Russ Colombo (born Ruggiero Eugenio di Rodolfo
Colombo) was a super talented singer-songwriter, musician, and actor. At least
a dozen of the songs he wrote were smash hits for the biggest names in entertainment
for decades. He also was an early participant in films, when “talkies” (sound)
came into popular use.
He was a young man on his way to the top until
he was shot to death. On Sunday,
September 2, 1934, Columbo was visiting a friend, photographer Lansing Brown,
who was a gun collector.
According to Brown “I was absent-mindedly fooling
around with one of the guns. It was of a dueling design and works with a cap
and trigger. I was pulling back the trigger and clicking it time after time. I
had a match in my hand and when I clicked, apparently the match caught in
between the hammer and the firing pin. There was an explosion. Russ slid to the
side of his chair.”
The ball had ricocheted off a nearby table and
hit Columbo above the left eye. Surgeons tried to remove the ball from
Columbo's brain but he was dead six hours after the shooting.
The family never told Columbo's mother her son
was dead. On the day he died she was in the hospital recuperating from a heart
attack. Her children determined that it was best not to tell what happened, and
keep their brother death a secret until she died ten years later.