Sharry Rubin

A New York native, Sharry Rubin was born in June 1939 to Irving, a leather goods manufacturer, and Rose. The family lived in Hewlett Harbor on Long Island. She attended Quintano's School for Young Professionals. An aspiring actress and model, Miss Rubin made guest appearances in Armstrong Circle Theatre (1950), Studio One (1948), Playhouse 90 (1956), and Deadline (1959), and purportedly appeared in the movie Stage Struck (1958). Sadly, she suffered from an eating disorder, what was referred to then as "compulsive eating," but has since been labelled bulimia. (She was under psychiatric care for the condition.) Carrying only 100 pounds on her five-foot-five-inch frame, she would often binge eat and regurgitate to maintain her figure. According to an article by reporter Neal Patterson (that ran in the Daily News, a New York City newspaper, on December 5, 1958, about three weeks after her death), on the day of her death, she ate the equivalent of four full meals, including a lot of meat. She was taken to Meadowbrook Hospital (in East Meadow, Long Island) around 3:30 p. m. At first, doctors thought she had overdosed on drugs, but then they discovered a medical oddity, what Dr. Leslie Lukash, the Nassau County Medical Examiner, referred to as a "stomach explosion." Lukash claimed, "In her case, the result was rare, medically speaking. In violent efforts to expel the food, a vain attempt at vomiting ruptured the stomach. The regurgitation set off a massive contraction and exploded the upper wall of the stomach close to the esophagus." As she was being prepared for surgery, Sharry Rubin succumbed to her condition and she was pronounced dead at 7:35 p. m. on November 16, 1958. She was only 19 years old.