Olive Thomas: The Life and Death of a Silent Film Beauty

Olive Thomas was one of Hollywood's first true movie stars. Born in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, in , she moved to New York at age sixteen and began to.
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Nice reference for primary source material. Lots of good pictures. The filmography is great. I'm really glad that I read this and did enjoy it. It just could have been better. Jul 01, Monica marked it as to-read Shelves: IMO the only decent thing Hugh Heffner ever did with his money was help sponsor the documentary about this gorgeous, talented lady.

Thank you Google, thank you Netflix, or I'd never have known about Olive: Her legendary beauty reminds me of Simonetta Vespucci's, she was so beautiful women couldn't be jealous, they loved her as much as the men did. View all 3 comments. Mar 20, Samantha Glasser rated it liked it Shelves: The fact that this is the only book available about the life of Olive Thomas makes it worthwhile, but it is by no means a definitive resource.

Ollive Thomas death

The information that is available only made me want to know more, and unfortunately, more is not easy to find. This book includes many photos which are an asset. Olive Thomas is a mystery in modern times to those who are familiar with her story. She began on the Ziegfeld stage as one of the most talked about beauties. Her looks led her to the silver screen The fact that this is the only book available about the life of Olive Thomas makes it worthwhile, but it is by no means a definitive resource. Her looks led her to the silver screen where she was hailed as the princess of Selznick Studios.

She married into Hollywood royalty when she wed rambunctious Jack Pickford who eventually was the only source for clues to her demise.

Olive Thomas

Thomas died at age 25 thanks to swallowing mercury bichloride pills in a Paris hotel during their second honeymoon. Whether this was a suicide, a murder, or an accident is left to history. Also included at the end of Olive's story is a filmography for her career including synopsis, cast lists, and the status of the film today. One major flaw with this book is that Vogel seems unfocused. There is a lot of information about Jack Pickford and Marilyn Miller, information that really has little to do with Thomas.

The story jumps around chronologically and suggests many different conclusions to Thomas' death, but no solid explanation.


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Also, her early life is barely touched upon; her stage and screen career and early death are the focus. Granted, the information is valuable because so little is available, but the format of the book is disappointing, especially for its price. Vogel seemingly did not intend to create the definitive biography on Thomas as she often isolates her information to a time period. She references the "recent" release of The Flapper on DVD and has a fascination with translating dollar amounts into modern prices. This book is certainly entertaining, though brief, but hardly stands as a worthy evaluation of Olive Thomas' career.

Nov 30, Tammy Buchli rated it liked it. The good things first: She was an adorable girl. Also, there was a very good filmography of Thomas' work, complete with synopses and contemporary reviews. And there were extensive excerpts from contemporary newspaper and magazine articles which were fun to read, although fan stories especially in the early years of Hollywood are notoriously suspect as to credibility. Having recently read and loved a fictionalized b The good things first: Having recently read and loved a fictionalized biography of Olive Thomas, I really wanted to like this book, which is the only biography of Thomas in existence.

But it just isn't very good. It was disjointed, reading as if it were a series of blog entries strung together without any attempt to make them flow. The author's theory about Olive's death was flimsy, and way too much space was wasted on stories of Olive's 'ghost,' and her supposed encounter with a psychic. Still, if you're interested in Thomas, I have to give this a limited thumbs-up for no other reason than that it is all there is.

Oct 10, C!


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    6. Large portions of this book are reprints of interviews and articles from Hollywood magazines to newspapers that date back to the early s. Anyone knows periodicals of that era generally were not accurate; or that they usually glossed over the truths if not outright lied about Hollywood and its stars. That is why further research was seriously needed here. We arrived back at the Ritz hotel at about 3 o'clock in the morning.

    I had already booked airplane seats for London. We were going Sunday morning. Both of us were tired out. We both had been drinking a little. I insisted that we had better not pack then, but rather get up early before our trip and do it then. I went to bed immediately. She fussed around and wrote a note to her mother. She was in the bathroom. She cried to me to find out what was in the bottle. I picked it up and read: I realized what she had done and sent for the doctor.

