OLIVE ANN OATMAN BORN 1837 -1903 MARCH 20

OLIVE ANN OATMAN BORN 1837 -1903 MARCH 20


இன்றைக்கு அமெரிக்காவில் கோரோனோ வில் கொத்துக்கொத்தாக செத்து மடிகிறார்கள் .கொத்துக்கொத்தாக சாக அடித்தவர்களை, கொத்துக்கொத்தாக சாகடிக்கும் கோரோனோ. தமிழ், சமண, புத்த .இலக்கியங்கள்சொல்வதெல்லாம் முன்ஜென்ம வினைகளை பற்றியே

அமெரிக்கர்கள் தங்கள் சுயநலத்திற்கு செவ்விந்தியர்களை கொன்றும் வாழ்விடத்தை பறித்தும் அவர்களை அப்பாச்சி மலைக்கு அப்பால் துரத்தினர் .எனவே அவர்களும் வெள்ளையர்களை கொன்றும் ,அவர்கள் குடும்பத்தினரை அடிமையாய் விற்றும் வந்த தகவல் இது . அடிமைக்கு முகத்தில் பச்சையும் குத்தி விடுவர். இந்த கண்ணீர் கதை இது

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Olive Ann Oatman (1837 – March 20, 1903)[3] was a woman from Illinois whose family was killed in 1851, when she was fourteen, in present-day Arizona by a Native American tribe, possibly the Tolkepayas (Western Yavapai); they captured and enslaved her and her sister and later sold them to the Mohave people.[4][5] After several years with the Mohave, during which her sister died of hunger, she returned to American society, five years after being carried off.

In subsequent years, the tale of Oatman came to be retold with dramatic license in the press, in her own "memoir" and speeches, novels, plays, movies and poetry. The story resonated in the media of the time and long afterward, partly owing to the prominent blue tattooing of Oatman's face by the Mohave. Much of what actually occurred during her time with the Native Americans remains unknown.[6]:146-151
Early life[edit]
Born into the family of Roys and Mary Ann Oatman, Olive Oatman was one of seven siblings. She grew up in the Mormon religion.

In 1850, the Oatman family joined a wagon train led by James C. Brewster, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), whose attacks on, and disagreements with, the church leadership in Salt Lake City, Utah, had caused him to break with the followers of Brigham Young in Utah and lead his followers — Brewsterites — to California, which he claimed was the "intended place of gathering" for the Mormons.[7]

The Brewsterite emigrants, numbering between 85 and 93, left Independence, Missouri on August 5, 1850. Dissension caused the group to split near Santa Fe in New Mexico Territory with Brewster following the northern route. Roys Oatman and several other families chose the southern route via Socorro and Tucson. Near Socorro, Roys Oatman assumed command of the party. They reached New Mexico Territory early in 1851 only to find the country and climate wholly unsuited to their purpose. The other wagons gradually abandoned the goal of reaching the mouth of the Colorado River.[7]

The party had reached Maricopa Wells, when they were told that not only was the stretch of trail ahead barren and dangerous, but that the Native Americans ahead were very hostile and that they would risk their lives if they proceeded further. The other families resolved to stay. The Oatman family, eventually traveling alone, was nearly annihilated in what became known as the "Oatman Massacre" on the banks of the Gila River about 80–90 miles east of Yuma, in what is now Arizona.[8]

Oatman massacre[edit]

Roys and Mary Oatman had seven children at this time, ranging in age from 17 to one year. On their fourth day out, they were approached by a group of Native Americans, asking for tobacco and food. At some point during the encounter, the Oatman family was attacked by the group, and all were killed except Lorenzo, age 15 (who was brutally clubbed and left for dead), Olive, age 14, and Mary Ann, age 7, who were taken to be slaves.[8]

Lorenzo awoke to find his parents and family dead, but no sign of Mary Ann and Olive. He eventually reached a settlement where he was treated. Three days later, Lorenzo, who had rejoined the emigrant train, found the bodies of his slain family; "we buried the bodies of father, mother and babe in one common grave."[9] The men had no way of digging proper graves in the volcanic rocky soil, so they gathered the bodies together and formed a cairn over them. It has been said the remains were reburied several times and finally moved to the river for re-interment by early Arizona colonizer Charles Poston.[10]

