BROAD MINDED ( 1931 ) - Bela Lugosi, Marjorie White, Joe E. Brown, Thelma Todd, and Ona Munson.
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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.
Monday, November 30, 2015
BROAD MINDED Cast Photo
BROAD MINDED ( 1931 ) - Bela Lugosi, Marjorie White, Joe E. Brown, Thelma Todd, and Ona Munson.
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Zasu Pitts And Thelma Todd - STRICTLY UNRELIABLE Photo
STRICTLY UNRELIABLE was a 1932 comedy with Zasu Pitts and Thelma Todd. Here we have a photo from this film showing them with Bud Jamison, who appeared in many comedies but is best known for his work with the Three Stooges.
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Saturday, November 28, 2015
Thelma Todd In NEVADA
NEVADA was a 1927 Paramount production based on a Zane Grey novel in which Thelma Todd's costars were Gary Cooper and William Powell.
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Thelma Todd's Sidewalk Cafe Will Not Be Destroyed, Says New Owner
Hayman Properties, the new owner of Thelma Todd's Sidewalk Cafe, does not intend to tear the building down according to story at https://www.palipost.com/thelma-todds-cafe-far-from-demolition-says-owner/
Another article about the purchase of the Sidewalk Cafe by Hayman Properties can be seen at https://www.palipost.com/property-that-housed-thelma-todds-sidewalk-cafe-sold-for-6-million-exclusive-look-inside/
Friday, November 27, 2015
Thursday, November 26, 2015
MARCH OF THE WOODEN SOLDIERS
MARCH OF THE WOODEN SOLDIERS is the reissue version of BABES IN TOYLAND. It has frequently been run on Thanksgiving as a holiday special. Laurel and Hardy are the stars, with Charlotte Henry and Marie Wilson in the cast. Mickey Mouse is played by Josephine the monkey. The scene where he throws a brick at the cat was inspired by Krazy Kat.
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Wednesday, November 25, 2015
Happy Thanksgiving!
From:
Anita Page
Carole Landis
Marilyn Monroe
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Anita Page
Ann Sheridan
Barbara Kent
Barbara Nichols
Barbara Bates
Carole Landis
Charlotte Greenwood, Betty Grable, and Carole Landis
Debbie Reynolds
Judy Garland
Marilyn Monroe
And Marilyn Monroe again.
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Happy Thanksgiving Day!
Happy Thanksgiving Day!
Thelma Todd, Loretta Young, Jack Ford, and Doris Dawson star in a historical reenactment for First National around the time that Thelma Todd and Loretta Young made SEVEN FOOTPRINTS TO SATAN.
The mention of NAUGHTY BABY dates this to 1928. Thelma Todd and Doris Dawson were in that movie, although it doesn't seem that Loretta Young was.
And here is a shot of Loretta Young from SEVEN FOOTPRINTS TO SATAN,
which they also would have been working on in 1928, although it was released at the beginning of 1929.
Massachusetts figures in the story of Thelma Todd as well as the story of the Pilgrims. Thelma Todd was from Massachusetts, which is also where the Pilgrims lived when they came to the United States, met the Indians, and started celebrating Thanksgiving.
Loretta Young Site:
Loretta Young At Silent Hollywood:
SEVEN FOOTPRINTS TO SATAN:
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Young Thelma Todd With Long Hair
A picture of Thelma Todd as she looked in her early days at Paramount, before they cut her hair.
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Saturday, November 21, 2015
Thelma Todd's Sidewalk Cafe Threatened With Destruction
The building which was once Thelma Todd's Sidewalk Cafe is slated to be bulldozed by it's new owner according to information posted on facebook recently. It is considered a historic site and was offered for sale as such by the Paulists who were the previous owners. It should not be destroyed.
Thelma Todd's Sidewalk Cafe listed as historic site
http://wikimapia.org/6556973/Thelma-Todd-s-Sidewalk-Cafe-Historical-Site
Thelma Todd's Sidewalk Cafe listed for sale as a historic site:
http://s.lnimg.com/attachments/B3B338E9-03BE-4BEF-AD61-82FB3A4336FF.pdf
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Thursday, November 19, 2015
Thelma Todd At Waterloo Station
May 3rd, 1933 Actress Thelma Todd smoking a cigarette as she smiles from the door of her train carriage as she prepares to leave for America, at Waterloo Station
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Wednesday, November 18, 2015
YOU MADE ME LOVE YOU DVD Release
YOU MADE ME LOVE YOU was a 1933 movie Thelma Todd made in England with Stanley Lupino, the father of Ida Lupino.
