in the spring of 2001 in Los Angeles. Lupe Vélez committed suicide with Seconal in Beverly Hills, California after the end of her relationship with Harold Raymond, whose child she was carrying. The photo depicted here is of Syme and Reeves attending the internment at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. In 1943 she returned to Mexico and starred in Nana (1944), well received she returned to Hollywood.

In December of 1999 she was expecting their daughter, to have been named Eva Archer Syme-Reeves, when the infant was still-born a few weeks premature. She went on to have another emotionally draining affair, this with Gary Cooper. Syme had performed in a few minor film roles including for Lynch in his Lost Highway. The fraught marriage lasted five years, they repeatedly split and finally divorced in 1938. Born Jennifer Maria Syme in Pico Rivera, California, she was working as an assistant to film director David Lynch when she began dating actor Keanu Reeves. Emotionally generous, she had a number of highly publicized affairs before marrying Johnny Weissmuller in 1933. Jennifer Syme, (December 7, 1972 – April 2, 2001), was an entertainment industry employee, best known as the companion of actor Keanu Reeves. Vélez was one of few Hollywood actors to make a successful transition from silent film to 'talkies'.

She largely stuck to lighter roles from then, notably in the Mexcan Spitfire series of seven films (1939-1943). She did a further eighteen films before finding her niche in comedy with Hot Pepper (1933). Her first feature-length film was Douglas Fairbanks' The Gaucho (1927); the next year, she was one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars. She moved to California that year and was first cast in movies by Hal Roach.

She took dancing lessons and in 1924 made her performing debut at the Teatro Principal. She was lightly educated at a convent school in Texas before finding work as a sales assistant. She was born in San Luis Potosí as María Guadalupe Vélez de Villalobos. Lupe Vélez (July 18, 1908 - December 13, 1944) was a Mexican actress.