Abduction and captivity[edit]

Olive (left) and Mary Oatman, Captivity of the Oatman Girls, 1857
Once the attack was complete, the Native Americans took some of the Oatman family's belongings along with the Oatman girls. Although Olive Oatman later identified her captors as Tonto Apaches,[11][12] they were probably Tolkepayas (Western Yavapais)[13]:85 living in a village 60–100 miles from the site of the attack. After arriving at the village, the girls were initially treated in a way that appeared threatening, and Oatman later said she thought they would be killed. However, the girls were used as slaves, to forage for food, lug water and firewood, and other menial tasks; they were frequently beaten and mistreated.

After a year, a group of Mohave Indians visited the village and traded two horses, vegetables, blankets, and other trinkets for the captive girls, after which the girls walked for days to a Mohave village along the Colorado River (in the center of what today is Needles, California). They were immediately taken in by the family of a tribal leader (kohot) whose non-Mohave name was Espianola or Espanesay. The Mohave tribe was more prosperous than the group that had held the girls captive, and both Espanesay's wife Aespaneo and daughter Topeka took an interest in the Oatman girls' welfare. Oatman expressed her deep affection for these two women numerous times over the years after her captivity.[13]:93

Aespaneo arranged for the Oatman girls to be given plots of land to farm. Whether the Oatman girls were truly adopted into that family and the Mohave people is unknown. Oatman later claimed that she and Mary Ann were captives of the Mohave and that she feared to leave. She did not attempt to contact a large group of whites that visited the Mohaves during her period with them,[13]:102 and years later she went to meet with a Mohave leader, Irataba, in New York City and spoke with him of old times.[13]:176-177

Mohave woman with tattoos, 1883
Both Oatman girls were tattooed on their chins and arms[14][15] in keeping with the tribal custom for those who were tribal members. Oatman later claimed (in Stratton's book and in her lectures) that she was tattooed to mark her as a slave of the Mohaves, but this is inconsistent with the Mohave tradition in which such marks were given only to their own people to ensure both that they would enter the land of the dead, and be recognized as Mohaves by their ancestors.[6]:78

It has been claimed that there was a drought in the region,[13]:105 wherein the tribe experienced a dire shortage of food supplies and Olive's sister, Mary Ann, died of starvation about 1855-1856, at the age of ten or eleven.

Oatman later spoke with fondness of the Mohaves, whose treatment of her was superior to the treatment she had received when first captured. She most likely considered herself assimilated: she was given a clan name, Oach, and a nickname, Spantsa, a Mohave word having to do with unquenchable lust or thirst.[6]:73-74, [16] She remained with the Mohave, choosing not to reveal herself to white railroad surveyors who spent nearly a week in the Mohave Valley trading and socializing with the tribe in February 1854.[6]:88 Because she did not know that Lorenzo had survived the massacre, she believed she had no immediate family, and the Mohave raised her as their own.

Release[edit]
When Oatman was 19 years old, Francisco, a Yuma Indian messenger arrived at the village with a message from the authorities at Fort Yuma. Rumors suggested that a white girl was living with the Mohaves and the post commander requested her return (or to know the reason why she did not choose to return). The Mohaves initially sequestered Oatman and resisted the request. At first they denied that Oatman was even white; others over the course of negotiations expressed their affection for Oatman, others their fear of reprisal from whites. Francisco, meanwhile, withdrew to the homes of other nearby Mohaves; shortly thereafter he made a second fervent attempt to persuade the Mohaves to part with Oatman. Trade items were included this time, including blankets and a white horse, and he passed on threats that the whites would destroy the Mohaves if they did not release Oatman.