YOU MADE ME LOVE YOU:
http://benny-drinnon.blogspot.com/2014/05/you-made-me-love-you.html
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Michelle Morgan, Author of THE ICE CREAM BLONDE
More about Michelle Morgan and her new book about Thelma Todd.
Reblogged from
http://www.chicagoreviewpress.com/blog/behind-the-scenes-michelle-morgan-author-of-the-ice-cream-blonde/
November 16, 2015 • Behind the Scenes
At the height of her fame in the early 1930s, film star Thelma Todd was connected not only to major directors, actors, and producers but also to mob bosses and thugs who wanted a piece of the action at her renowned restaurant, Thelma Todd’s Sidewalk Café. So, it’s maybe not a surprise that her life came to an end under suspicious circumstances.
Michelle Morgan’s new book, The Ice Cream Blonde: The Whirlwind Life and Mysterious Death of Screwball Comedienne Thelma Todd, takes readers on a journey from the actress’s childhood to her climb through the Hollywood ranks to the day she was found dead in her car in her garage. The author had the opportunity to comb through hundreds of letters, FBI files, death reports, and press clippings, and she used them in her book to both paint a clear picture of Todd’s life and explore in depth whether the star died accidentally, committed suicide, or was murdered. Here, Morgan goes deep on her investigation, her favorite Todd films, and what she thinks might have become of the actress had she lived.
Most of your other books are on Marilyn Monroe and Madonna, both household names. When did you realize you wanted to write about lesser-known Thelma Todd?
When I discovered Thelma, it was as a result of doing research for a Marilyn Monroe book. I came across a letter from Elia Kazan, telling Marilyn to stop hanging around with Pat De Cicco. I was intrigued because I’d never heard his name before. When I found out that his wife was Thelma Todd and she died under mysterious circumstances, I was even more intrigued. I did a little bit of online research, but there were so many conflicting stories and rumors about Thelma that I didn’t know what to believe. I carried on with my Marilyn Monroe research, but Thelma wouldn’t leave me alone. I felt as though she was knocking on my head constantly, demanding I tell her story. I started to research more into her life, and before I knew it, I was totally hooked. I knew I had to write her biography, and I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but that just made me all the more determined.
In investigating Todd’s death, you were able to access files and evidence unseen by the public until now. How did you come by these materials?
All I can say is thank goodness for collectors. The FBI records had all been destroyed some years ago, and they must have gotten so sick of me reapplying over and over again, just in case they managed to find them. They kept telling me they’d been destroyed, so finally I had to give up and come to terms with the fact that I would not be able to use them. Just as I resigned myself to that, a collector came forward who told me that he actually had the files in his collection. He was able to give me access to everything he had, along with some important e-mails too.
Another collector helped me with interviews. He had done research into Thelma’s life in the 1980s and had spoken to a childhood friend and officers associated with the actress’s death investigation. He was a great person to correspond with and prompted me to go off in directions I had not thought about before.
Then there was a friend of mine who happened to be writing a book about Hal Roach. He was spending time trawling the Roach archives when I was writing my book, so he was able to send me interesting snippets every now and again. I was very grateful to him for taking the time to do that, especially since he was writing his own book.
Another lady trawled through the Glasgow library archives to find reports of Thelma’s trip to Scotland. Thelma had given a very in-depth interview to a handful of reporters in her hotel room, and she even spoke about the subject of gangsters, with no prompting from the writers at all. These articles were incredible because they showed that she was fully aware of (and had been bothered by) gangsters several years before she died. As far as I know, this interview was the one and only time Thelma ever mentioned any involvement with gangsters, so the articles were absolutely crucial to my research.
Todd appeared in dozens of films before her death. How many of them did you end up seeing while conducting your research? Can you name your favorites?
Every film that is available on DVD or on the Internet, I watched. It was brilliant to see Thelma on screen, but at the same time it could be frustrating, too, because sometimes she was only in the film for brief moments. I would watch the whole thing, and she would only pop up for one scene, when I wanted so much for her to be in the entire film! Occasionally, though, I’d find a film that she had a good part in, and that was a real treat. Speak Easily is one example, and You Made Me Love You is another. The latter has actually just been released on DVD, but when I was writing the book, it was only available in snippets on a website. This was frustrating because none of the pieces seemed to be in any particular order. I had to watch them all randomly, note down what sequence I thought they went in, and then finally was able to see the whole film in correct order. Needless to say, now that it is on DVD, I have put it on my Christmas list. I will look forward to watching it in one big chunk instead of twelve tiny ones!
