The 10 most mysterious deaths in Old Hollywood history

Marilyn Monroe; David Bacon; Thelma ToddCredit: Bettmann/Getty; Everett; John Springer Collection/Corbis via Getty

Hollywood has always been better at manufacturing mysteries than solving them. In the studio era, a scandal could end a career overnight, so studios guarded their stars’ reputations with near-military discipline. If and when something went horribly wrong, the first calls were often to the studio rather than the police.

The result is a legacy of unanswered questions: bodies found in bathtubs, garages, and vacant lots; suicide notes that may not have been suicide notes; crime scenes cleaned up before the authorities arrived.

Some of these cases are textbook unsolved homicides. Others were officially ruled accidents or suicides, but those tidy answers failed to satisfy those who have spent decades poring over the details. Entertainment Weekly runs down the 10 of the most enduring mysteries surrounding Old Hollywood deaths, in chronological order.

01 of 10

Olive Thomas

Olive Thomas (died September 10, 1920)Credit: John Springer Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty

A Ziegfeld girl who made the leap to motion pictures, Olive Thomas married Jack Pickford, brother of silent screen icon Mary Pickford, in 1916. Four years later, in August 1920, with the up-and-coming actress on the brink of stardom, the couple traveled to Paris for an overdue honeymoon.

Thomas died at the American Hospital in Paris on Sept. 10, five days after consuming bichloride of mercury in the couple’s room at the Ritz, as detailed in The Observer-Reporter.

Some reports suggested she had taken her own life amid marital troubles. Others described it as an accident, saying she had mistaken the poison for sleeping medication.

Her husband insisted the poisoning was an accident and maintained that his wife had been looking forward to buying dresses, finishing her film contracts, and starting a family. Although authorities ruled her death accidental, what happened in those early morning hours remains a subject of speculation.

02 of 10

Virginia Rappe

Virginia Rappe (died September 9, 1921)Credit: Bettmann/Getty

Hollywood’s first major scandal began at a party, as so many scandals do. On Labor Day in 1921, actress Virginia Rappe — whose credits included substantial roles in Paradise Garden (1917) and An Adventuress (1920) — attended a party at Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle’s St. Francis Hotel suite in San Francisco.

During the party, Rappe became severely ill and was moved to another room. She died four days later of peritonitis caused by a ruptured bladder. Arbuckle, then one of the biggest stars in the country, was indicted for manslaughter, and his movies were yanked from cinemas.

The accusations against Arbuckle were fueled largely by claims from Rappe’s companion, Maude Delmont, who said she overheard Arbuckle tell Rappe he had been waiting five years to have her. Other guests, though, said Arbuckle tended to Rappe after she fell ill. Not incidentally, Delmont’s own criminal history — including fraud and extortion — raised questions about her credibility, and she was never called to testify at the trials.

It took three trials, but the final jury deliberated for just five minutes before acquitting the comedy star. Career-wise, it didn’t matter: Will Hays, head of the film industry’s self-regulatory organization, banned Arbuckle from appearing on screen in April 1922. Though the ban was lifted within a year, the comedy star’s career never recovered. What actually happened in that room remains fiercely debated.

03 of 10

William Desmond Taylor

William Desmond Taylor (died February 1, 1922)Credit: Bettmann/Getty

The silent era’s greatest whodunit remains the gold standard of Old Hollywood cold cases. According to William Desmond Taylor’s inquest, on the morning of Feb. 22, 1922, his valet, Henry Peavey, arrived at the director’s Alvarado Street bungalow and spotted his employer’s feet sticking out from inside the front entrance.

Taylor lay dead in the entryway. A doctor at the scene initially blamed a stomach hemorrhage, until a deputy coroner and Famous Players-Lasky general manager Charles Eyton turned the body over and found a bullet wound.

Comedy star Mabel Normand testified that she was the last person known to have seen Taylor alive, waving goodbye from her car at about a quarter to eight the night before. But there was also a stranger, reported to police by Taylor’s neighbor. After hearing a gunshot, the neighbor claimed she opened her door and saw a man standing in Taylor’s entryway. The stranger looked at her, then calmly walked off around the side of the building and into the street. Robbery was apparently not a motive, as Taylor’s diamond ring was still on his finger and other jewelry was found undisturbed.

The coroner’s jury ruled that he died of a gunshot wound inflicted by “some person or persons unknown.” More than a century later, they remain unknown.

04 of 10

Paul Bern

Paul Bern (died September 5, 1932)Credit: John Kobal Foundation/Getty

Paul Bern’s marriage to screen star Jean Harlow lasted just two months — short even by Hollywood standards. On Sept. 5, 1932, the MGM producer was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head at the couple’s Beverly Hills estate, bringing a tragic and sudden end to the supposedly joyous union.

His death was quickly ruled a suicide — with one commonly circulated explanation being impotence, and thus an inability to satisfy his wife. But questions lingered about the short note found near his body, which some later suggested had been fabricated.

Authorities learned that Bern had maintained a relationship with Dorothy Millette, his previous wife, and reports emerged that a mysterious woman had visited him shortly before his death. Two days after his passing, Millette disappeared from the Delta King steamboat on the Sacramento River. Her body was discovered in the water a week later.

Decades later, in a 1990 book, MGM story editor Samuel Marx, one of the first people to arrive at the scene, offered his own theories. He initially posited that Bern took his own life because Millette was going to expose him for bigamy.

In later years, thanks in part to claims attributed to a former MGM security chief named Whitey Hendry, Marx theorized that Bern was murdered by Millette, and that Louis B. Mayer covered up the crime to protect Harlow from the whiff of scandal.

The official ruling never changed — and Hendry, for the record, had already died by the time Marx learned of his alleged account.