After some discussion, in which Oatman was this time included, the Mohaves decided to accept these terms, and she was escorted to Fort Yuma in a 20-day journey. Topeka (the daughter of Espianola/Espanesay and Aespaneo) went on the journey with Oatman. Before entering the fort, Oatman was given Western clothing lent by the wife of an army officer, as she was clad in a traditional Mohave skirt with no covering above her waist. Inside the fort, Oatman was surrounded by cheering people.[6]:111

Oatman's childhood friend Susan Thompson, whom she befriended again at this time, stated many years later that she believed Oatman was "grieving" upon her return, because she had been married to a Mohave and given birth to two boys.[13]:152, [17]

Oatman herself, however, denied rumors during her lifetime that she had been either married to a Mohave or was ever raped or sexually mistreated by the Yavapai or Mohave. In Stratton's book she declared that "to the honor of these savages let it be said, they never offered the least unchaste abuse to me". Her nickname, Spantsa ("rotten womb"), however, implied that she was sexually active, although historians have argued that the name could have different meanings.[6]:73-74[18]

Olive Oatman, tintype, 1857[19]
Within a few days of her arrival at the fort, Oatman discovered her brother Lorenzo was alive and had been looking for her and her sister. Their meeting made headline news across the West.

Later life[edit]
In 1857, a pastor named Royal B. Stratton wrote a book about the Oatman girls titled Life Among the Indians. The book sold 30,000 copies, a best-seller for that era.[20] Royalties from the book paid for Oatman and her brother Lorenzo's college education at the University of the Pacific.[21] She went on the lecture circuit to help promote the book.[1]

In November 1865, Oatman married cattleman John B. Fairchild.[22] Though it was rumored that she died in an asylum in New York in 1877, she actually went to live with Fairchild in Sherman, Texas, where they adopted a baby girl, Mamie.

Death and legacy[edit]
Olive Oatman Fairchild died of a heart attack on March 20, 1903, at the age of 65. She is buried at the West Hill Cemetery in Sherman, Texas.[23]

The town of Oatman, Arizona, a ghost town renewed by tourists from a nearby gambling town, is named in her honor.[24]

In 1965, the actress Shary Marshall played Oatman, with Tim McIntire as her brother, Lorenzo, and Ronald W. Reagan as Lieutenant Colonel Burke, in "The Lawless Have Laws" episode of the syndicated western series Death Valley Days, hosted by Reagan near the end of his acting career. In the storyline, Burke leads Lorenzo in a search for his sister, whom he has not seen in five years since an Indian raid on their family.[25][6]:201

The character of Eva portrayed by Robin McLeavy in the AMC television series Hell on Wheels is very loosely based on Olive Oatman, but outside of being captured by a group of Indians and bearing the distinctive blue chin tattoo, and being raised Mormon there are very few similarities between the character of Eva and the actual life of Olive Oatman.[26]

Novelist Elmore Leonard based a short story, The Tonto Woman, on a white captive woman who was tattooed in the manner of Oatman.[6]:203

In an episode of the series The Ghost Inside my Child: The Wild West and Tribal Quest, a southern American Baptist family claims that their daughter Olivia says she is the reincarnation of Olive Oatman.[27]
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OLIVE THOMAS ,THE BEAUTY OF NEWYORK , SHADOW OF MARLYN MONROE SILENT FILM ACTRESS BORN 1894 OCTOBER 20

OLIVE THOMAS ,THE BEAUTY OF NEWYORK ,

SHADOW OF MARLYN MONROE 
SILENT FILM ACTRESS 

BORN 1894 OCTOBER 20

Olive Thomas (October 20, 1894 – September 10, 1920) was an American silent film actress and model.

Olive Thomas
Thomas circa 1920
Born	Oliva R. Duffy October 20, 1894 Charleroi, Pennsylvania
Died	September 10, 1920 (aged 25) Neuilly-sur-Seine, France
Cause of death	Acute nephritis caused by accidental poisoning
Resting place	Woodlawn Cemetery
Nationality	American
Occupation	Actress, model
Years active	1916–1920
Spouse(s)	Bernard Krug Thomas (m. 1911; div. 1913) Jack Pickford (m. 1916–20)
Relatives	Charlotte Hennessy (mother-in-law) Mary Pickford (sister-in-law) Lottie Pickford (sister-in-law)

Thomas began her career as an illustrators' model in 1914, and moved on to the Ziegfeld Follies the following year. During her time as a Ziegfeld girl, she also appeared in the more risqué show, The Midnight Frolic. In 1916, she began a successful career in silent films and would appear in over twenty features over the course of her four-year film career. That year she also married actor Jack Pickford, the younger brother of silent film star Mary Pickford.