Away from the feature films were the shorts she made for Hal Roach. I watched every film I could find, often dozens of times. I absolutely adore the shorts Thelma made with ZaSu Pitts, and the ones with Patsy Kelly are funny, too. Charley Chase and Laurel and Hardy are hysterical, of course, and I really enjoyed watching those.
Todd often marched to the beat of her own drum. She had to defy her father’s wishes to some degree to start her career in show business, she went out of her way to help poorly treated female costars such as Patsy Kelly, and she started her own restaurant when the film industry grew tiresome. Would she have been seen as brave or radical in her day?
I think she definitely would have been seen as brave and radical. To be honest, I think most actresses were pretty rebellious back in the 1920s and 1930s. After all, it was expected that women should be there for their husbands, tending to the house and caring for the children. Actresses wanted something much more out of their lives, and this often caused raised eyebrows within their families.
Thelma was incredible in that she was not just thinking about her next film role or her next social event; she was actively looking at things she could do when her acting career came to an end. She was astute; she had seen other women’s careers come crashing down as soon as they hit their thirties, and so she planned her future in things that did not relate to acting, such as running her café. I am writing about Carole Lombard at the moment, and she had the same kind of outlook. I have documents that show she was thinking seriously about her future and planning what to do next. Unfortunately, both actresses would not live long enough to see what would become of their careers and lives. That in itself is a huge tragedy.
The book seems to avoid making an ultimate conclusion as to what exactly happened to Todd the night she died. How did you keep track of the various potential players in her death? And, in your mind, is there a definitive guilty party?
I say in the book that piecing together Thelma’s death was like putting together a five-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle of the sky at night, and that is true. I made lists of all the people, documented who they were, what they said, what they believed happened to Thelma when she died. Then I wrote a time line of what we know for sure (e.g., she definitely went to a party; she danced with her friends and saw her ex-husband). Then I went through each possible scenario and decided whether or not that story could be true.
For instance, a popular theory is that she was locked out of her house and climbed up 271 cliff-side stairs in the middle of the night in order to take shelter in her garage. This seems quite simple—until you start to analyze every aspect of it. For instance, why would she trek up the hillside instead of waking her partner, Roland West, as she had done in the past? Why was her hair and makeup still perfect when the wind was howling and blowing dust from the hill? Why did she walk up the hill when she was known to have an old ankle injury and a thorough dislike for walking? Why would she not take shelter in any of the nooks and crannies that surrounded the café building? And in addition to that, didn’t she know anyone living on that hillside that may have been able to let her use their phone? Just so many questions to think about.
I looked at all the other scenarios and kept notes about each one, going through the coroner’s report, finding inaccuracies and strange answers, and writing down everything I thought was important. I also used my family as a sounding board. I would say to my husband, “Look at this photo. What do you think of this? And what do you think of that?” He repairs cars in his spare time, so he was a good person to talk to about the workings of Thelma’s car.
When the book went to Chicago Review Press for editing, the death section became even more complicated because then I had editors asking questions, too. Although it was certainly mind-boggling and headache-inducing at the time, I’m extremely grateful for that process now because it made me think even harder about what I was saying and how and why things could (or could not) have happened.
As far as a guilty party, I believe that though we’ll never know exactly what Roland West’s part in all this was, he most certainly is guilty of not actively looking for Thelma on the Sunday she disappeared. He did not call her mother or the police; he did not go out of the building; he did nothing at all to find her. Not even when someone called looking to see why she hadn’t turned up for a party, or when invited guests arrived at the café wondering where Thelma was. Not once did he think, “Maybe something is wrong here.” But then maybe that is because he knew there was something wrong and he had no idea what to do about it.
Thelma loved her time in England, and I think certainly she would have gone back to make some films. On several occasions, she told reporters that she desperately wanted to go back, and then on her last evening she was actively making plans with actor Stanley Lupino to make another film together. I like to think she would have settled in England and gone on to become a stage or character actress. Certainly I think she was tiring of Hal Roach and Hollywood in general. She was definitely looking for a change and spoke about that a lot in the last few months of her life.
