The Mammoth Book of Hollywood Scandals

by Michelle Morgan

  The chiselled, athletic performer left behind an ex-wife, Countess Jeanne de Brouckère, their daughter, Diane, and countless broken hearts, and together with Bernhardt, with whom he was rumoured to be having an affair, travelled to the United States for the first time. Whether or not Tellegen was nervous about leaving Europe and travelling to a far-off country is not known, but in any case the tour was such a success that he decided to move to the United States permanently. From then on he put every effort into making a name for himself as an actor in numerous stage productions and movies such as The Explorer and The Unknown (both 1915).

  As his star began to rise, Lou-Tellegen was lusted after by many women both on and off stage, but in 1915, rumours started to circulate that he had stolen the heart of opera sensation Geraldine Farrar, after meeting her on a Hollywood film set. For a long time they denied the affair, and though friends insisted it was serious, the only thing Tellegen would say was the extremely uninteresting, “I’m ignoring such a report.”

  Reporters were intrigued by his denials and the story of their romance was made even more tantalizing because of Geraldine’s views on marriage which she gave during an interview with an overeager reporter in 1908. Desperate to discover if she had love in her life, the reporter asked Farrar if there was a wedding on the horizon, to which the outspoken woman announced that a singer must give up all idea of matrimony until she had become successful in her field. She truly believed, she said, that one could not be a good wife and mother and a good student at the same time. “One must be subordinated,” she declared.

  Rumours circulated that Farrar had once called a potential suitor – an unnamed member of royalty – a “silly boy” because of his eagerness to marry her, and in 1914 made her feelings extremely clear when she described romance as like a big bag of cakes. “After I have begun to nibble the cake with the pink icing I think perhaps I should rather have the cake with the green filling still in the bottom of the bag,” she said, before going on to add that this way of thinking would never be acceptable within a marriage: “I’d have only one cake with the pink icing for ever and ever,” she lamented.

  Despite her negative views, Farrar surprised everyone – particularly herself – when she finally accepted Tellegen’s proposal, and the two became man and wife on 8 February 1916. Unfortunately, the marriage was troublesome and it was not aided by their conflicting schedules, though Farrar later revealed that when she asked Tellegen if he expected her to give up her career, he answered, “I would not dream of it. I do not understand how any man can make such a demand of a woman.”

  He also declared himself immensely proud of his opera-singing wife, which impressed his wife no end. Speaking to journalist Nixola Greeley-Smith, Farrar declared, “I have known men of all nations and I find that they are all charming until they get some sort of hold on a woman. And then they begin to try to put her in their pockets. That would never do with me.” When asked how their marriage was so successful, she replied, “We are very, very happy. The secret? Good comradeship, I think. And of course, similar tastes, an equal interest in art and complete confidence in each other.”

  Unfortunately it would seem that the singer was holding something back in the interview, and in spite of claims of similar tastes and interests, it was not enough to keep the couple together. Not long after the interview with Greeley-Smith, Lou-Tellegen and Geraldine Farrar separated, with the divorce becoming final in December 1923.

  Despite his bad luck in relationships, Tellegen’s star continued to rise and he found admiration not only as an actor, but also as a writer, sculptor, athlete and linguist, being able to speak six different languages. 1924 and 1925 were his most productive years, with an impressive sixteen film roles in such movies as With this Ring, Womanpower and Parisian Love. These were quite appropriate titles considering he was fast becoming known as an Adonis – something which often overshadowed his dramatic talents – and was linked to many attractive women. The next woman fully to win his heart was Isabel Craven Dilworth, a society girl who acted under the name of Nina Romano. They married just days after his divorce from Geraldine Farrar, but they kept it secret from the public for almost eighteen months.

  “Oh, but I did not keep it a secret for unworthy reasons,” Tellegen told columnist Alma Whitaker in 1925. Nor did he admit to staying quiet for anything resembling “professional expedience”. Instead, he disclosed that the real reason they had not gone public with their marriage was because they had sealed their relationship so close to the end of his marriage to Geraldine Farrar that “we dreaded the publicity so hard upon the heels of the other”.

  In spite of keeping the marriage close to their chest, the couple found it astonishing that they were never asked about their relationship, even after having a child together. Tellegen would take the child out in the pram, and find it extremely confusing as to why no one ever asked whose baby it was, and if he indeed was the father. “They never seemed to question it,” he told a newspaper reporter. Still, the couple were not in any rush to announce their marriage, and when they moved to Beverly Hills shortly before being “found out”, they actually acquired two different homes in an effort to keep their relationship secret for as long as possible. This they understandably found tiresome and inconvenient at best, and expensive at worse. “I don’t quite know why we did that,” commented Tellegen.

  Once the news was finally out of the bag, the couple declared themselves to be happy, with Tellegen announcing that life was “more enchanting every year!” However, by 1928 his movie career had slowed right down and rumours were rife that the two were to divorce. This prompted Romano to deny any rift by declaring that they were both extremely happy, but complained that if anyone was out to ruin the relationship, it was the press. “They just won’t leave us alone,” she said.