On September 10, 1920, Thomas died of acute nephritis in Paris five days after consuming mercury bichloride. Although her death was ruled accidental, news of her hospitalization due to the poison and Thomas' subsequent death were the subject of media speculation. Thomas' death has been cited as one of the first heavily publicized Hollywood scandals.

Early life[edit]

She was born Oliva R. Duffy in Charleroi, Pennsylvania (but often claimed her birth name was Oliveretta Elaine Duffy).[1] She was the eldest of three children born to James and Rena Duffy, both of whom were of Irish descent. She had two brothers: James (born 1896) and William (born 1899).[2] Thomas later helped both of her brothers to secure work in the film industry; after serving in the Marines in France during World War I, William worked as a cameraman while James worked as an assistant director.[3] At the time of Thomas's death, both brothers were employed with Selznick Productions.[4]

Their father James Duffy, a steelworker, died in a work related accident in 1906. After his death, the family moved to McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania. Thomas and her brothers often stayed with their grandparents while her mother Rena worked in a local factory. Rena Duffy later married Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad worker Harry M. Van Kirk. The two had a daughter, Harriet, born in 1914 (Harriet was killed in a car accident in 1931).[2]

Thomas left school at the age 15 to help support her siblings. She got a job selling gingham at Joseph Horne's department store for $2.75 per week.[5] In April 1911, aged 16, she married Bernard Krugh Thomas in McKees Rocks, a small mill town. During the two-year marriage, she reportedly worked as a clerk in Kaufmann's, a major department store in Pittsburgh. After their separation in 1913, Thomas moved to New York City and lived with a family member. She later found work in a Harlem department store.[1

Career[edit]
Modeling[edit]

"Memories of Olive" painted by Alberto Vargas

"Memories of Olive" painted by Alberto Vargas

In 1914, Thomas entered and subsequently won "The Most Beautiful Girl in New York City" contest held by commercial artist Howard Chandler Christy. Winning the contest helped establish her career as an artists' model, and she would later pose for Harrison Fisher, Raphael Kirchner, and Haskell Coffin. She was featured on many magazine covers including the cover of Saturday Evening Post.[6][7]

Stage[edit]

Fisher wrote a letter of recommendation to Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., resulting in Thomas' being hired for the Ziegfeld Follies. However, Thomas later disputed this, claiming she walked right up and asked for the job.[7] She made her stage debut in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1915 on June 21, 1915. Thomas' popularity in the Follies led to her being cast in Ziegfeld's more risqué Midnight Frolic show. The Frolic was staged after hours in the roof garden of the New Amsterdam Theatre. It was primarily a show for famous male patrons who had plenty of money to bestow on the young and beautiful female performers. Thomas received expensive gifts from her admirers; it was rumored that German Ambassador Albrecht von Bernstorff had given her a $10,000 string of pearls.[8]

During her time in The Follies, Thomas began an affair with Florenz Ziegfeld.[9] Ziegfeld, who was married to actress Billie Burke, had affairs with other Ziegfeld girls, including Lillian Lorraine and Marilyn Miller (who would later marry Thomas' widower Jack Pickford).[10][11] Thomas ended the affair with Ziegfeld after he refused to leave Burke to marry her.[12]

Thomas continued modeling while appearing in the Follies. She became the first "Vargas Girl" after she posed for a portrait painted by Peruvian artist Alberto Vargas.[13] The portrait, titled Memories of Olive, features Thomas nude from the waist up while clutching a rose. The portrait was reportedly commissioned by Florenz Ziegfeld but Vargas later denied this claim. Ziegfeld purchased and hung the portrait in his office at the New Amsterdam Theatre. Vargas, who called Thomas "one of the most beautiful brunettes that Ziegfeld ever glorified," kept a copy of the painting for his personal collection.[14]

