Olive Thomas

 

 

 

And now for another silent film and Ziegfeld star who died prematurely young, Miss Olive Thomas. I've heard numerous testimonies of her life and mysterious death, but I can't seem to distinguish what parts were fiction and what parts were true. Hearing numerous perspectives of her death makes the story a whole lot more confusing to understand. It's been heavily viewed as accidental and some rumors even went far enough to blame Jack for murdering her. The whole story is very suspicious that one's mind can draw all sorts of conclusions. Albeit, the only thing we can indeed confirm is that so many Hollywood deaths remain unsolved. Needless to say, here's me trying to figure the whole thing out.

 

Olive Thomas was born Oliveretta Elaine Duffy on October 20, 1894, in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, to Rena and James Duffy as the oldest of their three children. Her father was a steelworker and died in a work accident in 1906. Her father's death resulted in her mother's decision to move the family to McKees Rocks, where they lived with their grandparents while their mother worked in a factory. Rena eventually remarried and had another daughter named Harriet. Unfortunately, the baby did not live long and died in a car accident. 

 

 

Olive quit school and entered the workplace at 15 to support her family. She got her first job selling fabric at a department store, then later moved to New York City where she worked at another department store in Harlem. She was already a bride by the time she was 16, marrying Bernard Krug Thomas, who was also a store clerk. The marriage dissolved and they divorced two years later.  

 

After winning a beauty contest in 1914, she pursued a modeling career by posing for various artists. She often posed nude to land more dough in her hands and was even dubbed "The Most Beautiful Girl In New York City." Naturally, she attracted the likes of Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. and he hired her to be in the Follies. Soon enough, Olive was becoming a popular showgirl, appearing in many of Ziegfeld's productions including his more risque Midnight Frolic, where she danced right above the customers seated below wearing balloons that male patrons tried to pop with their cigars.  

 

During her showgirl days, Olive received many expensive gifts from admirers, including a 10,000-dollar pearl necklace from a German Ambassador named Albrecht Von Bernstorff. During her time in the Follies, she continued to model and also began having an affair with Florenz Ziegfeld, but broke it off once he refused to leave his wife Billie Burke for her sometime around 1916. After her death, the great ladies' man asked Artist Alberto Vargas to paint a nude portrait of her for him, which he kept in his office until his death. 

  

After leaving the Follies, Olive signed with the International Film Company making her debut in Beatrice Fairfax, the same year she signed a contract with Triangle Pictures. After making a few pictures for them, her popularity began increasing. She later signed with Selznick Pictures where her breakout film The Flapper (1920) was released. Her final film would be Everybody's Sweetheart (1920).

  

 

 

Olive met her soon-to-be second husband, Jack Pickford, at a beach cafe on the Santa Monica Pier. Within a few months, the two film stars eloped on October 25, 1916, with only one eyewitness. The reason they wanted their marriage to be a secret was so fans wouldn't assume Olive was using the Pickford family to become famous. Oddly enough, the public wasn't aware of their marriage until a year later.  

 

They were happy for a while... "Madly in love with one another, but just a couple of children playing together," as said by Mary Pickford. The marriage was a tumultuous one. The two were hard party-goers, spent their money carelessly, and would often buy each other ultra-expensive gifts to make up for the wrongdoings they committed against each other. They were hard on using alcohol and drugs, something that I think Olive picked up from Jack; maybe not the booze so much, but drugs most likely.  

 

With their marriage on the rocks, the couple decided to head to Paris for a second honeymoon on September 5, 1920. Continuing their typical lifestyle, they attended more parties and arrived at the Ritz Hotel late at night and very drunk.  

 

Whether drunk or high, Olive had some trouble resting so she sought out some sleeping pills. While looking for some kind of prescription, she came across Jack's syphilis medication -- which reportedly had a French label on it so it was likely to have her mistaken. It ended up that the medication she ingested was mercury bichloride and it caused her a great deal of damage.  

 

Once she began feeling intense pain, she screamed in agony, "Oh my God!" and collapsed. There's an uncanny rumor that Jack tried to force egg whites down her throat to ease the pain, but you know how accurate rumors are... Moreover, Olive ended up being rushed to an ambulance and died five days later in a hospital with Jack and her brother-in-law, Owen Moore (Mary's ex-husband), by her side. Though she was conscious during those five days, she was in immense pain and her kidneys eventually failed. There are more rumors that have circulated since then about what really happened, but I think this right here is exactly what happened. 

 

Olive Thomas and Jack Pickford in what has been highly suggested as the last photograph ever taken of Olive.

 

Olive's funeral was held on September 29, 1920, at the St. Thomas Episcopal Church in New York City. Her body was interred in a crypt at the Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx. 

 

She was only 25 years old when she died. Since her death, some have claimed that her ghost lingers in the New Amsterdam Theatre, where she used to perform as a Ziegfeld girl during her Follies days.