Thelma Alice Todd also known as the “Ice Cream Blonde” and “Hot Toddy” was one of the most famous actresses in Hollywood in the 1920′s and 1930′s. Some of her most popular comedies were Horse FeathersandMonkey Business. Thelma had appeared in around 120 films between the years 1926 and 1935. She is claimed to have died by suicide at the age of 29 on December 16, 1935. However many believe this is suspicious and that her death was actually a murder…
Thelma was born on July 29, 1906 in Lawrence, Massachusetts to parents John Shaw Todd, an upholsterer and Alice Elizabeth Edwards, who was Canadian. Thelma was a good student who graduated high school in 1923 with the dreams of being a school teacher. Thelma was also very beautiful and began competing in beauty pageants in her late teens, even winning Miss Massachusetts in 1925. She was then spotted by a talent agent in Hollywood and began her film career.
Thelma acted in multiple silent films to start but then began to act in “talkies” where she could actually show her talent and expand her career. Thelma became extremely popular and was an even a successful business woman, opening her own restaurant called Thelma Todd’s Sidewalk Cafe at 17575 Pacific Coast Highway in August of 1934.
The last movie role Thelma was cast in was Bohemian Girl, a full length comedy, in 1935. However, the director ended up cutting most of the footage of her out and only left her in one musical number.
On Monday morning, December 16, 1935 Thelma Todd was found dead inside of her car. She was found slumped over in the front seat with her head to the left. The car was found in Jewel Carmen’s garage. Jewel Carmen was a former actress and was also the ex-wife of Thelma Todd’s occasional lover at the time, Roland West. Super suspicious huh. The house was about a block away from Thelma’s restaurant.
Thelma’s cause of death was deemed to be carbon monoxide poisoning. It is alleged that Roland West had locked Thelma out of the house the previous night, and due to this Thelma decided to sleep in her car for warmth.
Thelma had spent the Saturday night (December 14) at a party in a Hollywood restaurant hosted by Stanley Lupino and his daughter Ida. Thelma apparently had a negative exchange with her ex-husband Pat DiCicco, however her friends later stated that she was in a good mood the rest of the nights and there was no indication that she was planning to end her own life. Thelma then left the party and was driven home in the early hours of December 15 by her driver, Ernest O. Peters.
The police came to the conclusion that Thelma’s death was an accidental suicide, that she simply turned her car on to either stay warm or she had the intention of driving home and was warming up the car. I am assuming that a lot of people probably assumed Thelma was fairly drunk and accidentally fell asleep with her car running, though I am a little suspicious of this.
An autopsy was done on December 18, 1935 and the coroner found no marks of violence anywhere on or near the body. However, in another source I found it claimed Thelma had a broken nose, bruises around her throat and two cracked ribs. If she was found with these injuries it is obvious that someone was either beating her up frequently and recently, or they had just given her those injuries the night she died.
A jury ruled that the death had been accidental though they did agree that authorities should further look into it. A grand jury looked into whether Thelma had been murdered and concluded that there did not appear to be any foul play.
Authorities found no suicide note and concluded that there was no motive for Thelma to commit suicide. I do not believe that Thelma Todd committed suicide, she had everything going for her in life, she was at the prime of her career.
Some believed that Roland West and his ex-wife Jewel Carmen are the ones responsible for Thelma’s death. All three lived above Thelma’s restaurant and ran the business together. It is believed that the restaurant began to lose money and Jewel blamed this on Thelma. Is money a possible motive for murder? Or perhaps jealousy? Maybe Jewel was jealous of Thelma hooking up with Roland or wanted to take over her restaurant.
Pat, Thelma’s ex-husband is also a suspicious person and I’m sure he’d have a reason to want to kill Thelma, considering she was his ex-wife.
Another potential theory is connected to Lucky Luciano, a well known mobster who knew Thelma. Not only did Lucky allegedly beat Thelma, he also got her addicted to amphetamines. There were reports that Lucky wanted to open a gambling casino within Thelma’s restaurant but she refused, saying that would only happen “over her dead body.”
Thelma’s mother Alice was also acting pretty suspicious and was Thelma’s only heir, meaning money could have been a potential motive. Alice supposedly made plans to build a mansion right before Thelma died, though no one knew where she would get the money to do so.
It seems as though we will never know if Thelma Todd was murdered or took her own life but based off of the evidence I have found through my research there is no doubt in my mind that someone had it out for Thelma Todd and they unfortunately succeeded.