The Ice Cream Blonde: The Whirlwind Life and Mysterious Death of Screwball Comedienne Thelma Todd by Michelle Morgan published November 1, 2015. It is available wherever books and e-books are sold, including our website.
Behind the Scenes: Michelle Morgan, Author of The Ice Cream Blonde
At the height of her fame in the early 1930s, film star Thelma Todd was connected not only to major directors, actors, and producers but also to mob bosses and thugs who wanted a piece of the action at her renowned restaurant, Thelma Todd’s Sidewalk Café. So, it’s maybe not a surprise that her life came to an end under suspicious circumstances.
Michelle Morgan’s new book, The Ice Cream Blonde: The Whirlwind Life and Mysterious Death of Screwball Comedienne Thelma Todd, takes readers on a journey from the actress’s childhood to her climb through the Hollywood ranks to the day she was found dead in her car in her garage. The author had the opportunity to comb through hundreds of letters, FBI files, death reports, and press clippings, and she used them in her book to both paint a clear picture of Todd’s life and explore in depth whether the star died accidentally, committed suicide, or was murdered. Here, Morgan goes deep on her investigation, her favorite Todd films, and what she thinks might have become of the actress had she lived.
Most of your other books are on Marilyn Monroe and Madonna, both household names. When did you realize you wanted to write about lesser-known Thelma Todd?
When I discovered Thelma, it was as a result of doing research for a Marilyn Monroe book. I came across a letter from Elia Kazan, telling Marilyn to stop hanging around with Pat De Cicco. I was intrigued because I’d never heard his name before. When I found out that his wife was Thelma Todd and she died under mysterious circumstances, I was even more intrigued. I did a little bit of online research, but there were so many conflicting stories and rumors about Thelma that I didn’t know what to believe. I carried on with my Marilyn Monroe research, but Thelma wouldn’t leave me alone. I felt as though she was knocking on my head constantly, demanding I tell her story. I started to research more into her life, and before I knew it, I was totally hooked. I knew I had to write her biography, and I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but that just made me all the more determined.
In investigating Todd’s death, you were able to access files and evidence unseen by the public until now. How did you come by these materials?
All I can say is thank goodness for collectors. The FBI records had all been destroyed some years ago, and they must have gotten so sick of me reapplying over and over again, just in case they managed to find them. They kept telling me they’d been destroyed, so finally I had to give up and come to terms with the fact that I would not be able to use them. Just as I resigned myself to that, a collector came forward who told me that he actually had the files in his collection. He was able to give me access to everything he had, along with some important e-mails too.
Another collector helped me with interviews. He had done research into Thelma’s life in the 1980s and had spoken to a childhood friend and officers associated with the actress’s death investigation. He was a great person to correspond with and prompted me to go off in directions I had not thought about before.
Then there was a friend of mine who happened to be writing a book about Hal Roach. He was spending time trawling the Roach archives when I was writing my book, so he was able to send me interesting snippets every now and again. I was very grateful to him for taking the time to do that, especially since he was writing his own book.
Thelma Todd. Courtesy of the author’s collection.
Aside from the repiecing of the criminal investigation, what was your research process for the book like? What sources did you find most valuable to make Todd three-dimensional?
Because Thelma is not as well known as, say, Marilyn Monroe or Bette Davis, there was very little written about her in terms of books. I bought and read many biographies about her costars and contemporaries, and aside from brief mentions of her death, there was literally nothing about her at all. One book about her costar Buster Keaton didn’t even mention the film they made together, and that was incredibly frustrating.
In the end, I found the best source to be the huge coroner’s report on her death, which I was able to order from the States. It not only gave details of Thelma’s last hours but also glimpses into her personality, her friends, her likes, and dislikes, too. There was even a story about her breaking the glass of her apartment window so that she could wake up her partner Roland West when she locked herself out one evening. Little stories like that told me a lot about her personality. I also used reports such as her will, her autopsy, letters, and other documents, all of which were very useful. Then my husband found a whole host of notes and other items in a library, all of which had been gathered by an author many years ago. These items were great because they pointed me in various directions that I may not have thought about.
