[Unresolved crime] The mysterious death of Thelma Todd, silent film star and comedian (X-post from /r/jessicamshannon) : r/UnresolvedMysteries Skip to main content

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A subreddit dedicated to the unresolved mysteries of the world. Submissions should outline a mystery and provide a link to a more detailed review of the case such as a Wiki article or news report. Replies analysing and speculating over the mystery and possible explanations are encouraged. -


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[Unresolved crime] The mysterious death of Thelma Todd, silent film star and comedian (X-post from /r/jessicamshannon)

NSFW

https://imgur.com/a/dqvDc#xAS5UMX This photo album explains the whole thing. What do you think?

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Great write-up (or maybe more picture-up? Just joking), but I would advise to add NSFW mark or something, as autopsy photo is here and it may be not in everybody's taste.

u/jessicamshannon avatar

Thanks. Good thinking!

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I think she got drunk, got in the car to warm it up, passed out, and died. She had a huge substance abuse problem and was by all accounts a mean drunk.

u/AmericanHawkman avatar

I'm fascinated by the case, although I suspect it may well have been exactly what it appears to be. I actually am a fan of her film work.

u/artdorkgirl avatar

There was a great episode of "You Must Remember This" on her and that was basically the conclusion Karina Longworth came to as well.

FindaDeath or some similar website has a pretty good breakdown of why it's what it looks like:

Her injuries are actually consistent with a fall either walking up the stair case or in the garage combined with carbon monoxide poisoning, and there really wasn't a motive.

It's just kind of a sad, tawdry story, and that doesn't sell papers as much as 'The Mob Killed Her' does.

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I think her injuries are also consistent with being beat up.

Not really: I'd expect somebody that was beat up to look a lot worse than those photos show her.

And the Mafia didn't work that way: they didn't hide their crimes. They just dared anybody to do anything about it.

They wouldn't stage it to look like suicide. They'd have left her in the parking lot as a warning.

Jealous lovers? She slept around, but she never hid it.

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u/Dawnspark avatar

Whether you're a writer, storyteller or tabloid journo, it's the legend that always sells books. What one would rather write, that's a personal moral choice, but the legend always burns brighter, especially with Old Hollywood.

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u/myfakename68 avatar

Ahhh, Hot Toddy! I've been a fan of hers since seeing her in the Four Marx Brothers films. She was so funny and beautiful! As for her death... I'm always on the fence about it. One time I think it's accidental death, another suicide, and yet another... murder. Maybe she was beat up but not by a killer. Maybe later she started thinking about her life she decided to end it.

She didn't really enjoy being an actress. According to some bio's I've read (who knows the names of these books or how truthful they are) she really wanted to be a school teacher, but her mother put pressure on her to act. Her father was very cold and unloving.

Thelma did have a lot of demons. Her brother died in a terrible accident while the family was on vacation. Her mother was very domineering. She had a "potato clause" in her studio contracts stating that she couldn't gain weight and thus started taking pills to help maintain her small waist size. Divorced from a guy with underworld connections. Love affairs with gangsters. Drinking. Drugs... ugh. She makes me truly sad. Thankfully, her comedic roles still shine!

And I think her own mother is really the reason we still think it's a crime and not an accident. Her mother yelled something like "Oh! They killed her!" That sort of sticks in the mind! LOL!

Clip of Thelma and Chico Marx at the piano. ... to lighten the mood. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kDHD4Bs_EI

u/jessicamshannon avatar

Poor little lady. I've always adored her as well. SO funny. And of course so beautiful as well. I didn't know about her awful family life. That's so sad. And the pills, that really gets me. I did the same thing as a teen and ended up addicted to all kinds of drugs. Poor thing. Wish I could go back in time and be her friend. Thanks for the adorable clip!

u/myfakename68 avatar

Joined your new sub! Some is a little heavy for me, but then again... you warn us... so it's up to us whether to click or not. I mostly do click. Makes me thankful for my life.

I know! I wish I could go back and tell her to hang in there and kick that nut job mom of yours to the curb and get the hell outta Hollywood.

I hope you are off the pills yourself! Please, take care!!!!

u/jessicamshannon avatar

I'm all clean and sober, 7 years now. You take care too! I'll make sure I'm extra descriptive in the titles just to make sure everyone knows when there's a dead body or something extremely icky!

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u/Troubador222 avatar

Well one thing I can comment on is carbon monoxide doesn't usually just stay in the garage. The man upstairs should have been exposed too if the building was closed up. There was a woman in the town where I live committed suicide this way and killed her husband and infant sleeping in the house a few years back.

The garage is completely separate from the apartment upstairs. There's no adjoining doorway, window, or anything. It's actually still there, and it's teeny tiny. The other thing to remember is cars then weren't like they are now: most of the time you had a manual choke and you had to adjust the timing as the engine warmed up. So she started it to warm it up, passed out, and it ran just long enough to fill the garage and kill her and not much got upstairs.

u/jessicamshannon avatar

That's so sad. But potentially interesting as far as this case is concerned.

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