Thelma Todd Letter

Thelma Todd wrote letters to various people, including fans. Here is a letter Thelma Todd wrote on her own stationary to a Miss Heidorn, who I believe was Lee Heidorn, head of the Billie Dove Fan Club.

Lee Heidorn:
http://benny-drinnon.blogspot.com/2012/02/lee-heidorn.html


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Billie Dove

From Wikipedia:

Billie Dove

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Billie Dove
Billie Dove, early 1920s
Born	Bertha Bohny May 14, 1903(1903-05-14)[1] New York City, New York, U.S.
Died	December 31, 1997(1997-12-31) (aged 94) Woodland Hills, California, U.S.
Other names	Lillian Bohny
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1918–1932 (brief reappearance in 1962)
Spouse	Irvin Willat (1923–1929; divorced) Robert Kenaston (1933–1970; his death); 2 children John Miller (1973–19??)

Billie Dove (May 14, 1903^[2][3] – December 31, 1997) was an American actress.

Early life and career

She was born as Bertha Bohny in New York City to Charles and Bertha (née Kagl) Bohny, Swiss immigrants. As a teen, she worked as a model to help support her family and was hired as a teenager by Florenz Ziegfeld to appear in his Ziegfeld Follies Revue. She legally changed her name to Lillian Bohny in the early 1920s. and migrated to Hollywood, where she began appearing in silent films. She soon became one of the most popular actresses of the 1920s, appearing in Douglas Fairbanks' smash hit Technicolor film The Black Pirate (1926), as Rodeo West in The Painted Angel (1929), and was dubbed The American Beauty (1927), the title of one of her films.

She married the director of her seventh film, Irvin Willat, in 1923. The two divorced in 1929. Dove had a huge legion of male fans, one of her most persistent being Howard Hughes. She shared a three-year romance with Hughes and was engaged to marry him, but she ended the relationship without ever giving cause. Hughes cast her as a comedian in his film Cock of the Air (1932). She also appeared in his movie The Age for Love (1931).

Other

She was also a pilot, poet, and painter.^[4]

Early retirement

Following her last film, Blondie of the Follies (1932), Dove retired from the screen to be with her family, although she was at the time still popular. She next married oil executive Robert Kenaston in 1933, a marriage that lasted for 37 years until his death in 1973; they had a son and an adopted daughter. She later had a brief third marriage to an architect, John Miller, which ended in divorce in the 1970s.

Last years/death

Aside from a brief cameo in Diamond Head (1962), Dove never returned to the movies. She spent her retirement years in Rancho Mirage before moving into the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California where she died of pneumonia in 1997.

Other

Dove has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 6351 Hollywood Blvd.

References

1. ^ Other sources including the California registry of births and deaths cite 1900 or 1901 as her year of birth, although the 1910 census supports 1903 as her year of birth.
2. ^ Drew, William M. "Billie Dove - Silent Star of May 1997." The Lady in the Main Title: On the Twenties and Thirties. Vestal Press. 1997.
3. ^ Wagner, Bruce. "Annals of Hollywood". "Moving Pictures", The New Yorker. July 20, 1998, p. 54
4. ^ Obituary, New York Times, January 6, 1998.

Filmography

Jump to:Actress|Self|Archive Footage

Hide Show Actress (50 titles)

1963Diamond Head
Bit Part (uncredited)

