Overview

A beloved film comedienne who worked alongside the Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy, and dozens of others, Thelma Todd was a rare Golden Age star who successfully crossed over from silent films to talkies. This authoritative new biography traces Todd's life from a vivacious little girl who tried to assuage her parents' grief over her brother's death, to an aspiring teacher turned reluctant beauty queen, to an outspoken movie starlet and restaurateur. Increasingly disenchanted with Hollywood, in 1934 Todd opened Thelma Todd's Sidewalk Cafe, a hot spot that attracted fans, tourists, and celebrities. Despite success in film and business, privately the beautiful actress was having a difficult yearreceiving disturbing threats from a stranger known as the Ace and having her home ransackedwhen she was found dead in a garage near her cafe.An inquest concluded that her death, at age just twenty-nine, was accidental, but in a thorough new investigation that draws on interviews, photographs, documents, and extortion notesmuch of these not previously available to the publicMichelle Morgan offers a compelling new theory, suggesting the sequence of events on the night of her death and arguing what many people have long suspected: that Thelma was murdered. But by whom? The suspects include Thelma's movie-director lover, her would-be-gangster ex-husband, and the thugs who were pressuring her to install gaming tables in her popular cafeincluding a new, never-before-named mobster. This fresh examination on the eightieth anniversary of the star's death is sure to interest any fan of Thelma Todd, of Hollywood's Golden Age,or of gripping real-life murder mysteries.

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9781613730386

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Reviews

The Ice Cream Blonde givesan engaging and balanced look at the fascinating life and notorious death of Thelma Todd. Michelle Morgan proves once again that she is expert researcher who can tackle a controversial subject justly, and through her, Thelma Todd becomes much more than just a scandalous Hollywood footnote. Christina Rice, author Ann Dvorak: Hollywood's Forgotten Rebel

Author Information

Michelle Morgan is the author of The Mammoth Book of Hollywood Scandals, The Mammoth Book of Madonna, and several books about Marilyn Monroe: Marilyn Monroe: Private and Confidential, Before Marilyn: The Blue Book Modeling Years, and Marilyn's Addresses: A Fan's Guide to the Places She Knew.

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