By Sharon Oliver
Contributing Writer
LAWRENCE – One of Hollywood’s biggest rising stars of the 1920s and 1930s was Lawrence’s very own Thelma Todd. She was also the center of one of Tinseltown’s most perplexing mysteries and her death gripped headlines across the nation. Was Todd’s demise on December 16, 1935, at age 29 an accident, suicide or a mob-related homicide?
Beauty pageant start
Often referred to as “The Ice Cream Blonde” or “Hot Toddy,” Thelma Alice Todd was born in 1906 in Lawrence to John and Alice Todd. After graduating from high school in 1923, she enrolled at the Lowell Normal School (now University of Massachusetts, Lowell) with early ambitions of becoming a schoolteacher. As a student, she earned money modeling. Her career goals changed after her mother’s urging to enter beauty pageants. Todd was crowned 1925 Miss Lawrence and Miss Massachusetts at the state Elks convention in Swampscott that same year.
Todd eventually caught the attention of Hollywood talent scouts who recommended her for the Paramount School for Junior Stars. The girl from New England once shared with a newspaper how Hollywood took some getting used to.
“At first when I was making a picture and men hailed me as sweetheart or honey or came up and put an arm around me when they wanted to tell me something, I was insulted. We don’t take familiarities from men in New England. They were just being friendly. Now I appreciate that fact.”
Did that miscalculation cost the actress her life?
Brief marriage
Todd was briefly married to Pasquale “Pat” DiCicco, future husband of Gloria Vanderbilt, movie producer, agent, “Hollywood Glamour Boy” and alleged associate of mobster Lucky Luciano. He and Todd reportedly had an unstable two-year marriage that frequently erupted in drunken brawls, one of which resulted in a broken nose for him and an emergency appendectomy for her.
The “Horse Feathers” movie star, along with co-owner and paramour Roland West, opened Thelma Todd’s Sidewalk Café in Malibu. One of Todd’s other rumored lovers was said to be Lucky Luciano who allegedly pressured Todd into allowing him to use the third floor of her supper club for a casino. It was alleged that he abused her as well.
On December 14, 1935, Todd attended a party hosted by Stanley Lupino and his 17-year-old daughter, actress Ida Lupino. Her mood changed once she saw her ex-husband. A chair had been reserved for DiCicco at Todd’s table, but he and his date sat somewhere else. Ida Lupino later said DiCicco asked to be invited and seated next to Todd.
West and Todd lived in separate apartments above the café. He asked Todd to be back by 2.00 a.m. Sunday morning. When he went to bed at 2:30 a.m., the Hollywood starlet had not yet returned to her home, so he locked the doors.
Mysterious death
The following Monday, Todd’s maid found her body inside her chocolate-colored 1934 Lincoln Phaeton convertible, which was parked inside the garage of a home located approximately a block away from the café and belonging to West’s wife.
During an investigation, claims like staff stating Todd was beaten by an unnamed man days before her or being seen riding in her car hours after estimated time of death, her death was ruled as accidental due to carbon monoxide poisoning.
Did she stay in the car to keep warm after being locked out from entrance to her home? Reportedly, the car engine was not running and there was still fuel in the tank when her body was found.
Thelma Todd’s memorial service in Los Angeles drew large crowds. After her mother’s death in 1969, Todd’s ashes were placed in her mother’s casket and buried in Bellevue Cemetery in Lawrence. Circumstances surrounding her death remains a mystery to this day.
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