  Less than two years later, the newspaper gossip was proved correct when the marriage broke up and the two went their separate ways. However, that didn’t happen until they had gone through a very sticky divorce which resulted in accusations that Tellegen had been unfaithful and had told his wife he was now living with another woman. Who the secret lover was mystified the ever-present reporters, but their attentions soon shifted from the actor’s love life and on to his personal health, when an almost catastrophic disaster struck.

  On Christmas Day 1929, Lou fell asleep in his room at Atlantic City’s Hotel Jefferson, with a cigarette in his hand. Needless to say, it was not long before it had burned all the way down to the bed covers and the room filled with smoke; fumes overcame Tellegen, who was still asleep on the now flaming bed. Meanwhile, other guests in the hotel became aware that there was a distinct smell of smoke wafting its way through the corridors and notified the management, who came running to Tellegen’s room. Unable to get any answer from the actor at all, and with smoke by now seeping out underneath the door, the staff forced their way into the room just in time to find his bed ablaze and the actor unconscious. An ambulance was called and Tellegen was rushed to hospital where it was found that the lower half of his torso had been badly burned, though his injuries were thankfully not serious.

  Unfortunately, by this time Lou’s bed was not the only thing going up in smoke. His career was almost burned out too. He had appeared in no movies between 1927 and 1929 (though he did direct No Other Woman in 1928), and reporters hurtfully started referring to him as “One of the great lovers of stage and screen . . . ten years ago”. He wasn’t ready to let go, however, and had plastic surgery to rid himself of under-eye bags and wrinkles. He also acquired a new wife, an actress called Eve Casanova who had played opposite him on vaudeville circuits in the late 1920s.

  Unfortunately the next years were not happy ones. He appeared in only a handful of movies and, by 1934, Lou was broke and upset. Refusing to believe he was washed up, the actor moved to California, leaving his wife in New York in the hope that he could revive his career with the Fox picture, Caravane.

  For a time things began to look bright again, but it w
as not to be, when Lou shockingly discovered he was ill with cancer. The devastated actor was operated on, though doctors at the time assured him there was absolutely no hope of a full recovery. Quickly his weight plummeted from 180 to 150 pounds and though Tellegen managed to recover enough strength to gain a small part in Together We Live, he was in a lot of pain and knew the end was in sight.

  On 13 October 1934, the Los Angeles Times reported seeing the usually expertly groomed Lou with a beard and flowing hair, talking to his friend, the actor Willard Mack. That was one of his last public appearances and he spent the rest of the month depressed and in ill-health at 1844 North Vine Street, the home of friend Mrs Jack P. Cudahy. During that time he confessed to Dr C. L. Cooper that he thought he might be losing his mind. “I don’t think he was,” Dr Cooper said. “At least he seemed perfectly sane to me.” In spite of that, Tellegen was “brooding deeply” over the fact that he was no longer the star he once was and told the doctor that despite everything, he still wanted to be an actor and a star. The doctor, however, had bad news for Tellegen and told him that even if he could find another job, it was physically impossible for him to work as his body just was not up to it. Tellegen was understandably devastated.

  On 29 October 1934, the depression that had haunted Lou-Tellegen for many years finally became too much to bear. He was unable to work; his marriage was practically over; and the cancer that was invading his body was quickly ravaging him. Still, life went on as normal in the Cudahy home, and Mrs Eugene Coffee, the maid at the house, knocked on his door to ask if she could prepare breakfast for him. Tellegen turned her down; he did not require any food that morning, which Mrs Coffee found to be so disturbing that she decided to tell her boss immediately.

  Rushing to Mrs Cudahy, the maid reported that Tellegen had refused to eat and what’s more seemed extremely morose. The lady of the house took this information as suspicious and told her maid that she would take a look into Mr Tellegen’s room immediately, eager to find out what was wrong with her boarder.

  Meanwhile, Tellegen remained in the privacy of his quarters, dressed only in a bathrobe. His scrapbooks spread around him, he took one last look at the reports documenting his career on stage and screen, before carefully shaving his face and combing his hair. Who knows what was going on in his mind at that moment, but one thing’s for sure: it wasn’t anything positive. Once he had made himself look presentable, it was time for his last big role, and one that would go down in history: Death.

  The once fabulous actor picked up a pair of sharp scissors and quietly but deliberately plunged them into his chest. Was it a spur-of-the-moment decision or one he had thought through for some time? We’ll never know. One thing we do know, however, was that Tellegen did not kill himself with just one fatal blow; instead he stabbed himself an incredible seven times before finally collapsing on the floor.

  Outside his bedroom door, an oblivious Mrs Cudahy was asking him if he might like some soup. She received what she considered to be a weak reply, and so summoned her butler, William Wynn, who soon arrived at her side. Apprehensively they opened the door together and found something so shocking that it would be a sight they would remember for the rest of their lives. There was Tellegen on the floor of the room, blood gushing from his chest, while he – quite disturbingly – was still alive but remaining completely silent. The two rushed to the actor’s side and made frantic attempts to stifle the blood while calling for a doctor, but it was too late; Lou-Tellegen quietly and calmly slipped away on the floor of the bathroom, his scrapbooks and mementos of a once great life sitting just feet away.