1932Blondie of the Follies
Lottie

1932Cock of the Air
Lilli de Rosseau

1931The Age for Love
Jean Hurd

1931The Lady Who Dared
Margaret Townsend

1930One Night at Susie's
Mary

1930Sweethearts and Wives
Femme de Chambre

1930A Notorious Affair
Lady Patricia Hanley Gherardi

1930The Other Tomorrow
Edith Larrison

1929The Painted Angel
Mamie Hudler / Rodeo West

1929Her Private Life
Lady Helen Haden

1929The Man and the Moment
Joan

1929Careers
Hélène Gromaire

1928/IAdoration
Elena

1928Night Watch
Yvonne Corlaix

1928Yellow Lily
Judith Peredy

1928The Heart of a Follies Girl
Teddy O'Day

1927The Love Mart
Antoinette Frobelle

1927The American Beauty
Millicent Howard

1927The Stolen Bride
Sari, Countess Thurzo

1927The Tender Hour
Marcia Kane

1927Sensation Seekers
'Egypt' Hagen

1927An Affair of the Follies
Tamara

1926Kid Boots
Eleanore Belmore

1926The Marriage Clause
Sylvia Jordan

1926The Lone Wolf Returns
Marcia Mayfair

1926The Black Pirate
Princess Isobel

1925The Ancient Highway
Antoinette St. Ives

1925The Fighting Heart
Doris Anderson

1925The Lucky Horseshoe
Eleanor Hunt

1925Wild Horse Mesa
Sue Melberne

1925The Light of Western Stars
Madeline Hammond

1925The Air Mail
Alice Rendon

1924Folly of Vanity
Alice (modern sequence)

1924The Roughneck
Felicity Arden

1924Wanderer of the Wasteland
Ruth Virey

1924Yankee Madness
Dolores

1924Try and Get It
Rhoda Perrin

1924On Time
Helen Hendon

1923The Thrill Chaser
Olala Ussan

1923The Lone Star Ranger
Helen Longstreth

1923Soft Boiled
The Girl

1923Madness of Youth
Nanette Banning

1923All the Brothers Were Valiant
Priscilla Holt

1922One Week of Love
Bathing Party Guest (uncredited)

1922Youth to Youth
Eve Allinson

1922Beyond the Rainbow
Marion Taylor (as Lillian 'Billie' Dove)

1922Polly of the Follies
Alysia Potter

1921At the Stage Door
Mary Mathews

1921Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford
Dorothy Wells

Hide Show Self (6 titles)

1985Night of 100 Stars II (TV movie)
Herself

1932Hollywood on Parade No. A-3 (documentary short)
Herself

1932/IScreen Snapshots (documentary short)
Herself

1930Screen Snapshots Series 9, No. 22 (short)
Herself

1926Screen Snapshots (documentary short)
Herself

1922Screen Snapshots, Series 3, No. 11 (documentary short)
Herself

Hide Show Archive Footage (3 titles)

2000Howard Hughes: His Women and His Movies (TV documentary)
Herself

1998The 70th Annual Academy Awards (TV special)
Herself (Memorial Tribute)

1961The DuPont Show of the Week (TV series)

Edit

Personal Details

Other Works:

(1921) Stage: Appeared (as "Chorus Girl") in "Sally" on Broadway. Produced by Florenz Ziegfeld Jr..

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Publicity Listings:

2 Magazine Cover Photos |See more »

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Alternate Names:

Lillian Bohny | Lillian 'Billie' Dove

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Height:

5' 6" (1.68 m)   

Did You Know?

Personal Quote:

When you're up there on that film, you are that person completely all the time. You think the way that person thinks, you do what that person does and you're not acting. You're actually living it.See more »

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Trivia:

Silent film actress.

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Nickname:

The American Beauty

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Persondata
Name	Dove, Billie
Alternative names	Bohny, Bertha; Bohny, Lillian
Short description	American silent film actress; aviatrix
Date of birth	May 14, 1903 (other sources cite 1900 or 1901)
Place of birth	New York City, New York, U.S.
Date of death	December 31, 1997
Place of death	Woodland Hills, California, U.S.

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Billie Dove was in THE BLACK PIRATE, a famous movie which is still considered a classic today. That's mostly what I remember her from.

Billie Dove had her own fan club, Lee Heidorn was president and published a fanzine called 'Dove Tales"

Letters from Billie Dove and Lee Heidorn appeared in each issue.

