This week's Girl Friday had a career that was was tragically cut short....
Olive Thomas
Hit the jump for her story and more...
Olive Thomas was born in 1894, and had a rocky life as a child. She dropped out of school at the age of 15, to help support her widowed mother and siblings. She married a local guy at 16, and they divorced when she was 18.
Eventually she found herself in New York, working as a store clerk. She entered, and won, the "Most Beautiful Girl in New York" contest - and thus began her entertainment career. She worked in the Ziegfeld Follies, and its more risque "cousin" - the Midnight Frolic. For the later, she danced and performed clad only in balloons which the rich patrons enjoyed popping with their cigars....
Olive went on to star in several Silent Films and become known world wide. Because of her fame and beauty she was painted by several artists of the day, including Harrison Fisher and Alberto Vargas. The Vargas painting below was done in 1920, the year she would die.
Olive married Jack Pickford, brother of Silent Star Mary Pickford, in 1916. They were very much in love, but it was a stormy relationship filled with plenty of drinking, partying, and the rumors of drug use. While on vacation with Jack in France, Olive accidentally ingested a fatal dose of mercury bichloride. The medicine was a topical treatment for her husband's chronic syphilis, and it is believed she may have mistaken it for water and swallowed some before she realized the error.
She was rushed to the hospital and had her stomach pumped several times, but she passed away on September 20, 1920.
2 comments:
That's a sad story, of a tough life.
And I don't know why Blogger resets "Scheduled" to "Draft", but it drivesa me batty.
Blogger can be a hair-puller sometimes, that's for sure. Guess it's worth every penny I pay for it :)
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