Silent films[edit]

In July 1916, Thomas signed with International Film Company.[15] She made her on-screen debut in "Episode 10" of Beatrice Fairfax, a film serial. In 1917, she made her full-length feature debut in A Girl Like That for Paramount Pictures.[16]


Thomas in Out Yonder (1919)

Thomas in Out Yonder (1919)

In 1917, Thomas signed with Triangle Pictures.[17] Shortly after, news broke of her engagement to actor Jack Pickford, whom she had married a year prior. Thomas and Pickford, who was the younger brother of Mary Pickford, kept the marriage secret because Thomas did not want people to think her success in film was due to her association with the Pickfords.[18] Her first film for Triangle, Madcap Madge, was released in June 1917. Thomas' popularity at Triangle grew with performances in Indiscreet Corrine (1917) and Limousine Life (1918). In 1919, she portrayed a French girl who poses as a boy in Toton the Apache.[19] Thomas later said that she felt her work in Toton was "the first real thing I've ever done."[16] She made her final film for Triangle, The Follies Girl, that same year.

After leaving Triangle, Thomas signed with Myron Selznick's Selznick Pictures Company in December 1918 for a salary of $2,500 a week. She hoped for more serious roles, believing that with her husband signed to the same company, she would have more influence. Her first film for Selznick, Upstairs and Down (1919), proved to be successful and established her image as a "baby vamp." 

She followed with roles in Love's Prisoner and Out Yonder, both in 1919.[16][20] In 1920, Thomas played a teenage schoolgirl The Flapper, who yearns for excitement beyond her small Florida town. Thomas was the first actress to portray a lead character who was a flapper and the film was the first of its kind to portray the flapper lifestyle. Frances Marion, who wrote the scenario, was responsible for bringing the term into the American vernacular.[21][22] The Flapper proved to be popular and became one of Thomas' most successful films.[20]

On October 4, 1920, Thomas' final film, Everybody's Sweetheart, was released.

Personal life[edit]
Thomas' first marriage was to Bernard Krug Thomas, a man she met at age 15 while living in McKees Rocks. They married on April 1, 1911, and lived with his parents in McKees Rocks for the first six months of their marriage. The couple later moved into their own apartment. Krug Thomas worked as a clerk at the Pressed Steel Car Company while Olive took care of the home.[23] In 1913, the couple separated and Olive moved to New York City to pursue a career as a model. She was granted a divorce on September 25, 1915, on the grounds of desertion and cruelty.[24] In 1931, Bernard Krug Thomas gave an interview to The Pittsburg Press, detailing his marriage to Olive.[23]


Autographed photo of Olive Thomas, circa 1916

Autographed photo of Olive Thomas, circa 1916

In late 1916, Thomas met actor Jack Pickford, brother of one of the most successful silent stars, Mary Pickford, at a beach cafe on the Santa Monica Pier. Both Thomas and Pickford were known for their partying. Screenwriter Frances Marion remarked, "I had seen her often at the Pickford home, for she was engaged to Mary's brother, Jack. Two innocent-looking children, they were the gayest, wildest brats who ever stirred the stardust on Broadway. Both were talented, but they were much more interested in playing the roulette of life than in concentrating on their careers."[25] Thomas eloped with Pickford on October 25, 1916, in New Jersey. None of their family was present, with only actor Thomas Meighan as their witness. The couple never had children of their own. In 1920, they adopted Thomas' six-year-old nephew when his mother died.[16]

By most accounts, Thomas was the love of Pickford's life. However, the marriage was tumultuous and filled with highly charged conflict, followed by lavish making up through the exchange of expensive gifts.[16] Pickford's family did not always approve of Thomas though most of the family did attend her funeral. In Mary Pickford's 1955 autobiography Sunshine and Shadow, she wrote:

