The mysterious death of “The Ice Cream Blonde” Thelma Todd 1905 - 1935

She was born in Lawrence , Massachusetts on July 29 th, 1905 and rose from school teacher to beauty queen to movie star in 3 short years. Nicknamed “Toddy” or “Hot Toddy”, this curvy, blonde comedienne made her mark in the hilarious Hall Roach farces starring Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers and Zasu Pitts. But her life came to a sudden and tragic end on a December weekend in 1935 and the mystery surrounding her death is still unresolved today.

The grand jury outside Thelma Todd's Sidewalk Cafe

In the early 1930s, Thelma bought a sprawling 3-tier Spanish-style building on what is now the Pacific Coast Highway where she opened a chic, popular eatery known as the Thelma Todd’s Sidewalk Café. Her partner in the project was film director Roland West, her lover on and off for the last 5 years of her life. West also operated a nightclub “Joya” on the second floor where the two also occupied separate apartment units. On the third floor was a small ballroom where Thelma provided games of chance for her guests and rumored to be coveted by Los Angeles mobsters led by Charles “Lucky” Luciano.

The Trocadero

On Saturday, December 14 th Thelma attended a celebrity-studded dinner party hosted by British

the garage

actor Stanley Lupino and his actress daughter Ida at the trendy Trocadero nightclub on the Sunset Strip. While she was there, Thelma had an unpleasant confrontation with her ex-husband, Pasquale “Pat” Di Cicco, a mobster linked to “Lucky” Luciano, but it was brief. DiCicco had come uninvited to the party with starlet Margaret Lindsay on his arm. According to Ida, Thelma shook off the incident and was in good spirits when she left the party early Sunday morning. Her chauffeur, Ernest Peters, dropped her off at the front entrance of her building at 4 a.m. at her request (he usually left her at the outside entrance of her apartment). He then drove the car up to the two-car garage she shared with West carved out of a hillside on the Pacific Palisades overlooking the café.

Monday, December 16 th dawned cold but sunny. At approximately 10:30 a.m. Mae Whitehead, Thelma’s personal maid, parked her car outside the garage. It was her responsibility to pick up Todd’s chocolate-covered Lincoln Phaeton convertible and drive the actress to the Hal Roach Studio in Culver City . The massive garage door was unlocked as usual but when Mae slid it open and stepped inside, she gasped in horror. Thelma Todd sat slumped over in the front seat of the car, still wearing her Saturday night finery…but she was bloody, bruised and very, very dead!

The Ice Cream Blonde

When the police arrived, Todd’s body had not been moved and one of the detectives observed that it was just beginning to show signs of rigor mortis (meaning death had occurred only 5 or 6 hours before they arrived). Her clothes were badly rumpled and spattered with blood and according to her maid, they were the same clothes Thelma wore to the Lupino dinner party Saturday night…a mauve and silver evening dress, mink stole, and blue silk high-heeled slippers. The $20,000 worth of diamonds were still intact and Todd’s small evening bag laid in the seat at her side (it still contained the key to her apartment’s outside door).

But after an hour’s examination, Detective Chief Bert Wallis and Chief Medical Examiner A. F. Wagner somehow determined the cause of death was “accidental carbon monoxide poisoning” and the time of death was “between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m. early Sunday, December 15 th” some 36 hours before. The blood and bruising was attributed to “post-mortem lividity” and contact with the steering wheel when she passed out. Then, opening a potential crime scene to the press, they happily posed with the corpse!

The steps to the garage

But protests over this flawed report from Todd’s mother and a host of friends brought about a grand jury investigation. A smudged fingerprint found on the car door was unidentified. Her high-heel slippers were free of scuffs and dirt that they would have received from a trek up the 271 steps to the garage. Her blood alcohol level was .13 enough to make that long walk difficult and, strangely, her stomach contents contained peas and carrots , a dish not served at the Lupino dinner. Several people also claimed to have seen or heard from Thelma on Sunday afternoon including silent star Jewel Carman, West’s estranged wife who lived in a villa just above the café and garage. Actor Wallace Ford’s wife said Todd had phoned her to confirm an invitation to their cocktail party Sunday afternoon.

Roland West

After lengthy questioning, Roland West confessed to having a quarrel with Toddy over her constant partying and locked her out. She was his moneymaker at the nightclub and café and when she didn’t show, neither did the celebrity patrons. But even if Todd couldn’t get into her apartment with her key, the trek up the stairs was highly unlikely. Also Charles Smith, the café treasurer, who lived over the garage never heard the motor of the Phaeton (which was quite loud) or smelled any exhaust fumes.

Thelma and Pat DiCicco

Was the confrontation with Pat DiCicco just a coincidence or was he there to issue another ultimatum from Lucky Luciano about the casino he wanted in her building? Did Pat or one of his mobster friends follow her home and pick her up outside the café? If so, where was she until Sunday afternoon? Pat had beaten Thelma several times during their marriage and that is why the actress divorced him.

But the grand jury, after weeks of pouring over the puzzling and contradictory evidence, finally chose to go with the original verdict….death by accidental carbon monoxide poisoning. Thelma’s lawyer demanded a second inquest to bolster his theory that Todd had been killed by Luciano’s hit mob but producer Hal Roach begged him to drop the suit entirely. Whether it was to protect their famous director or keep the underworld at bay, no one knows. But the case was closed…and the mystery lingers on!

Thelma's funeral at Forest Lawn

Thelma Todd had a celebrity funeral at Forest Lawn but she went home to Lawrence , Massachusetts to be buried in Bellevue Cemetery .

A final irony: the line of dialogue from the 1931 film “Monkey Business” when, alone with Todd in her cabin, Groucho Marx quipped “You’re a woman who’s been getting nothing but dirty breaks. Well, we can clean and tighten your breaks, but you’ll have to stay in the garage all night”!