A Blog For Thelma Todd
Thelma Todd was a star of silent movies and later the talkies. She is remembered as much today for her mysterious death as she is for her films. In this blog, we take a look at Thelma Todd, her movies, and various commentaries.
What I remember about Thelma Todd and Ted Healy being together was that they both went to the first Screen Actors Guild Ball. Although Thelma Todd actually went with Pat DiCicco.
"Thelma Todd, well known film star, and her husband Peter ( sic ) De Cicco, are shown above at the Actor's Guild Ball in Los Angeles, Calif. recently. It was the guild's first annual affair and was attended by hundreds of the foremost figures of the film colony, all of whom voted it a big success."
An article from THE INDIANPOLIS STAR, January 15, 1934:
SCREEN COLONY TURNS OUT EN MASSE FOR FIRST MOVIE ACTORS GUILD BALL
HOLLYWOOD, Cal. Jan. 14 - ( AP ) - Several hundred thousand dollars' worth of talent performed last night for the amusement of millions of dollars' worth - or in other words, the Screen Actors Guild held it's first ball.
The motion picture colony turned out en masse, and from it's guilded ranks produced a show that in ordinary theatrical bargining would command salaries in six or maybe seven figures.
The guild, founded last year as an organization of actors for actors, with many members resigning from the Academy of Motion Picuret Arts and Sciences to join, staged it's dinner dance and supper vaudeville show in the month when the academy had planned it's annual banquet for the awarding of it's yearly honors to members.
Fans Line Corridor
Star gazers lined corridors to watch the entrance of the celebrities, who had chosen the "gold room" of a Los Angeles hostelry as a scene of their festivities - with dinner at $25. a couple.
Those who watched and waited saw such stars as Ann Harding, Caludette Colbert, Joan Crawford, Thelma Todd, Pat O'Brien, Adolphe Menjou, Billie Burke, Robert Montgomery - in fact, practically the whole Hollywood "Hall of Fame".
And inside the "Gold Room" transformed into a bower of flowers and ferns for the occasion, the stars and other guests saw a program such as theatrical managers dream about.
First there were Ted Healy and his "stooges". Jeanette MacDonald sang a song, and then an encore. Johnny Boyle and his young son tap danced to the "Rhapsody in Blue" and Jimmy Durante convulsed the assemblage with his piano recitation of the fellow who wanted to bet with him.
Dick Powell is M. C.
Hal Le Roy, Cinicinnati's native son, danced and John Boles sang, headed by Miss Harding and Menjou and participated in by the stellar roster of Hollywood. A highlight of the program was Pert Kelton's imitation of Charlie Chaplin - achieved without the benefit of any Chaplin costume other than the trick msutache.
"There's something here that money couldn't buy," said a guild member, summing up the spirit of the occasion.
Rudy Vallee, billed as master of ceremonies, was not present. Dick Powell, another singer, took his place. Bing Crosby, Charlie Butterworth and Frank McHugh "panicked 'em" with an imitation of the Boswell sisters.
* * *
Thelma Todd would divorce Pat DiCicco the following Februrary and the Three Stooges broke up their act with Ted Healy during the same period*. The Forresters' book said Thelma Todd was involved with Ted Healy while she was still married to Pat DiCicco in 1934, but unless you count the period of one year it took for the divorce to become final there wasn't much time in 1934 that Thelma Todd and Pat DiCicco were still married.
I don't know a lot about the Thelma Todd and Ted Healy story, but I have my doubts about it.
* Bonnie Bonnell likewise broke up with Ted Healy in this period.
Some Thelma Todd clippings that turned up on ebay. No sources were given, but I recognize a few that have already been on this blog.
Jack Lunden and hat from the silent era, left; Maybelline ad, right; another ad, bottom.
Another picture from the silent era, left; Thelma Todd and Ivan Lebedeff, right;
bottom, "broadcast party" with radio personalities Jimmy Grier, Dan Novis, Margaret Lawrence, Joyce Whiteman, and movie stars Robert Wheeler, Maureen O'Sullivan, Helen Twelvetrees, Thelma Todd, and Russell Gleason.
Top, left; "Thelma Todd, whose smartness is a byword in the city of fashion and films." Top, right: although the name of the boat is not stated, this picture was probably taken on board the "Joyita", the boat with which Thelma Todd was most closely associated, which belonged to Roland West.
Bottom left; Thelma Todd at the florist. Bottom right; I believe this picture is from First National.