Next were contemporary magazines and newspapers, news reports, and film footage. I was blessed with help from some fantastic librarians who went out of their way to find mentions of Thelma in obscure newspapers. One lady (who is now a friend of mine) went through tons of microfiche articles in the library throughout December of last year, sending me anything she could find about Thelma’s death. She even sent me scans on Christmas Eve. She was an angel to this project, and I remain very grateful.Another lady trawled through the Glasgow library archives to find reports of Thelma’s trip to Scotland. Thelma had given a very in-depth interview to a handful of reporters in her hotel room, and she even spoke about the subject of gangsters, with no prompting from the writers at all. These articles were incredible because they showed that she was fully aware of (and had been bothered by) gangsters several years before she died. As far as I know, this interview was the one and only time Thelma ever mentioned any involvement with gangsters, so the articles were absolutely crucial to my research.
Todd appeared in dozens of films before her death. How many of them did you end up seeing while conducting your research? Can you name your favorites?
In this publicity photo for Speak Easily (1932), Thelma sports something of a “gangster moll’s” look. In reality she was anything but. Courtesy of James and Joyce Brubaker.
Away from the feature films were the shorts she made for Hal Roach. I watched every film I could find, often dozens of times. I absolutely adore the shorts Thelma made with ZaSu Pitts, and the ones with Patsy Kelly are funny, too. Charley Chase and Laurel and Hardy are hysterical, of course, and I really enjoyed watching those.
Todd often marched to the beat of her own drum. She had to defy her father’s wishes to some degree to start her career in show business, she went out of her way to help poorly treated female costars such as Patsy Kelly, and she started her own restaurant when the film industry grew tiresome. Would she have been seen as brave or radical in her day?
I think she definitely would have been seen as brave and radical. To be honest, I think most actresses were pretty rebellious back in the 1920s and 1930s. After all, it was expected that women should be there for their husbands, tending to the house and caring for the children. Actresses wanted something much more out of their lives, and this often caused raised eyebrows within their families.
Thelma was incredible in that she was not just thinking about her next film role or her next social event; she was actively looking at things she could do when her acting career came to an end. She was astute; she had seen other women’s careers come crashing down as soon as they hit their thirties, and so she planned her future in things that did not relate to acting, such as running her café. I am writing about Carole Lombard at the moment, and she had the same kind of outlook. I have documents that show she was thinking seriously about her future and planning what to do next. Unfortunately, both actresses would not live long enough to see what would become of their careers and lives. That in itself is a huge tragedy.
The book seems to avoid making an ultimate conclusion as to what exactly happened to Todd the night she died. How did you keep track of the various potential players in her death? And, in your mind, is there a definitive guilty party?
I say in the book that piecing together Thelma’s death was like putting together a five-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle of the sky at night, and that is true. I made lists of all the people, documented who they were, what they said, what they believed happened to Thelma when she died. Then I wrote a time line of what we know for sure (e.g., she definitely went to a party; she danced with her friends and saw her ex-husband). Then I went through each possible scenario and decided whether or not that story could be true.
A publicity postcard for Thelma Todd’s Inn. Courtesy of Santa Monica Public Library Image Archives, Pacific Palisades Historical Society Collection
I looked at all the other scenarios and kept notes about each one, going through the coroner’s report, finding inaccuracies and strange answers, and writing down everything I thought was important. I also used my family as a sounding board. I would say to my husband, “Look at this photo. What do you think of this? And what do you think of that?” He repairs cars in his spare time, so he was a good person to talk to about the workings of Thelma’s car.
When the book went to Chicago Review Press for editing, the death section became even more complicated because then I had editors asking questions, too. Although it was certainly mind-boggling and headache-inducing at the time, I’m extremely grateful for that process now because it made me think even harder about what I was saying and how and why things could (or could not) have happened.
As far as a guilty party, I believe that though we’ll never know exactly what Roland West’s part in all this was, he most certainly is guilty of not actively looking for Thelma on the Sunday she disappeared. He did not call her mother or the police; he did not go out of the building; he did nothing at all to find her. Not even when someone called looking to see why she hadn’t turned up for a party, or when invited guests arrived at the café wondering where Thelma was. Not once did he think, “Maybe something is wrong here.” But then maybe that is because he knew there was something wrong and he had no idea what to do about it.
Do you think there’s anything Todd could have done differently to avoid her fate? Where do you think her career might have gone had she lived?
