True Life Tuesday: Olive Thomas

This is a very sad story from the early days of Hollywood that I had not heard of before.

Olive Thomas was born Olive Duffey on October 20, 1894 in Charleroi, Pennsylvania. Her parents were James and Rena Duffey. When she was 15 years old her father passed away. She ended up quitting school to help her mother support her two younger brothers. She found a job working at Joseph Horne's department store in Pittsburgh. When she was only 16 years old she married Bernard Krug Thomas. Shortly after they were married Olive went to visit her aunt in New York. While there she decided to stay and eventually the couple divorced in 1913.

Olive initially took a job at a department store in Harlem but she had bigger goals. In 1911 she entered and won The Most Beautiful Girl in New York contest. After this she began posing for many different artists. She eventually ended up performing in the Ziegfeld Follies. Starting in 1916 she started appearing in silent films and eventually signed with Triangle Pictures.

Also in 1916 she married Hollywood's favorite son Jack Pickford. They kept the marriage a secret in the beginning and Olive did not take his name because she did not want people to assume she was only successful because of him. They actually spent most of their marriage on opposite coasts because of their careers. Their marriage was called wild and toxic. They would fight, break up and reconcile on many occasions. 

On August 12, 1920 Olive and Jack set sail to Paris for a second honeymoon and to rekindle their rocky marriage. On September 5th they had dinner and drinks at Montmarte returning to their room at The Hotel Ritz around 3am. Jack went straight to bed but Olive stayed up with a headache. She eventually wondered into the bathroom and took a drink of what she thought was alcohol from a flask. Unfortunately in her confusion she consumed poison - mercury bichloride - which Jack used to treat his syphillis sores. She screamed for Jack who tried many things to help her including diluting the poison with water and making her vomit. 

A doctor was summoned to the room and he ended up pumping Olive's stomach three times. At 9am she was transferred to Neuilly Hospital. The doctors there did not hold out much hope that she would survive. She ended up dying on Sept 10th with Jack by her side. Three days later the Paris coroner determined her death to be accidental.

Olive was buried in the Pickford family lot in Woodlawn Cemetery. After her death many rumors started to swirl as to what happened. People thought she committed suicide and others thought Jack murdered her. Even though their marriage was rocky Jack was very despondent when Olive died and actually tried to kill himself. Now after 100 years many people believe that Olive still hangs out at the New Amsterdam Theater in New York where she performed in the Ziegfeld Follies.