Thelma Todd
Birthday: 1906-07-29
Place of Birth: Lawrence, Massachusetts, USA
Biography: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Thelma Alice Todd (July 29, 1906 – December 16, 1935) was an American actress. Appearing in about 120 pictures between 1926 and 1935, she is best remembered for her comedic roles in films such as Marx Brothers' Monkey Business and Horse Feathers, a number of Charley Chase's short comedies, and co-starring with Buster Keaton and Jimmy Durante in Speak Easily. She also had roles in Wheeler and Woolsey farces, several Laurel and Hardy films, the last of which (The Bohemian Girl) featured her in a part that was truncated by her suspicious death at the age of 29. During the silent film era, Todd appeared in numerous supporting roles that made full use of her beauty but gave her little chance to act. With the advent of the talkies, Todd was given opportunity to expand her roles when producer Hal Roach signed her to appear with such comedy stars as Harry Langdon, Charley Chase, and Laurel and Hardy. In 1931, Roach cast Todd in her own series of slapstick comedy shorts, running 17 to 27 minutes each. In an attempt to create a female version of Laurel and Hardy, Roach teamed Todd with ZaSu Pitts for 17 shorts, from "Let's do Things" (June 1931) through "One Track Minds" (May 1933). When Pitts left in 1933, she was replaced by Patsy Kelly, appearing with Todd in 21 shorts, from "Beauty and the Bus" (September 1933) through "An All American Toothache" (January 1936). These Roach shorts often cast Todd as a working girl having all sorts of problems, and trying her best to remain poised and charming despite the embarrassing antics of her sidekick. Todd also appeared successfully in such dramas as the original 1931 film version of The Maltese Falcon starring Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade, in which she played Miles Archer's treacherous widow. During her career she appeared in 119 films although many of these were short films, and was sometimes publicized as "The Ice Cream Blonde." Todd continued her short-subject series through 1935, and was featured in the full-length Laurel and Hardy comedy The Bohemian Girl. This was her last film; she died after completing all of her scenes, but most of them were re-shot. Producer Roach deleted all of Todd's dialogue and limited her appearance to one musical number.
Movies
Seven Footprints to Satan
Before a planned African expedition, a man's fiancée worries her father's guest plans to steal one o...
View Movie
The Maltese Falcon
A lovely dame with dangerous lies employs the services of a private detective, who is quickly caught...
View Movie
Monkey Business
Four stowaways get mixed up with gangsters while running riot on an ocean liner....
View Movie
Horse Feathers
Quincy Adams Wagstaff, the new president of Huxley U, hires bumblers Baravelli and Pinky to help his...
View Movie
Yesterday and Today
A compilation of early-day silent films that serves as a glimpse back to the formative days of the m...
View Movie
God Gave Me Twenty Cents
The story concerns the misadventures of sailor Steve Doren, who tries his best to support his wife M...
View Movie
On the Loose
Two young women, Zasu and Thelma, complain that all of their dates take them to Coney Island. The ne...
View Movie
Another Fine Mess
Two homeless vagabonds hide out in a vacant mansion and pose as the residents when prospective lesse...
View Movie
Chickens Come Home
Ollie is running for mayor when an old flame tries to blackmail him with a old photo....
View Movie
Unaccustomed as We Are
Laurel and Hardy try to entertain a female neighbor, unbeknown to Hardy’s wife....
View Movie
The Bohemian Girl
Stan and Ollie travel with a band of 18th-century Gypsies holding a nobleman's daughter....
View Movie
This Is the Night
When Stephen, the husband of Gerald’s mistress, Claire, discovers a pair of tickets for their planne...
View Movie
Corsair
A stock market broker plans to liven up his boring life by taking up piracy on the high seas....
View Movie
Counsellor at Law
A successful lawyer struggles to deal with his wife's unfaithfulness and his own hidden past....
View Movie
The Devil's Brother
Two wannabe bandits join the service of a dashing nobleman, who secretly masquerades as Fra Diavolo,...
View Movie
Call Her Savage
A high-spirited and short-tempered Texan woman storms her way through life until her luck runs out, ...
View Movie
Cockeyed Cavaliers
Two yokels try to crash royal society by posing as the King's physicians....
View Movie
Nevada
A once notorious gunfighter takes a respectable job on a ranch. "Nevada" is charged with protecting ...
View Movie
Hips, Hips, Hooray!
Hips, Hips, Hooray! is a 1934 slapstick comedy film starring Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Ruth Etti...
View Movie
Her Man
A prostitute sees a friendly sailor as a way out of Havana's grimy underworld....
View Movie
Klondike
Dr. Robert Cromwell performs a delicate operation, that has never been done before, and the patient ...