This copy is identified on the back as being from First National, at any rate,
Although "Hard Rock" isn't a Thelma Todd movie title.
Healy was born Ernest Lea Nash on October 1, 1896 in Houston, Texas,[1] and was known as Lee. In 1912, as teenagers, Nash and his childhood friend Moses Harry Horwitz (later known as Moe Howard of the Three Stooges) joined the Annette Kellerman Diving Girls, a vaudeville act which included four boys. The work ended quickly, however, after an accident on stage. Nash and Howard then went their separate ways. Nash developed a vaudeville act and adopted the stage name Ted Healy.
Healy's act was a hit, and he soon expanded his role as a comedian and master of ceremonies. In the 1920's he was the highest paid performer in Vaudeville making $9000 a week. He added performers to his stage show, including his new wife Betty Brown (a.k.a. Betty Braun). When some of his acrobats quit in 1922, Moe Howard answered the advertisement for replacements. Since Howard was no acrobat, Healy cast his old friend as a stooge (someone who impersonated a member of the audience who is called on stage). In the routine, Howard's appearance on stage would end with Healy losing his trousers.
The beginning of the Stooges
Howard's brother Shemp joined the act soon after as a heckler in 1923, with Larry Fine joining in 1925. Healy's vaudeville revues (with names like A Night in Venice, A Night in Spain, and New Yorker Nights) included the trio under various names, such as Ted Healy and his Southern Gentlemen, but never as Ted Healy and the Three Stooges[citation needed].
Moe Howard took a break from show business in 1927 after the birth of his daughter. The group reconvened in 1928 and appeared in several Broadway productions, leading to an appearance in the 1930 film Soup to Nuts. In 1931 the Stooges broke from Healy after a dispute over a movie contract. They began performing on their own (using such monikers as "The Three Lost Souls" and "Howard, Fine and Howard"), often using some of the material from the Healy shows. Healy subsequently sued the Stooges for using his material. However, the copyright was actually held by the Shubert Theatre Corporation (for which the routines had been produced)—and since the Stooges had the Shuberts' permission to use it, Healy lost the suit.
Healy then hired a new set of stooges, consisting of Eddie Moran (soon replaced by Richard "Dick" Hakins), Jack Wolf, and Paul "Mousie" Garner. The Howard-Fine-Howard Stooges rejoined Healy's act in 1932, but Shemp quit the act shortly thereafter, soon to be replaced by his younger brother Curly Howard. The reunion did not last, however, and in early 1934, Howard, Fine and Howard parted ways with Healy for good.
After the Stooges
Healy went on to establish a promising career in motion pictures, where he was successful in both comedic roles (where he was often grouped with new "stooges", including Jimmy Brewster, Red Pearson and Sammy Glasser) and dramatic roles. After Larry Fine, Moe Howard and Curly Howard left his act in 1934, Healy appeared in a succession of films for 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, and MGM. During this period, Healy took to wearing a full toupée in public.[2] He was 41 and under contract to MGM at the time of his death on December 21, 1937, a few hours after preview audiences had acclaimed his work in the Warner Brothers film Hollywood Hotel.
Death
A cloud of mystery still hangs over Healy's death. Newspaper accounts attributed it to serious head injuries sustained in a nightclub brawl while celebrating the birth of his first child. Conflicting reports claimed the comedian died of a heart attack at his Los Angeles home.[3][4][5] The death certificate issued by the state of California lists his cause of death as nephritis, or inflammation of the kidneys.[6]
Two days before his death, the twice-married Healy had visited Moe Howard's wife, Helen, at their Hollywood apartment with the news that his ex-wife Betty (Hickman) was pregnant. Even though he'd recently been divorced by the 21 year-old,[2] Healey was excited at the prospect of his first child, telling Mrs. Howard, "I'll make him the richest kid in the world." Howard later stated in an interview that Healy had always wanted children and that it was ironic that the impending birth of his first child shortly preceded his own death. Howard recalled, "He was nuts about kids. He used to visit our homes and envied the fact that we were all married and had children. Healy always loved kids and often gave Christmas parties for underprivileged youngsters and spent hundreds of dollars on toys."[7]
