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Branded By Scandal

© Jenny Lynn Higgins

The hotel valet paced down the corridor, key in hand, mumbling to himself in French about the nuisances of Hollywood stars. He stopped before the door of a suite and stuck the key in the lock, swiftly twisting the knob with his hand, ready to be done with this business. The valet impatiently pushed the door open and was just about to call out when he stopped short. The blood chilled in his veins. A soft sable cape was spread out on the floor. The pale, delicate hand that lay on it limply grasped a pill bottle, its contents spilling onto the cape. The valet stumbled to the ornate gold and ivory telephone near the door and dialed the front desk. His voice was shaky as he spoke into the receiver, "Olive Thomas...elle est mort...suicide..."

In 1920, Olive Thomas's death in Paris shocked the entire nation. A silent film star who had rocketed to stardom in the space of a few short years, Olive Thomas was known to the public as an "All-American Girl". At the time of her death, she had just recently married Jack Pickford (brother of the screen star known as "America's Sweetheart": Mary Pickford). Everyone thought them to be very happy and in love.

At twenty-one, Olive had known both poverty and riches. She was born Oliveretta Duffy on October 20, 1898 in Charleroi, Pennslyvania. Her father died when she was a small child, leaving her mother to care for Olive and her two brothers in the smoky, depressing atmosphere of industrial Pennslyvania. Either at thirteen or fifteen years old (there's some speculation as to her age) she married Bernard Krug Thomas, but later ran away to New York and stayed at a cousin's house in Harlem. She filed for divorce, claiming that her husband had been abusive.

Olive found work in New York as a shop girl, earning three dollars a week. She was seventeen and - incredulously at such a young age - ready to start her life over. While working at the department store, she discovered an ad in the newspaper announcing that the famous artist Howard Chandler Christy was holding a competition to find the most beautiful girl in New York. Olive entered the contest on a lark and won.

The media coverage of Olive caught the attention of Florenz Ziegfeld. He petitioned Olive to join his infamous Ziegfeld Follies. She was a hit and became the "toast of Broadway", overwhelmed by male admiration and expensive gifts. In the midst of all this hoopla, Olive was signed by Triangle Pictures and moved from New York to California. In 1917, a publication called MOTOGRAPHY reported of her:

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