View Movie
Whispering Whoopee
Charlie hires three "party girls" to help him land a business deal....
View Movie
Sitting Pretty
Jack Oakie and Jack Haley are songwriters are enroute from New York to Hollywood to make their fame ...
View Movie
Lightning Strikes Twice
An actress goes up to a dude ranch for relaxation, when she falls in love with a ranch owner recentl...
View Movie
Mary Stevens, M.D.
Lifelong friends and medical school graduates Mary Stevens and Don Andrews decide to set up office t...
View Movie
The Poor Rich
Albert Stuyvesant Spottiswood and his cousin Harriet Winthrop Spottiswood arrive separately at their...
View Movie
Broadminded
Jack's father lowers the boom when his irresponsible rich-kid ends up in jail after a night of debau...
View Movie
The Hot Heiress
Classes clash when a poor riveter and wealthy society woman fall in love with each other, much to th...
View Movie
Two for Tonight
A songwriter has to come up with a full-length theatrical piece within a few days....
View Movie
Rough Seas
On his way home following World War I, Charley smuggles his French sweetheart aboard ship and gets i...
View Movie
The Big Timer
Loud-mouth hamburger flipper, Cooky, thinks he can box. His big chance comes when everyone else quit...
View Movie
Screen Snapshots (Series 22, No. 10)
The edition of Screen Snapshots celebrates 25 years of production. It looks at the content of editio...
View Movie
High C's
The comic and musical adventures of Charley Chase as he fights in the great war....
View Movie
No Limit
Theater usherette Bunny O'Day (Clara Bow) inadvertently becomes hostess of a private gambling den, a...
View Movie
Maid in Hollywood
Thelma, who came to Hollywood from Joplin to be a star, is ready to go home. She and her pal Patsy a...
View Movie
The Bargain of the Century
Comedy short with ZaSuPitts and Thelma Todd. After accidentally getting a policeman friend fired, t...
View Movie
Top Flat
When Patsy criticises her poetry, Thelma ups and leaves for a better standard of living....
View Movie
Show Business
The girls and their pet monkey create havoc on board a train carrying a traveling Broadway troupe....
View Movie
Sealskins
In their first comedy two-reeler of 1932, vivacious Thelma Todd and fluttery ZaSu Pitts learn that t...
View Movie
Asleep in the Feet
The girls moonlight as taxi dancers in order to earn some extra money....
View Movie
The Pip from Pittsburg
Charley agrees to go on a blind date to help out his roommate. But because his last such date turned...
View Movie
The Tin Man
Thelma and Patsy find themselves in a spooky house inhabited by a nut who is a mechanical genius and...
View Movie
Follow Thru
Lora Moore, the club champion, loses a golf match to a woman from another golf club. Then Jerry Down...
View Movie
Sing Sister Sing
At a residence hotel, Patsy is moving in with Thelma. Thelma has prepared some rules, including sing...
View Movie
Soup and Fish
At a ritzy beauty salon, while a mud pack is on her face, a wealthy socialite invites Thelma and Pat...
View Movie
Dollar Dizzy
Charley and Thelma are millionaires, each trying to elude suitors who are trying to marry them for t...
View Movie
Maids a la Mode
Instead of delivering some fancy dresses to a customer, the girls wear them to a party....
View Movie
Opened by Mistake
Patsy tries to stay with Thelma at the hospital where she works, but Thelma is forced to pretend tha...
View Movie
Heart to Heart
Princess Delatorre, young and beautiful widow of an Italian scion of royalty, returns with her fortu...
View Movie
The Nickel Nurser
Charley is an efficiency expert trying to teach a millionaire's daughter the value of money....
View Movie
Command Performance
Prince Alexis of Kordovia refuses to do his duty under threat of war. Recently arrested actor Peter...
View Movie
Palooka
Joe Palooka is a naive young man whose father Pete was a champion boxer, but his lifestyle caused Jo...
View Movie
Love Fever
An actress is rehearsing a death scene in her apartment, but her neighbors all think it's the real t...
View Movie
The Fighting Parson
Harry is mistaken for "The Fighting Parson" in a tough western town....
View Movie
The Shrimp
A timid man undergoes a personality change, and turns the tables on the people who've bullied him....
View Movie
The King
The king is a juvenile dolt who tries the patience of the shrewish queen. While she's in the throne ...
View Movie
War Mamas
During WW1, the girls become spies when they spend the evening with two German officers....
View Movie
Three Chumps Ahead
Thelma rushes into the apartment she shares with Patsy, excited because she's fallen in love with Ar...
View Movie
The Soilers
Zasu and Thelma are working their way through college by selling magazine subscriptions. Finding lit...
View Movie
The Pajama Party
After running their car off the road, a society matron insists that the girls spend the evening at h...