At the time of Healy's death, the Stooges (consisting of Moe, Larry, and Curly) were at Grand Central Terminal in New York City preparing to leave for a personal appearance in Boston. Before their departure, Howard called Rube Jackter, head of Columbia Pictures' sales department, to confirm their benefit performance at Boston's Children's Hospital. During the conversation, Jackter told Howard that the night editor of The New York Times wanted to talk to him. Howard phoned The Times. The editor, without even a greeting, queried curtly, "Is this Moe?" Howard said it was. The editor then asked, "Would you like to make a statement on the death of Ted Healy?" Howard was stunned. He dropped the phone. Folding his arms over his head, Howard started to sob. Curly and Larry rushed into the phone booth to warn Howard that their train was about to leave. They found him crumpled over, crying. Since Howard seldom openly showed his emotions, Larry cracked to Curly, "Your brother's nuts. He is actually crying." Howard did not explain the reason for his emotional breakdown until he boarded the train. When they arrived back in Hollywood, they learned the details of Healy's death from a writer friend, Henry Taylor. Taylor told Howard that Healy had been out drinking at the Trocadero nightclub on the Sunset Strip, and an argument broke out with three college boys. Healy called them vile names and offered to go outside the club to take care of them one at a time. Once outside, Ted did not have a chance to raise his fists. The three men jumped him, knocked him to the ground and kicked him in the head, ribs and stomach. Healy's friend actor Joe Frisco came on the scene, picked him up from the sidewalk and took him to his apartment, where Ted died of what medical officials initially called a brain concussion. [8]
However, a very different account asserts that Healy was beaten to death by screen legend Wallace Beery, Albert R. Broccoli (later producer of James Bond films), and notorious gangster (and Broccoli's cousin) Pat DiCicco.[why?] This account appears in E. J. Fleming's book The Fixers: Eddie Mannix, Howard Strickling, and the MGM Publicity Machine (2004) about legendary MGM "fixers"[3] ] Mannix and Strickling. Under orders from studio head Louis B. Mayer, MGM sent Beery, one of their most valuable properties, to Europe for several months, while the story of the "three college boys" was fabricated to conceal the truth. (Immigration records confirm a four-month trip to Europe on Beery's part immediately after Healy's death, ending April 17, 1938).[9]
Despite his sizable salary, Ted Healy died penniless. MGM's staff members started a fund to pay for his burial. Moe Howard later mentioned that producer Bryan Foy of the famed Foy family of vaudevillians footed a sizeable portion of the bill for the funeral. According to Howard, even in the heyday of his stage career, Ted refused to save money and spent every dime of his salary as fast as he earned it. Healy loved betting on horses, and his favorite reading matter was race track charts.
Healy was survived by his widow, Betty Healy (née Hickman, whom he married on May 15, 1936) and his son, John Jacob Nash — who was baptized in St. Augustine's Church, opposite MGM, a week after Healy's death. John Nash, who legally changed his name to Theodore John Healy in 1959, died on July 16, 2011 from liver failure as a complication of prostate cancer in Stone Mountain, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta.
Ted Healy is interred at Calvary Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. Healy's was the first caricature drawn by Alex Gard to grace the walls of Sardi's restaurant in the New York CityTheater District.[10]
Hollywood, Dec. 21 -- The sudden death today of Ted Healy, bald and glowering comedian famous for his stooges, assumed aspects of mystery tonight with reports that he had been severely beaten, a little more than twenty four hours before he died, at the Trocadero Restaurant, Hollywood's premier night spot.
Coroner Frank Nance announced he would perform an inquest after Dr. Wyland Lamont, Healy's physician, refused to sign a certificate of death, Early reports said the comic had died of "a stroke."
From a group of fellow actors came the story tonight of Healy's mysterious beating.
Bobby Burns Berman, New York and Hollywood cafe man, said that Healy sobbing and with tears streaming down his face, approached him early Monday morning as he stood in Vine St. with comedian Joe Frisco and Man-Mountain Dean, motion picture actor and wrestler.
SLUGGED, HE SAYS
"I was slugged out at the Trocadero," Healy told them, Berman said, and exhibited a huge welt on his head.
But he refused to tell who had beaten him or why.
He said he was going for treatment to Dr. Sidney L. Weinberg, who could not be reached at his office tonight.
Reportedly stricken at 3 A. M., Healy died at 11:30 A. M. (3:30 P. M. New York) after oxygen had been administered in a vain attempt to save his life.
Mrs. Healy, the former Betty Hickman, who gave birth to a son on Friday, had not been informed of his death. Her husband had remained at her bedside until only a few hours before he was reportedly stricken.
His latest film, "Hollywood Hotel," was previewed last night.
* * *
Ted Healy's death was linked to the Trocadero. And Ted Healy's death was linked to Pat DiCicco. For Pat DiCicco was said to have been one of the three men who beat him shortly before he died.
