MySQL Problem - connection dies after too many queries

#!/usr/bin/python

import MySQLdb

### return a mysql cursor handle
def connect():

    ### set database parameters
    host = "localhost"
    user = ""
    pwd  = ""
    db   = "video_store"

    ### connect
    db = MySQLdb.connect(host, user, pwd, db)

    ### return the db object
    return db


### this can be called on its own with a query as argument
### it returns the result
def executeQuery(query):

    ### create a db object
    ### if not in this file, use: "mydb = db.connect()"
    mydb = connect()        

    ### get the db handle
    handle = mydb.cursor()

    ### execute the query
    handle.execute(query)

    ### get the results
    result = handle.fetchall()

    ### close the db connection
    mydb.close()

    ### return the results
    return result

result = handle.fetchall()
while data in result:
 return data

mydb.close()

    ...
    handle.close()
    ...