View Movie
The Old Bull
Thelma and Zazu are on a leisurely excursion in a borrowed car. Thelma lets Zazu drive. When she bra...
View Movie
Sneak Easily
Juror Zasu accidentally swallows a piece of evidence which just happens to be a time bomb....
View Movie
One Track Minds
Thelma wins a screen test with a Hollywood studio, but trouble ensues on the train trip out there....
View Movie
I'll Be Suing You
Patsy is coerced into faking a broken leg in order to win an insurance settlement after an automobil...
View Movie
Bum Voyage
The girls find a pair of steamship tickets, not knowing that the cabin the tickets are for is inhabi...
View Movie
Babes in the Goods
Thelma and Patsy get jobs demonstrating washing machines in a department store window. However, on t...
View Movie
An All American Toothache
Thelma volunteers Patsy as a subject for her friend who is in dental school and needs somebody to pr...
View Movie
Alum and Eve
When Thelma is stopped by a cop for speeding, she tries to get out of it by telling him that she and...
View Movie
After the Dance
Though he was protecting her when he accidentally killed a man, Mabel Kane (Thelma Todd) refuses to ...
View Movie
The Shield of Honor
Diamond thieves have infiltrated the staff of O'Day Jewelry. The Los Angeles Police Dept. employs th...
View Movie
Bottoms Up
Three smart film-flammers help a homeless little girl to love and happiness by making monkeys out of...
View Movie
Hurdy Gurdy
A heat wave sends the residents of a New York City tenement to their fire escapes for whatever breez...
View Movie
Cheating Blondes
A reporter sets out to prove that his girlfriend was framed and sent to prison....
View Movie
Take the Stand
A radio columnist is threatened by gangsters and later murdered during a broadcast. A detective sets...
View Movie
Looser Than Loose
Charley is about to get engaged to Thelma when his boss foists some clients upon him to entertain....
View Movie
You Made Me Love You
A rich American businessman in London makes believe he's lost all his money so that his daughter wil...
View Movie
The Noose
In this suspenseful silent crime drama, a hijacker proves his loyalty to his mother by killing his b...
View Movie
All Teed Up
Thelma invites Charley to play golf at her father's exclusive country club....
View Movie
Aloha
In the South Seas, a half-caste island girl refuses to follow tradition and marry a fellow islander,...
View Movie
Snappy Sneezer
Charley falls in love with Mary, but his attack of hay fever alienates her father....
View Movie
Look out Below
A Educational short where Robert Graves plays Thelma Todd's jealous husband....
View Movie
House of Horror
House of Horror is a 1929 American comedy-horror mystery film directed by Benjamin Christensen. The ...
View Movie
Naughty Baby
A cloak room girl (Alice White) falls for a rich boy who may not actually be rich....
View Movie
Careers
In French Indochina, a magistrate is assigned to investigate the murder of his boss. Unknown to him,...
View Movie
Fascinating Youth
Playboy Teddy Ward wants to marry Jeannie King, an artist, but his father wants him to marry Loris L...
View Movie
The Bachelor Girl
Joyce (Jacqueline Logan), a beautiful and efficient secretary, does her best to take in hand and ref...
View Movie
Trial Marriage
Constance Bannister enters into a trial marriage contract with Dr. Thorvald Ware and finds happiness...
View Movie
Crazy Feet
Charley intervenes in a fight between Eddie and Thelma inside her small car. Cop Kennedy misinterpre...
View Movie
Vamping Venus
A present-day stereotypically-Irish American politician is vaulted into ancient Greece after receivi...
View Movie
Deception
Modest programmer denotes a young man's rise to fame in wrestling matches he doesn't realize have be...
View Movie
The Haunted House
Four heirs to a family fortune are summoned to appear at the family estate for the reading of the wi...
View Movie
Her Private Life
A English aristocrat causes a scandal when she divorces her husband and runs off with a young Americ...
View Movie
Rubber Heels
A European royal couple come to New York to sell some of the royal family's crown jewels. A gang of ...
View Movie
Fireman, Save My Child
Two firemen must put up with a variety of travails in their job, especially their chief's spoiled an...
View Movie
The Gay Defender
Real-life outlaw Joaquin Murietta, who (according to this film, anyway) is a latter-day Robin Hood, ...
View Movie
Swanee River
A power company floods a sleepy Tennessee Valley for a dam to run a hydraulic power plant. Garry, a ...
View Movie
Hal Roach Presents Harry Langdon
Hal Roach produced this short to introduce Harry Langdon to his comic line-up....
View Movie
Murders of Hollywood
Sensational and shocking stories from Hollywood are not always fiction. Beyond anything a screenwrit...
View Movie