Thelma loved her time in England, and I think certainly she would have gone back to make some films. On several occasions, she told reporters that she desperately wanted to go back, and then on her last evening she was actively making plans with actor Stanley Lupino to make another film together. I like to think she would have settled in England and gone on to become a stage or character actress. Certainly I think she was tiring of Hal Roach and Hollywood in general. She was definitely looking for a change and spoke about that a lot in the last few months of her life.
As for avoiding her fate, that’s a good question. If gangsters were involved in her death, then certainly the café was a significant factor in their interest. If she had not renewed ties with Roland West and moved to the café, then I think certainly she would have avoided some of the terrible things that happened in the last year of her life. It is just awfully sad that by actively seeking a different way of life, by looking to the future and making a move away from the movies, she actually hastened her passing. That is a real tragedy and a very sad end for someone who gave so much for the entertainment of others.
—compiled by Geoff George
The Ice Cream Blonde: The Whirlwind Life and Mysterious Death of Screwball Comedienne Thelma Todd by Michelle Morgan published November 1, 2015. It is available wherever books and e-books are sold, including our website.
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Michelle Morgan Interview
An interview with Michelle Morgan, author of THE ICE CREAM BLONDE, a new book on Thelma Todd.
I did a radio interview this evening, which I think is going to be broadcast at a later date. I will let you know when it is going to be on, when I find out. In the meantime, here is a fun interview I did with Jim Junot last night. I really enjoyed speaking about Thelma and hope you enjoy it too!
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Friday, November 13, 2015
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
Press Release For THE ICE CREAM BLONDE
We've had this before, but I may as well try to run it by you one more time.
Reblogged from http://www.chicagoreviewpress.com/ice-cream-blonde--the-products-9781613730386.php?page_id=21
The Whirlwind Life and Mysterious Death of Screwball Comedienne Thelma Todd
By Michelle Morgan
By Michelle Morgan
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY
304 Pages, 6 x 9
Formats: Cloth
Cloth, $26.95 (US $26.95) (CA $31.95)
ISBN 9781613730386
Rights: WOR
Chicago Review Press (Nov 2015)
Not Yet Published. Estimated release date: November 2015
ISBN number
9781613730386
Media Copy A
Review Of THE ICE CREAM BLONDE
I have just received a copy of Michelle Morgan's THE ICE CREAM BLONDE: THE WHIRLWING LIFE AND MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF SCREWBALL COMEDIENNE THELMA TODD for review. Michelle Morgan has also written several books about Marilyn Monroe. There is a connection here.
Michelle Morgan: I actually became aware of her through Marilyn Monroe. I was doing research for a revised edition of my first Marilyn biography, and I came across a letter sent to her by director Elia Kazan. In the letter he warns her to stay away from Pat De Cicco. I had no idea who he was, so did some research and discovered that he had been married to Thelma, and she died under mysterious circumstances. Until that point, I had known nothing about her at all except for her name. Of course after I discovered her, I couldn't stop thinking about her and I watched everything I could get my hands on, and started doing tentative research to see if there was enough material to write a thorough investigation into her life and death. I was happy to discover there was.
I sent Michelle Morgan some information for her book. Some of it must have been about Pat DeCicco, but somehow I think he ended up being depicted as somewhat less awful than I would have expected. Something that may also be true of Roland West, but the book goes into more detail about the wrongdoings of that particular associate of Thelma Todd, some of which may fall into the category of alleged but unproven.
There is a lot about Thelma Todd in this book. Some of it has been covered in previous biographies, some of it has not. There is more about her life and career, her trip to England and her meeting with famous physicist Albert Einstien. Like the other books, it does not prove absolutely whether the death of Thelma Todd was accident, murder, or suicide. But Michelle Morgan at least consulted an expert, something I've said was needed when confronted by the mindless arguments of the willfully ignorant.
In addition to the usual suspects - Lucky Luciano, Roland West, and Pat DeCicco - this book offers a new one, Tony Cornero, a gambler who haunted the area in that era. We remember him from his gambling ship, which is mentioned in some accounts of gambling in California in that era.
Finally, this is not a book that claims to have once and for all solved the mystery, something other authors have done in the past without actually having done it. This author encourages further discussion among the fans, who are welcome to try to build upon what has been presented here.
Many thanks to Chicago Review Press for providing a copy of the book for review.
THE ICE CREAM BLONDE:
http://www.chicagoreviewpress.com/ice-cream-blonde--the-products-9781613730386.php
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