    Meanwhile, I forced her to drink water in order to make her vomit. She screamed, 'O, my God, I'm poisoned. He pumped her stomach three times while I held Olive. They told me she had swallowed bichloride of mercury in an alcoholic solution, which is ten times worse than tablets. She didn't want to die. She took the poison by mistake.

    We both loved each other since the day we married. The fact that we were separated months at a time made no difference in our affection for each other.

    She even was conscious enough the day before she died to ask the nurse to come to America with her until she had fully recovered, having no thought she would die. She kept continually calling for me. I was beside her day and night until her death. The physicians held out hope for her until the last moment, until they found her kidneys paralyzed.

    Then they lost hope. But the doctors told me she had fought harder than any patient they ever had. She held onto her life as only one case in fifty. She seemed stronger the last two days. She was conscious, and said she would get better and go home to her mother. But I knew she was dying. She was kept alive only by hypodermic injections during the last twelve hours.

    I was the last one she recognized. I watched her eyes glaze and realized she was dying. I asked her how she was feeling and she answered: I held her in my arms and she died an hour later. Owen Moore was at her bedside. All stories and rumors of wild parties and cocaine and domestic fights since we left New York are untrue. After Thomas' death, the police initiated an investigation and an autopsy was performed. Thomas' death was attributed to acute nephritis caused by mercury bichloride absorption.

    Jack Pickford brought Thomas' body back to the United States. Several accounts state that Pickford tried to commit suicide en route but was talked out of it. In her autobiography, Mary Pickford recalls her brother's disclosure that he had made such an attempt during the return trip:. Jack crossed the ocean with Ollie's body. It wasn't until several years later that he confessed to Mother how one night during the voyage back he put on his trousers and jacket over his pajamas, went up on deck, and was climbing over the rail when something inside him said: It would be a cowardly act.

    You must live and face the future. On September 29, , an Episcopal funeral service for Thomas was held at St. Several women are reported to have fainted during the ceremony, and several men had their hats crushed in the rush to view the casket. Thomas did not leave a will upon her death. Lewis Selznick bought Thomas' town car for an undisclosed sum. The press coverage of Olive Thomas' death was one of the first examples of the media sensationalism related to a major Hollywood star.

    Her death has been cited as one of the first major Hollywood scandals. Other scandals including the Fatty Arbuckle trial in , the murder of William Desmond Taylor in , and the drug-related death of Wallace Reid caused many religious and morality groups to label Hollywood as "immoral". The public outcry prompted Hollywood studios to begin writing contracts with "morality clauses" or " moral turpitude clauses," allowing the dismissal of contractees who breached them.

    On the evening of Sept. Within a couple of hours, Pickford reportedly called downstairs that his wife had taken an overdose of medicine and needed a doctor.

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    A doctor arrived in ten minutes to find Thomas "writhing in pain. In his book, Foster provides a theory that many have ascribed to -- that Thomas took a large quantity of mercury bichloride which was prescribed to Pickford for his venereal disease and which he had also passed on to Thomas. He goes on to say that Pickford's doctor had admitted to prescribing the medicine for Pickford in as a treatment for syphillis.

    Eyman quotes Pickford as saying he was in bed when he heard Thomas shriek from the bathroom, "Oh, my God! She had swallowed a lethal dose of mercury bichloride.

    Olive Thomas: The Life and Death of a Silent Film Beauty

    Or perhaps it was a maid who came to Olive's rescue - another story has it that Jack had slipped out for a last-minute round of drugs," she said. Another version of the story, albeit not as popular, is that Thomas, who was known to be impetuous, took the pills to commit suicide, possibly after a row with Pickford.

    Whatever the true story may be of what happened that night, Thomas suffered for another four days before she passed away. Foster reports director Marshall Neilan as saying he believed Thomas' death was suicide because of the disease. Norton and Company, Inc. One rumor was that Pickford had murdered Thomas for her money, but, as Whitfield observed in her book, that theory "didn't hold water with those who knew him.

    After all, when Jack was broke, he had only to call his mother or older sister. No matter, the whole affair was an ugly one with a dark pall surrounding the death of a talented and beautiful young woman who should be remembered for better things. Of course, the investigation into the death resulted in a finding of "accidental death," but, obviously, time has not left her death with such an easy conclusion.

    Pickford brought his wife's body home, and, on Sept.