One account has it that Ted Healy was romantically involved with Thelma Todd.
Ted Healy and his Stooges, from back when their early days.
That's Shemp next to Ted Healy at the right.
Ted Healy and the Three Stooges in Hollywood
Curly, in place of Shemp, is next to Ted Healy at the left.
Ted Healy without Stooges.
Ted Healy with Patsy Kelly in SING, BABY, SING, 1936.
Ted Healy was also associated with Frank Fay, with whom Patsy Kelly had worked in New York.
Ted Healy and first wife Betty Healy
Betty Healy at the Roach studio
With Laurel and Hardy in OUR RELATIONS:
Betty Healy, Lona Andre, Daphne Pollard, Iris Adrian
Gloria Bondell, Katherine Blondell ( Mother ), Joan Blondell.
Gloria Blondell made one Three Stooges short, THREE SAPPY PEOPLE, in 1939. She was also married to Pat DiCicco's cousin Cubby Broccoli at the time.
Cubby Broccoli in 1936, while he was married to Gloria Blondell.
Mabel Todd ( not to be confused with Thelma Todd )
with Ted Healy in his last film, HOLLYWOOD HOTEL, 1937.
I beleve that a book published in 2002 was the first to have the story that Pat DiCicco, Cubby Broccoli, and Wallace Beery were the ones that beat up Ted Healy shortly before his death.
Moe Howard's book MOE HOWARD AND THE THREE STOOGES had mentioned the story about Ted Healy having been beaten up, but hadn't named the assailants.
The Forrester's book also has it that Ted Healy was seeing Thelma Todd in 1934, while she was still married to Pat DiCicco.
The source for this story is said to have been Mousie Gardner, one of Healy's "new Three Stooges",
who had himself come out with a book in 1999.
It hadn't said anything about Thelma Todd, but it did mention that Ted Healy liked to set fire to things, including some belongings of blonde Bonnie Bonnel, who had worked with him and the Three Stooges in the movies.
Bonnie Bonnell next to Ted Healy in NERTSERY RHYMES, with the Three Stooges.
Bonnie Bonnell with Ted Healy and the Three Stooges in PLANE NUTS.
There's also a story from another of the new Stooges, Dick Hakins. After the incident where Pat DiCicco chased Harry Cohn from New York's 21 Club in 1942, shouting "Thelma!"*, it says that Dick Hakins wondered if Cohn had been threatening to expose DiCicco's involvement in the deaths of Thelma Todd and Ted Healy. "From what I knew of Harry Cohn, I wouldn't put anything past him," Hakins is quoted.
But we don't know just how much DiCicco had to do with the deaths of Thelma Todd or Ted Healy. The only thing that is certain in this case is that nothing is certain.
*This incident was mentioned by Gloria Vanderbilt ( who was married to Pat DiCicco at the time ) in her autobiography BLACK KNIGHT, WHITE KNIGHT.
I hadn't known there was a suicide prevention week. It must be something the news media doesn't talk about. Sometimes it seems they are actually trying to promote suicide.
Sometimes you come across references to Thelma Todd having been ruled a suicide. She wasn't. That was only an opinion held by some people at the time that wasn't shared by everyone. And there have been other cases where celebrities were said to have killed themselves when it wasn't certain.
There's not really much that can be said for suicide. There's a lot more to be said for just going on living, the way you're supposed to, for as long as it lasts.
Movie magazines were very popular in the thirties, despite the depression.
July 1934 issue, with Myrna Loy on the cover.
Jean Parker would later work with Laurel and Hardy. Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler were very popular at the time, but Shirley Temple became the most popular star of her day.
Marion Davies was not a top star, but she had her fans.
Madeleine Carroll would later work with Bob Hope.
Thelma Todd was not considered one of the biggest stars by Hollywood, but her films were still to be found in the theaters, and her pictures in the fan magazines.
Alice White had been a rival to Clara Bow in the silent era. She was still making movies after sound came in.
The underworld was frequently in the headlines during this period. Alice Faye later made ROSE OF WASHINGTON SQUARE, which had remarkable resemblances to the real life story of Fanny Brice and Nicky Arnstein.
It seems there was some sort of a problem with the way Carole Lombard spelled her name at PICTURE PLAY. Why, I don't know. Everyone else seemed to like it all right with the "e".
Bette Davis early in her career.
Loretta Young a few years after she appeared in SEVEN FOOTPRINTS TO SATAN.
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