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| Birth Name(s) : Thelma Todd |
Date of Birth: July 29, 1905 |
| Status:
N/A
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Partner:
N/A |
| Profession:
Actor |
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Full Thelma Todd Biography
| A one-time teacher and beauty queen, Thelma went to Hollywood in the late 1920s and soon became one of the premier comediennes of her day, with many appearances in comedy shorts (with 'ZaSu Pitts' , Patsy Kelly, Laurel and Hardy, and others), and also feature-length movies. In the 1930s, she began to turn more attention to running a restaurant, 'Thelma Todd's Sidewalk Cafe.' Many thought her 1935 death to be murder and there was no shortage of suspects, but subsequent investigations by the DA's Office and a grand jury failed to find an answer that satisfied. 16 December 1935, carbon monoxide poisoning. |
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Additional Thelma Todd Biography
Todd was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts and was a bright student who achieved good academic results. She intended to become a school teacher. However, in her late teens, she began entering beauty pageants, winning the title of Miss Massachusetts in 1925. While representing her home state, she was spotted by a Hollywood talent scout and began her career in film.
Thelma Todd became highly regarded as a capable film comedienne, and Roach loaned her out to other studios to play opposite Wheeler & Woolsey, Buster Keaton, Joe E. Brown, and the Marx Brothers. She also appeared successfully in such dramas as the original 1931 film version of The Maltese Falcon. During her career she appeared in more than 130 films and was sometimes publicized as The Ice Cream Blonde."
Todd continued her short-subject series through 1935, and was featured in the full-length Laurel & Hardy comedy The Bohemian Girl. This was her last film; she died before completing all of her scenes. Producer Roach salvaged the unfinished performance by deleting all of Todd's dialogue and limiting her appearance to one musical number.
One theory was that her on-again/off-again boyfriend, director Roland West -- known to have been very possessive of her -- had grown frustrated by Todd's flightiness and, to keep her from leaving her premises to attend another party, had locked her in the garage. According to this theory, her resulting death was accidental.
A second theory was that Todd had turned on the motor of the car in order to keep warm and had fallen asleep. Roland West had closed the door to the garage without realising Todd was inside, and she had died as a result. (However, West denied going down the road to Jewel Carmen's home).
A third theory postulates she was murdered by New York gangster "Lucky" Luciano because of her refusal to allow him to involve her club with illegal gambling, as well as her refusal to participate in Luciano's group sex orgies. Like the Roland West story, the Lucky Luciano story was in Kenneth Anger's frequently fallacious book Hollywood Babylon. Later it was alleged to be "the true story" in Andy Edmonds' book (and later TV movie) Hot Toddy. It has become the most celebrated of all theories despite the fact that there is no record of Luciano ever visiting Los Angeles, much less having an affair with Todd, or (as in "Hot Toddy") publicly threatening her at the Brown Derby.
The Los Angeles DA's department and a Grand Jury were unable to establish the true circumstances surrounding her death. The conjecture that surrounded it at the time, which has never been resolved, is an early example of what would become known as a conspiracy theory, with rumours and suppositions accepted as fact and widely divergent opinions given credence. The fact that her body was cremated caused theorists to conjecture that this had been done to destroy evidence and to prevent a second autopsy. However, by this time, authorities were satisfied with her official cause of death.
A segment of the History Channel series History's Mysteries reported that Roland West actually confessed to the crime, in the manner stated in the first theory stated above, i.e. that he was trying to keep her from going to the next party. Although no legal action was taken against him, allegedly due to Hollywood's elite closing ranks, West supposedly never worked again in Hollywood. Actually, West had forsworn making movies after the failure of his independently-made gangster movie Corsair, which starred Todd under an assumed name. By her death in 1935, he had been out of the business for three years. It wasn't until 1951 that West made his confession (to actor Chester Morris).
Thelma Todd has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6262 Hollywood Blvd.Thelma Todd & Charles K. Gerrard in Another Fine Mess
Features:
- Fascinating Youth (1926)
- God Gave Me Twenty Cents (1926)
- Rubber Heels (1927)
- Fireman, Save My Child (1927)
- Nevada (1927)
- The Shield of Honor (1927)
- The Gay Defender (1927)
- The Noose (1928)
- Abie's Irish Rose (1928)
- Vamping Venus (1928)
- Heart to Heart (1928)
- The Crash (1928)
- The Haunted House (1928)
- Naughty Baby (1928)
- Seven Footprints to Satan (1929)
- Trial Marriage (1929)
- House of Horror (1929)
- The Bachelor Girl (1929)
- Careers (1929)
- Her Private Life (1929)
- Her Man (1930)
- No Limit (1931)
- Command Performance (1931)
- Swanee River (1931)
- The Hot Heiress (1931)
- Aloha (1931)
- The Maltese Falcon (1931)
- Broadminded (1931)
- Monkey Business (1931)
- Corsair (1931)
- The Big Timer (1932)
- This Is the Night (1932)
- Horse Feathers (1932)
- Speak Easily (1932)
- Klondike (1932)
- Deception (1932)
- Call Her Savage (1932)
- Air Hostess (1933)
- Cheating Blondes (1933)
- The Devil's Brother (1933)
- Mary Stevens, M.D. (1933)
- You Made Me Love You (1933)
- Sitting Pretty (1933)
- Son of a Sailor (1933)
- Counsellor at Law (1933)
- Palooka (1934)
- Hips, Hips, Hooray! (1934)
- The Poor Rich (1934)
- Bottoms Up (1934)
- Cockeyed Cavaliers (1934)
- Take the Stand (1934)
- Lightning Strikes Twice (1934)
- After the Dance (1935)
- Two for Tonight (1935)
- The Bohemian Girl (1936) |
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