I regret to say that none of us approved of the marriage at that time. Mother thought Jack was too young, and Lottie and I felt that Olive, being in musical comedy, belonged to an alien world. Ollie had all the rich, eligible men of the social world at her feet. She had been deluged with proposals from her own world of the theater as well. Which was not at all surprising. The beauty of Olive Thomas is legendary. The girl had the loveliest violet-blue eyes I have ever seen. They were fringed with long dark lashes that seemed darker because of the delicate translucent pallor of her skin. I could understand why Florenz Ziegfeld never forgave Jack for taking her away from the Follies. She and Jack were madly in love with one another but I always thought of them as a couple of children playing together.[26]

Death[edit]

For many years, Thomas and Pickford had intended to vacation together. Both were constantly traveling and had little time to spend together. With their marriage on the rocks, the couple decided to take a second honeymoon.[16] In August 1920, the pair headed for Paris, hoping to combine a vacation with some film preparations.[20]

On the night of September 5, 1920, the couple went out for a night of entertainment and partying at the famous bistros in the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris. Returning to their room in the Hotel Ritz around 3 a.m., Pickford either fell asleep or was outside the room.[27] An intoxicated and tired Thomas ingested mercury bichloride liquid solution. It had been prescribed to Pickford to topically treat sores caused by his chronic syphilis.[28]

Thomas had either thought the flask contained drinking water or sleeping pills; accounts vary. The label was in French, which may have added to her confusion. After drinking the liquid she screamed, "Oh, my God!" and Pickford ran to pick her up. She was taken to the American Hospital in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, where Pickford and his former brother-in-law Owen Moore, remained at her side until she died five days later.[16]

Controversy and death ruling[edit]

While Thomas lay in the American Hospital dying, the press began reporting on the various rumors that began to arise about the circumstances of the incident. Some papers reported that Thomas had attempted suicide after having a fight with Pickford over his alleged infidelities, while others said she attempted suicide after discovering Pickford had given her syphilis. There were rumors that Thomas was plagued by a drug addiction, that she and Pickford had been involved in "champagne and cocaine orgies," or that Pickford tricked her into drinking poison in an attempt to murder her to collect her insurance money.[29][30][31] Owen Moore, who accompanied Pickford and Thomas in Paris, denied the rumors, saying that Thomas was not suicidal and that she and Pickford had not fought that evening.[32] Jack Pickford also denied the rumors, stating, "Olive and I were the greatest pals on Earth. Her death is a ghastly mistake."[30]

On September 13, 1920, Pickford gave his account of that night to the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner:

We arrived back at the Ritz hotel at about 3 o'clock in the morning. I had already booked airplane seats for London. We were going Sunday morning. Both of us were tired out. We both had been drinking a little. I insisted that we had better not pack then, but rather get up early before our trip and do it then. I went to bed immediately. She fussed around and wrote a note to her mother. ... She was in the bathroom.

Suddenly she shrieked: 'My God.' I jumped out of bed, rushed toward her and caught her in my arms. She cried to me to find out what was in the bottle. I picked it up and read: 'Poison.' It was a toilet solution and the label was in French. I realized what she had done and sent for the doctor. Meanwhile, I forced her to drink water in order to make her vomit. She screamed, 'O, my God, I'm poisoned.' I forced the whites of eggs down her throat, hoping to offset the poison. The doctor came. He pumped her stomach three times while I held Olive.

Nine o'clock in the morning I got her to the Neuilly Hospital, where Doctors Choate and Wharton took charge of her. They told me she had swallowed bichloride of mercury in an alcoholic solution, which is ten times worse than tablets. She didn't want to die. She took the poison by mistake. We both loved each other since the day we married. The fact that we were separated months at a time made no difference in our affection for each other. She even was conscious enough the day before she died to ask the nurse to come to America with her until she had fully recovered, having no thought she would die.

She kept continually calling for me. I was beside her day and night until her death. The physicians held out hope for her until the last moment, until they found her kidneys paralyzed. Then they lost hope. But the doctors told me she had fought harder than any patient they ever had. She held onto her life as only one case in fifty. She seemed stronger the last two days. She was conscious, and said she would get better and go home to her mother. 'It's all a mistake, darling Jack,' she said. But I knew she was dying.

