Olive Thomas (The First Flapper)

"I don't think you can change anything that is going to happen to you any more than you can change anything that has happened to you." ~ Olive 

 Olive Thomas was born Oliveretta Elaine Duffy on October 20, 1894, in Charleroi, Pennsylvania. She was the oldest of three children and her father died when she was just nine years old. In 1911 Olive married Bernard Krug Thomas, a teenage clerk, but they divorced two years later She moved to New York City where she worked in a department store. After winning a beauty contest she started modeling and was offered a job in the Ziegfeld Follies. Olive had a romantic relationship with the Follies creator Florenz Ziegfeld, who was married to actress Billie Burke. Florenz asked Alberta Vargas to paint a nude portrait of Olive for his private collection. In 1916 she made her film debut in Beatrice Fairfax. That same year she married actor Jack Pickford, brother of Mary Pickford. They had a tumultuous marriage due to Jack's drinking and womanizing and spent a lot of time apart. Olive was offered a lucrative contract with Selznick Pictures.

She appeared in many successful films including Madcap Madge, Youthful Folly, and The Flapper. With her marriage in trouble she began an affair with producer Myron Selznick. In September 1920 she and Jack went on a trip to Europe. After an evening of partying in Paris Olive went in to her bathroom and swallowed some mercury bichloride (a drug that had been prescribed to treat Jack's syphilis). She died four days later on September 10, 1920. Olive was just twenty-five years old. Her death was ruled an accident but some believe she committed suicide. She was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York. Her final film, Everybody's Sweetheart, was released a month after her death. Many people have claimed they have seen Olive's ghost in New Amsterdam Theatre where she began her career as a Ziegfeld girl.