THELMA TODD (ca. 1929) Oversized portrait by George P. Hommel

Vintage original 11 x 14″ (28 x 35 cm) sepia-tinted double weight silver bromide matte print still photo, USA. Photographer George Hommel’s courtesy ink stamp on verso. Near fine.

Starting in films in 1927, in 1929 alone Thelma Todd was making some 20 features and shorts. A girl of great intelligence, Thelma started her working career in pursuit of a teaching degree, but the winning of beauty contests (and her mother’s aspirations) changed that. Though she appeared in dozens of shorts and features of various genres, it was her humor — both physical and verbal — which was popular with audiences then and is appreciated to this day.

Her business savvy in opening her own café is what likely lead to her tragic — and to this day, unsolved — death. When gangsters attempted to turn her business into a front for gambling she refused and was found dead in her own garage from carbon monoxide poisoning soon after. The cursory investigation into her death (ruled a suicide) by the notoriously corrupt Los Angeles District Attorney’s office of the time is seen today as evidence that her death was gang-related. Her last three films were not released until after her death in 1936.

During his early days as a portrait photographer, George P. Hommel captured a very elegant Todd.