She was kept alive only by hypodermic injections during the last twelve hours. I was the last one she recognized. I watched her eyes glaze and realized she was dying. I asked her how she was feeling and she answered: 'Pretty weak, but I'll be all right in a little while, don't worry, darling.' Those were her last words. I held her in my arms and she died an hour later. Owen Moore was at her bedside. All stories and rumors of wild parties and cocaine and domestic fights since we left New York are untrue.[16]

After Thomas' death, the police initiated an investigation and an autopsy was performed. Thomas' death was attributed to acute nephritis caused by mercury bichloride absorption.[33] On September 13, 1920, her death was ruled accidental by the Paris physician who conducted her autopsy.[34]

Funeral[edit]

The mausoleum of Olive Thomas Pickford

The mausoleum of Olive Thomas Pickford

Jack Pickford brought Thomas' body back to the United States. Several accounts stated that Pickford tried to commit suicide en route but was talked out of it. According to Mary Pickford's autobiography, "Jack crossed the ocean with Ollie's body. It wasn't until several years later that he confessed to Mother how one night during the voyage back he put on his trousers and jacket over his pajamas, went up on deck, and was climbing over the rail when something inside him said: 'You can't do this to your mother and sisters. It would be a cowardly act. You must live and face the future.'"[35]

On September 29, 1920, an Episcopal funeral service was held at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in New York for Thomas.[36] According to The New York Times, a police escort was needed, and the entire church was jammed. Several women fainted at the ceremony, and several men had their hats crushed in the rush to view the casket.[37] Thomas is interred in a crypt at the Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York City. [38]

Estate[edit]
Thomas did not leave a will upon her death.[39] Her estate, which was later valued at $27,644,[40] was split between her mother, her two brothers, and husband Jack Pickford. Adjusted for inflation, that amount would be equivalent to $359,012.99 in 2013.[41] Pickford later relinquished the rights to his share choosing to give it to Thomas' mother.[42]

Ad for Toton (1919)

On November 22, 1920, Thomas' effects were sold off in an estate sale. The sale netted approximately $30,000. Lewis Selznick bought Thomas' town car for an undisclosed sum.[43] Mabel Normand bought a 20-piece toilet set, a 14 karat gold cigarette case, and three pieces of jewelry, including a sapphire pin.[13]

Aftermath[edit]

The press coverage of Olive Thomas' death was one of the first examples of the media sensationalism related to a major Hollywood star. Her death has been cited as one of the first major Hollywood scandals.[44][45]

Other scandals including the Fatty Arbuckle trial in 1921, the murder of William Desmond Taylor in 1922, and the drug-related death of Wallace Reid caused many religious and morality groups to label Hollywood as "immoral." The public outcry prompted Hollywood studios to begin writing contracts with "morality clauses" or "moral turpitude clauses," allowing the dismissal of contractees who breached them.[46][47]
In popular culture[edit]

A legend that Thomas's ghost haunts the New Amsterdam Theatre in New York City arose in the years following her death.[48]
In 2004, with funding from Timeline Films, and with the help of Hugh Hefner and his film preservation organization, Sarah J. Baker premiered her documentary on Olive Thomas' life, titled Olive Thomas: Everybody's Sweetheart.
In 2007, Michelle Vogel wrote a biography titled, Olive Thomas: The Life and Death of a Silent Film Beauty, published by McFarland Publishing Company.

Poster for Everybody's Sweetheart(1920)

Ghostlight, a musical about the life of Olive Thomas, was written by Matthew Martin and Tim Realbuto. Ghostlight opened in New York City at the Signature Theatre on September 26, 2011, and was presented by the New York Musical Theatre Festival. 

It starred Drama Desk Award winner Rachel York as Billie Burke, Tony nominee Michael Hayden as Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., Tony Award winner Daisy Eagan as Molly Cook, Kimberly Faye Greenberg as Fanny Brice, Matt Leisy as Jack Pickford, and newcomer Rachael Fogle in the leading role of Olive Thomas.[49]

In 2015, novelist Laini Giles released a fictionalized biography of Olive called The Forgotten Flapper. Based completely on factual information, it goes from her poor roots in Pennsylvania to her death, and is narrated by her ghost, now haunting the New Amsterdam Theatre