05 of 10

Thelma Todd

Thelma Todd (died December 16, 1935)Credit: John Springer Collection/Corbis via Getty

Thelma Todd had a gift for comedy and a head for business. She was an expert foil for comedians like the Marx Brothers and Laurel and Hardy, and in 1934 she opened Thelma Todd’s Sidewalk Café, a successful restaurant in the Pacific Palisades.

Then, in December 1935, after filming all of her scenes for what would be her last film, The Bohemian Girl, Todd was found dead in her car. The vehicle was parked in a garage just up the road from her restaurant, near the home of Jewel Carmen, the estranged wife of Todd’s lover, Roland West. The cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning, which investigators initially deemed an accident, theorizing that she had been trying to keep warm.

Despite the explanation, her death remained a subject of debate and gossip. Suspicion fell on three men in particular: West, Todd’s lover and restaurant partner; her ex-husband, Pat DiCicco; and mobster Lucky Luciano, who was rumored to have connections to Todd through DiCicco.

06 of 10

David Bacon

David Bacon (died September 12, 1943)Credit: Everett

David Bacon played the Masked Marvel, and his death remains a mystery worthy of a serial cliffhanger. In September 1943, witnesses saw Bacon drive his sports car off a California road and into a bean field. Then he stumbled out, bloody and half-naked, desperately asking for help.

Bacon died a few minutes later. He had been stabbed in the back, suffering a wound nearly six inches deep; investigators suspected a stiletto, but no weapon was ever recovered.

As one can imagine, the theories piled up fast. Some suspected a hitchhiker. Bacon’s wife, singer Greta Keller, later said she believed Howard Hughes, who had given Bacon his stage name, was somehow involved. Others believed it was a blackmail attempt gone wrong.

Police found a tantalizing clue: a camera in Bacon’s car. Ultimately, the developed film contained just one image, showing Bacon nude on a beach. The investigation stalled, and no one was ever charged.

07 of 10

Georgette Bauerdorf

Georgette Bauerdorf (died October 12, 1944)Credit: Bettmann/Getty

She was young, wealthy, and well connected, and her killer has never been found. By 20, Georgette Bauerdorf was working in the Los Angeles Times’ Women’s Service Bureau and volunteering as a junior hostess at the Hollywood Canteen, cofounded by Bette Davis, dancing with and entertaining servicemen passing through L.A.

The morning after her Oct. 11, 1944 shift, cleaners entered her West Hollywood apartment and found her face down in the bathtub, with the water still running.

There was no shortage of leads. A neighbor said she had heard Bauerdorf screaming, “Stop, stop, you’re killing me,” around 2:30 a.m. Fingerprints were found on an unscrewed lightbulb outside her apartment, as well as inside her car, which was found abandoned miles away.

Investigators learned that she had corresponded with more than 20 servicemen by mail, and another man even (falsely) confessed to the FBI that he killed her. A sergeant wrote to police that a woman matching her description had given him a lift through Hollywood that night.

None of it went anywhere. Some have even posited a link between Bauerdorf’s case and the Black Dahlia murder, which occurred three years later, though the connections — including one man who may have crossed paths with both women — are highly speculative.

08 of 10

Elizabeth Short

Elizabeth Short, a.k.a. the Black Dahlia (died January of 1947)Credit: Bettmann/Getty

Not just the most notorious unsolved murder in Hollywood history but one of the most famous worldwide, the killing of Elizabeth Short still reverberates. The 22-year-old aspiring actress was brutally murdered, her body cut in half and severely mutilated.

A local resident found her body, nude and grotesquely posed, on Jan. 15, 1947. The press popularized her nickname, “the Black Dahlia,” a reference to her dark clothing and hair and the 1946 film The Blue Dahlia. The case became a sensation. It did not, however, result in a conviction.

One witness reported seeing a black sedan near the scene early that morning, but no one was able to definitively connect the vehicle to the murder. With no confirmed eyewitnesses to the killing and little physical evidence tying anyone to the crime, the killer was never found. It’s one of the oldest cold cases in L.A., and one of the city’s most infamous.

To this day, books are still being written on the subject, and new theories are still being offered.

09 of 10

George Reeves

George Reeves (died June 16, 1959)Credit: ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty

George Reeves, the actor millions of Americans knew as Superman, was found dead in the upstairs bedroom of his Benedict Canyon home with a single gunshot wound to the head. Authorities quickly ruled it a suicide.

But skeptics point to two additional bullet holes in the bedroom floor, the odd placement of the gun, and the fact that police weren’t called for approximately 45 minutes after the shooting.

Theories have implicated Reeves’ fiancee, Leonore Lemmon, as well as his former lover Toni Mannix and her husband, powerful MGM executive Eddie Mannix. In 1999, a publicist claimed he overheard Toni confess to a priest, shortly before her death, that she and Eddie had Reeves killed.

Reeves’ death remains officially classified as a suicide. Allen Coulter’s handsomely made film Hollywoodland (2006) dramatized the various theories, with Ben Affleck playing Reeves.

10 of 10

Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe (died August 4, 1962)Credit: Bettmann/Getty

No list of Hollywood mysteries would be complete without Marilyn Monroe. When she died at 36 in August 1962, her death was attributed to acute barbiturate poisoning and ruled a probable suicide.

However, speculation quickly ignited around Monroe’s rumored relationships with President John F. Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, due to the mysterious circumstances surrounding her death.

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In his 1983 memoir, Coroner, medical examiner Thomas Noguchi acknowledged that samples from her stomach and intestines were destroyed before they could be tested for drugs, something he realized at the time would fuel alternative theories.

An investigation by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office in 1982 found no credible evidence of a murder conspiracy, concluding that Monroe’s death could have been a suicide or an accidental overdose. Six decades on, the theories (and documentaries) keep coming.

Source: Crime