Read more about Lee and her adventures at:
http://michaelgankerich.wordpress.com/

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Lee Heidorn

Lee Heidorn was the president of the Billie Dove Fan Club. She was able to communicate with Billie Dove and eventually went to visit her in Hollywood. She also met Thelma Todd while in Hollywood. Here is a little about Lee Heidorn and Thelma Todd that turned up on another blog.


Reposted from http://michaelgankerich.wordpress.com/ :

 Lee Heidorn’s adventures in Hollywood continue. In this installment, she lunches with Thelma Todd and Madge Evans, and visits Jean Harlow on the set of Riffraff.
Lee picks up the story from here:
A few days later, I spent an afternoon at the Hal Roach Studios with beautiful Thelma Todd.

The ever-smiling Thelma Todd

We had lunch in her dressing room and were gaily getting acquainted when Mae Busch, who was once a famous star, came in. She had a featured role in the picture. She is very sweet and friendly. We chatted there for awhile and then went down on the set. Thelma was wearing a dark wig as she plays the Queen of Gypsies in The Bohemian Girl, which they were were making with Laurel and Hardy as the stars. When we got to the set, Thelma asked me if I’d like to have my picture taken with her and Laurel and Hardy, and of course I wasn’t averse, so she got the boys and the still cameraman and the picture was taken, and it certainly turned out swell. I saw Hal Roach and Tony Moreno, just as handsome as ever, sitting in a corner, and a lot of gypsy extras in gay costumes lolling around. Between scenes, both Thelma and Mae would come over and visit with me, so I had a very gay afternoon.

Lee (center) with Inez Courtney (L) and Thelma Todd

Several days later, we were to meet Thelma Todd at the Russian Eagle for lunch, but when we got there, we found they had closed prior to moving to a new location on Sunset Blvd. So we lunched at Al Levy’s* instead. Just as we were ready to start eating, Thelma asked us if we had ever met Inez Courtney, and when we replied in the negative, she asked the waiter for a phone and called Inez and asked her to lunch with us. Inez had just had her tonsils out and so couldn’t eat much. She joined us just as we were having dessert. She’s a card and we had lots of laughs between her and Thelma. Leo Carrillo occupied the next booth so as he was leaving, he stopped and chatted for a few minutes. He’s very nice and we enjoyed meeting him. We stayed there chatting for awhile and then went outside and took some pictures of them and then bade them goodbye.

Thelma and Inez standing in front of Thelma's car. Less than three months later, Thelma was dead.

Later, Lee Heidorn met up with Thelma Todd again:

Late one afternoon, we met Evelyn Venable at Sardis for tea. With her was her friend, Edna Sollee, who is her stand-in and who is a very charming girl. Evelyn is very pretty and very sweet and is very much like her screen personality. We chatted there for some time. Saw Thelma Todd there and introduced her to the others.

Evalyn Venable and Edna Sollee

*Adam Tunney posted photo of Al Levy's on facebook:

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It happens I just put a picture of Billie Dove on my blog yesterday, she was mentioned in the magazine article "Is it Tragic to be Beautiful?".

Here is a picture of Marion Davies and Billie Dove in BLONDIE OF THE FOLLIES.

This was a Marion Davies movie, so she got to be the star, and was supposed to be the one you rooted for when they had a fight. I like Billie Dove better, myself.

I haven't seen this movie, myself. It was somewhere around the same time as the movie CALL HER SAVAGE, the one where Thelma Todd and Clara Bow were supposed to have a "catfight". I don't really see why that business was supposed to be such a thrill, but they'd keep doing that in the movies. A lot of movies tend to be very similar.

Some of the older books would run down Marion Davies because William Randolph Hearst bought her career as a movie star. But it can be said that some of the other movie stars were in a similar situation in that they were in the movies because they were somebody's girlfriend, you just don't hear so much about it. Today, it seems that Marion Davies is being rediscovered and is not as poorly thought of as she frequently was in the past.

And finally, here's Leo Carrillo, he was mentioned, too.

Read more about Lee Heidorn's trip to Hollywood at:

http://michaelgankerich.wordpress.com/


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