Thelma Todd and Aileen Pringle We remember you both on the day of your passing.
Thelma Todd
(July 29, 1906 – December 16, 1935)
Was an American actress. Appearing in about 120 pictures between 1926 and 1935, she is best remembered for her comedic roles in films such as Marx Brothers' Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, and a number of Charley Chase's short comedies and co-starring with Buster Keaton and Jimmy Durante in Speak Easily. She also had roles in Wheeler and Woolsey farces and several Laurel and Hardy films, the last of which (The Bohemian Girl) featured her in a part that was truncated by her suspicious death at the age of 29.
Todd was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, to John Shaw Todd, an upholsterer from Ireland, and Alice Elizabeth Edwards, an immigrant from Canada. She was Married once to low level mobster Pat DiCicco from 1932 to 1934. DiCicco was also the first husband of Socialite Gloria Vanderbilt when she was just 17. Thelma and DiCicco were Seen fighting the night before she was found dead at her supper club. He worked for Mobster Lucky Luciano who wanted to do his business out of Thelma's Club in which Gutsy Thelma voraciously declined.
Death
Thelma Todd's Sidewalk Cafe
On the morning of December 16, 1935, Thelma Todd was found dead in her car inside the garage of Jewel Carmen, a former actress and former wife of Todd's lover and business partner, Roland West. Carmen's house was approximately a block from the topmost side of Todd's restaurant.
Her death was determined to have been caused by carbon monoxide poisoning. West is quoted in a contemporaneous newspaper account as having locked her out, which may have caused her to seek refuge and warmth in the car. Todd had a wide circle of friends and associates as well as a busy social life.
Police investigations revealed that she had spent the previous Saturday night (December 14) at the Trocadero, a popular Hollywood restaurant, at a party hosted by entertainer Stanley Lupino and his actress daughter, Ida. At the restaurant, she had had a brief but unpleasant exchange with her ex-husband, Pat DiCicco. However, her friends stated that she was in good spirits and were aware of nothing unusual in her life that could suggest a reason for her committing suicide. She was driven home from the party in the early hours of December 15 by her chauffeur, Ernest O. Peters.
in my personal opinion and in the opinion of many other Historians that there was no way she committed suicide. let's also take into consideration that in 1935 The LAPD was Brewing with corruption and could have possibly been in the pocket of Lucky Luciano himself.
The detectives of the LAPD concluded that Todd's death was accidental, the result of her either warming up the car to drive it or using the heater to keep herself warm. A Coroner's Inquest into Todd's death was held on December 18, 1935. Autopsy surgeon A.P. Wagner testified that there were "no marks of violence anywhere upon or within the body" with only a "superficial contusion on the lower lip."
There are informal accounts of greater signs of injury. The jury ruled that the death appeared to be accidental but recommended "further investigation to be made into the case, by proper authorities."
Subsequently a grand jury probe was held to determine whether Todd's death was a murder. After four weeks of testimony, the inquiry was closed with no evidence of murder being brought forward. The case was closed by the Homicide Bureau, which listed the death as "accidental with possible suicide tendencies." However, investigators were unable to find any motive for suicide or a suicide note.
Visitation was held at Pierce Brothers Mortuary at 720 West Washington Blvd in Los Angeles
Todd's body was cremated. After her mother's death in 1969, Todd's remains were placed in her mother's casket and buried in Bellevue Cemetery in her hometown of Lawrence, Massachusetts.
Legacy
For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Todd has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6262 Hollywood Blvd.
Aileen Pringle
Birth Name Aileen Bisbee, July 23, 1895 – December 16, 1989 was an American stage and film actress during the silent film era.
Early Life
Born into a prominent and wealthy San Francisco, California family and educated in Europe, Pringle began her acting career shortly after her 1916 marriage to Charles McKenzie Pringle, the son of a wealthy titled British Jamaican landowner and a member of the Privy and Legislative Councils of Jamaica.
Scandal
On November 15, 1924, Aileen was one of the Passengers on W.R. Hearst's Yacht the night Thomas Ince Took Ill and Died the next day. The Gossip Columns speculated that Hearst in a fit of Jealousy shot and killed Ince by accident mistaking him for Charlie Chaplin who was said to be having an affair with Hearst's Lady Love Marion Davies. Ince actually died from a ruptured ulcer the next at home surrounded by his family.
Career
One of Pringle's first high-profile roles was in the Rudolph Valentino film Stolen Moments (1920). Many of Pringle's early roles were only modestly successful, and she continued to build her career until the early 1920s when she was selected by her friend, the romance novelist Elinor Glyn to star in the 1924 film adaptation of her novel Three Weeks opposite matinee idol Conrad Nagel.The role catapulted Pringle into leading-lady status and her career began to build momentum.
Pringle's acting career continued throughout the early 1920s, however, she was allegedly disliked by many of her co-workers for her allegedly haughty and dismissive behavior. She was prone to make witty, sometimes caustic, comments on Hollywood and her fellow actors. During a romantic scene in Three Weeks, in which actor Conrad Nagel carried her in his arms to the bedroom, lip readers saw her say: "If you drop me, you bastard, I'll break your neck". Pringle's apparent disdain for her profession began to hurt her career, and by the late 1920s her roles became fewer.
Although disliked by some Hollywood insiders, Aileen Pringle was often dubbed by the press as the "Darling of the Intelligentsia" because of her close friendship with such literary figures as Carl Van Vechten, Joseph Hergesheimer, Rupert Hughes, and H. L. Mencken who became a lifelong friend of the actress.
She brokered the meeting of Mencken and Valentino, of which Mencken wrote an account, some weeks after Valentino had died. Mencken does not name her but describes her as "discreet as she is charming." Ralph Barton, American artist, was also a devoted friend and used her as the model for Dorothy in his illustrations for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos. Another admirer was George Gershwin who met her in Hollywood and wrote much of the Second Rhapsody at her Santa Monica, California, home. Her wit, keen intellect and sparkling personality made her a sought-after companion.
After her 1926 divorce from Charles Pringle, Aileen Pringle further focused on her acting career, including Dream of Love (1928) with Joan Crawford and Wall Street (1929) co-starring Ralph Ince, brother of Thomas Ince. However, with the advent of talkies, the studios began heavily promoting a new crop of starlets and Pringle's career faded.
During the sound era, she continued to take small parts in major films and even uncredited roles. In 1944 Pringle married the author, James M. Cain, but the union lasted only two years and ended in divorce. By the late 1940s, Pringle retired from the screen and lived a wealthy retirement in New York City, where she died in 1989 at the age of 94. Her find a grave memorial states that she is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Bronx NY. The Cemetery Historian and I both searched for her burial place and record and could find nothing.
Legacy
For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Aileen Pringle was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6723 Hollywood Blvd., in Los Angeles, California.
source: Wikipedia and IMDB
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