|
diversions:
legend has it ...
The mystery of
Thelma Todd
By Don Weberg
On-line Forty-Niner
One of the most
evasive mysteries in the history of the Los Angeles underground
is of actress, model and schoolteacher Thelma Todd.
Born in Lawrence,
Mass. in 1905, Todd became a teacher and got into modeling
as a side gig. That twist brought her to Los Angeles on a
fast train, quickly landing her in rolls with the Marx Brothers
in such films as "Horsefeathers." Amazingly, she
was in a total of 108 films.
The actress, known
as a savvy businesswoman, opened up a little place called
Thelma Todd's Sidewalk Café near Malibu on Roosevelt
Highway. The restaurant was successful and an off-the-beaten
path retreat for celebrities and studio executives.
Beautiful in her
own right, but overshadowed by up-and-comers like Jean Harlow,
the fair-haired lady was not a bombshell. Soon after making
a name for herself in films, she married and ultimately ended
up in a friendly divorce.
Friendly, that
is, until she ended up dead in the garage at the wheel of
her Lincoln on Dec. 16, 1935.
The coroner ruled
her death a suicide by self-inflicted by carbon monoxide poisoning.
However those close to the actress will contest that she was
not suicidal and had a lot to live for.
Several pieces
of the mystery indicate foul play. The fact that blood was
found on her face, body, mink coat and on the car indicate
that the body had been moved to the vehicle. Also, the coroner
ruled that she had an extremely high blood-alcohol content,
high enough to make it nearly impossible for her to make the
walk to the garage on her own.
As her body was
laid to rest, rumors surfaced about the ex-husband, who was
in with the wrong crowd. Legend has it, that because of his
connections with the syndicate types, they approached Todd
about using the Café as a gambling den. Todd refused
and was subsequently iced.
The true story
behind that night is only known by one person for sure, Thelma
Todd. Her death was also the end of the Café, which
closed shortly afterwards.
Today, Thelma Todd's
Sidewalk Café is nothing more than a building people
rush by listed as 17575 Pacific Coast Highway. Currently home
to a film production company and storage facility, the building
frequently sits vacant, its doors eerily unlocked and silent
as a tomb inside.
Much of the building
is still in its original form, from the hand-laid tile floors
to the wooden French windows and slightly rippled lead-glass.
Todd kept her apartment above the Café under a different
address, 17531 Posetano Rd. The apartment, in its day, was
a lavish home. Today, it's a simple, dusty reminder of Hollywood's
heyday, one of its starlets and the mysteries that surrounded
tinseltown. The stairs leading from the Café to the
apartment are cracked, tilted, desolate and overrun with shrubbery
at a few points. The steel handrails oxidized and rusted by
the salt air.
The hills behind
the building have been developed with houses and other structures,
and Roosevelt Highway has been renamed Pacific Coast Highway,
its lanes expanded to six from the original two. Once a straight
view from the Café, the beach across the highway has
been developed into a parking lot adjacent a few expensive
homes.
No haunts have
been reported at the Café, but knowing what happened
there one chilly night, 66 years ago along with the eerie
absence of people in the open building is enough to lend the
place an air of deafening silence.
|
