Aleta Freel

Aleta Freel, born Aleta Freile on June 14, 1907, in Jersey City, New Jersey, was an American stage actress whose Broadway career spanned the early 1930s. She was the daughter of physician Dr. William Freile and Minnie Uchtman, née Uchtman, and received her early education at the Bergen School for Girls in Jersey City. She went on to graduate from Smith College in 1928.

Before reaching Broadway, Freel built her stage experience through leading roles in eastern stock companies, among them the University Players of Old Silver Beach and the Palm Beach Players. Her Broadway work began in 1931 and included four productions: Louder, Please, Three Times the Hour, Both Your Houses, and Double Door. The production of Double Door was staged at the Ritz Theater in New York City in the fall of 1933.

Freel married Hollywood actor Ross Alexander, a Brooklyn native who had begun his own career on the New York stage, including an appearance in the Broadway production The Ladder. Their relationship developed backstage. Henry Fonda, who served as best man at their wedding, later stated that Freel had learned Alexander was having affairs with other women. Alexander himself told police the couple had quarreled during the evening of December 6, 1935, and that Freel had also been disappointed by unsuccessful screen tests on which she had placed considerable hope. That evening, Freel took a .22 rifle from a gun rack in their home and shot herself through the temple. She died early the following morning at Emergency Hospital in Los Angeles at the age of 28.

Her father, Dr. William Freile, publicly stated that at the time of his daughter's death he was uncertain she had taken her own life. Friends and relatives of Freel petitioned both Harold G. Hoffman, governor of New Jersey, and Governor Merriam of California to conduct a thorough investigation. On December 14, 1935, the state of California opened a formal inquiry into the circumstances of her death in Sacramento, at the request of Governor Hoffman. Nine months after Freel's death, Alexander married actress Anne Nagel. Thirteen months after Freel's suicide, Alexander shot and killed himself with a .22 caliber pistol.