More than 90 years after Hollywood actress and restaurateur Thelma Todd was found dead inside her car, the strange circumstances surrounding her death continue to fuel one of Old Hollywood’s most enduring mysteries.
Todd was only 29 when her body was discovered on the morning of Dec. 16, 1935, inside her Lincoln convertible parked in a garage overlooking the Pacific Coast Highway in what is now Pacific Palisades.
An autopsy determined that she died from carbon monoxide poisoning.
But almost immediately, investigators were confronted with a troubling question: Was Todd’s death an accident, suicide — or something more sinister?
Contemporary reporting from the Los Angeles Times shows police continued investigating even after doctors found evidence of carbon monoxide poisoning, largely because investigators could not initially establish any clear reason Todd would have wanted to take her own life.
Todd had plenty happening in both her professional and personal life.
Known to movie fans as the “Ice Cream Blonde,” the Massachusetts native had transitioned successfully from silent films into talking pictures and comedy.
She worked alongside some of Hollywood’s biggest names, including the Marx Brothers, Buster Keaton, Charley Chase, Zasu Pitts and Patsy Kelly.
By the time of her death, Todd had appeared in well over 100 films and shorts.
But Hollywood was only part of her ambition.
Todd had also become one of the era’s early celebrity restaurateurs.
In 1934, she opened Thelma Todd’s Sidewalk Café at 17575 Pacific Coast Highway with filmmaker Roland West, with whom she had a complicated personal and business relationship.
The restaurant quickly became a fashionable destination for Hollywood stars.
Todd did not simply lend her name to the business. Contemporary accounts describe her working at the café, greeting customers and actively promoting the restaurant.
By October 1935, business was reportedly going so well that Todd was preparing a roughly $10,000 expansion — a considerable investment at the time.
That success has become one reason some historians and writers have questioned theories that Todd deliberately ended her life.
On the night before she died, Todd attended a party at the famous Trocadero nightclub on Sunset Boulevard.
According to later accounts compiled by PBS SoCal, she spent the evening discussing future movie projects and encouraging friends to visit her restaurant the following night.
Todd left the party in the early morning hours and was driven back toward the café.
Investigators later theorized that she discovered the entrance to her apartment above the restaurant locked.
Police believed she may then have walked uphill to the nearby garage where her car was kept and started the engine to stay warm while waiting for someone to let her inside.
Her body was found later that morning by her maid, Mae Whitehead.
The Los Angeles Times reported at the time that the ignition was still switched on when investigators examined the vehicle, although the engine was no longer running.
Authorities considered the possibility that Todd fell asleep inside the closed garage as carbon monoxide accumulated.
But several details quickly generated suspicion.
Todd had reportedly received extortion threats in the months before her death, including demands for $10,000 accompanied by threats against her life.
Police had already arrested two men in New York in connection with threatening communications sent to the actress, according to the Los Angeles Times’ original 1935 coverage.
There was also blood around Todd’s face and on her clothing when she was found.
The coroner believed it could have resulted from Todd striking her head against the steering wheel as she succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning.
Investigators reportedly found no clear evidence of a struggle inside the garage.
Another detail that continued to trouble later researchers was Todd’s physical condition.
She had recently been diagnosed with a heart problem, raising questions about whether she would have voluntarily climbed the steep stairs leading from the café toward the garage.
A 2002 Los Angeles Times retrospective noted that critics of the official scenario have long pointed to that climb as one of several unanswered questions surrounding her final hours.
Todd’s relationship with Roland West also became the subject of decades of speculation.
West owned the property where the garage was located and lived nearby.
He told investigators that his dog barked during the early morning hours around the time Todd may have arrived but said he did not investigate.
No one was ever arrested in connection with Todd’s death.
Over the decades, books, television programs and Hollywood lore have produced increasingly dramatic theories involving abusive partners, organized crime figures and even mobster Charles “Lucky” Luciano.
None of those murder theories has ever been proven.
That distinction is important because some later accounts have blurred documented evidence with Hollywood legend.
The official historical record still supports carbon monoxide poisoning as Todd’s cause of death, with later Los Angeles Times summaries describing the death as accidental. At the same time, questions surrounding her final movements and the circumstances inside the garage have never completely disappeared.
The location connected to Todd’s story became almost as famous as the mystery itself.
Her Sidewalk Café stood along the Pacific Coast Highway near the base of the hillside where the garage was located.
PBS SoCal later described Todd as one of Hollywood’s earliest celebrity restaurateurs, decades before stars routinely attached their names to restaurants and hospitality ventures.
Her death brought those plans to an abrupt end.
Todd had spent the final months of her life expanding both her movie career and her business interests.
Instead, the young comedian became permanently associated with a mystery that has now outlived nearly everyone directly involved.
More than nine decades later, there is still no credible evidence establishing that Todd was murdered.
But the combination of the threatening letters, the uncertain timeline, the blood found around her face and questions about how she ended up alone in the garage have ensured that the case continues to fascinate Hollywood historians.
What is not in dispute is how suddenly her life ended.
At 29, Thelma Todd had become a successful actress, comedian and businesswoman preparing to expand one of Hollywood’s most fashionable restaurants.
By the following morning, she was dead inside her car — and Hollywood had a mystery it would still be debating more than 90 years later.