  When told of the suicide by reporters, Tellegen’s ex-wife Geraldine Farrar snapped, “Why should that interest me? It doesn’t interest me in the least!” and slammed the telephone down. Meanwhile his current wife, Eve Casanova, received a wire asking what to do with Tellegen’s remains but she had no intention of helping out. “Contact my cousin in Los Angeles,” she said, though no such cousin was ever found and Tellegen’s body remained unclaimed in the mortuary.

  Officials got back in touch with Casanova in the hope that she would claim the body herself but despite declaring that she was “horribly, horribly shocked”, she still would not budge. Instead of taking a flight out to California, she told reporters that she would not be able to go to the funeral as she was about to start rehearsals for a play called A-Hunting We Will Go. “I know Lou would want me to stay here and stick it out,” she told reporters gathered at her front door, though no one could say they honestly believed her.

  Finally, when all other avenues were blocked, friends of Tellegen, such as Mrs Cudahy, Norman Kerry and Willard Mack, vowed to give him the funeral he deserved and made the arrangements themselves. On the day itself, scores of fans stood outside the chapel, while Lou’s colleagues and associates came together to act as pall-bearers.

  Tellegen’s first wife, the jilted Countess Jeanne de Brouckère, did not attend, though she did tell reporters that if she had known of Lou’s illness she would have been only too glad to help. Meanwhile, third wife Isabel Dilworth (now remarried and called Countess Danneskiold) arrived on the arm of her current husband.

  “He had scores of deep and intimate friends who would have been glad to help had they known of his illness,” she said, before adding that if she had known of his pain and despair, she too would have most certainly rushed to his aid.

  But at the end of the day, in spite of the renewed interest from several ex-wives and dozens of fans, Lou’s passing was a sad and very lonely affair. At the conclusion of the funeral, the body of the former matinee idol was simply cremated and his ashes were scattered quietly into the blue depths of the Pacific Ocean.

  15

  The Strange Death of Thelma Todd

  “I hate people who are not natural, I hate people who are stuck up, and I hate hypocrites. Aside from that I get along with everybody,” so said outspoken Thelma Todd at the tender age of just nineteen. A rebel in the days when it was pretty much unheard of, Thelma Todd was nobody’s fool and definitely no dumb blonde.

  “I think I must have a brunette personality,” she once said, before declaring that she always believed blondes to be soft and pliable, ready to cling to the nearest male for support and protection. “They’re just waiting to be taken care of and very sweet and easy to live with because they are so amiable,” she said, before admitting that none of those qualities could possibly belong to her. She believed herself to be a fighter who had made her way in the world alone; she knew how to stand up for herself and woe betide anyone who said otherwise.

  “You see, I’m not a real blonde inside or I’d be steadfast under any circumstances. No brunette was ever a doormat,” she admitted.

  A doormat she most certainly was not, as attested by her on-off boyfriend Roland West during the inquest into her death: “You could not keep Miss Todd out of any place if she wanted to get in,” he said. And yet in the early hours of 15 December 1935, Thelma was kept out of her apartment after West dead-bolted the door from the inside, rendering her Yale key useless. This action was just the beginning of a series of events that led to Thelma Todd being found dead in her car approximately thirty hours later.

  Born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, on 29 July 1906, Thelma Alice Todd was the daughter of John Shaw Todd and his wife Alice Elizabeth Todd. John was Irish, while Alice came from Canada, and together they raised their two children at 502 Andover Street in Lawrence. When Thelma’s older brother was killed in a freak farming accident, John Todd was devastated and Thelma decided to make up to him for the absence of a son. She played with boys, was boisterous and daring, and planned to be an engineer when she grew up. One neighbour later remembered that the seven-year-old girl could often be seen riding a boy’s bicycle through the streets, and never wore frills or lace, even though it seemed that every other female did so at the time. Little Thelma Todd was very definitely a tomboy, and while other girls were playing dolls and houses, she instead preferred to play on the boy’s bas
eball team, hike, swim and climb trees.

  Exceptionally pretty and always willing to go along with whatever the boys were playing at the time, it was no surprise that, as she grew up, Thelma became one of the most popular girls in town. However, while others were obsessing on how beautiful she had become, Thelma herself was completely unconcerned with her looks and freely admitted that she would “kill a man who started to ‘neck’ with me”.

  Thelma trained to be a school teacher in Lawrence, and for a laugh decided to enter a beauty pageant to find “Miss Massachusetts”. She won and was invited to tour the East Coast Paramount Studios, where she was introduced to producer Jesse L. Lasky. He dazzled her with his plans to start a Paramount Pictures School on the East Coast and promised that if the school went ahead, he would contact her.

  Shortly after the contest, sure enough, Jesse Lasky was back in touch to say that his Paramount Pictures School was now in operation and Thelma was immediately enrolled. While there she learnt her craft, took part in a photo story for an East Coast newspaper and encountered her first “scandal” when a fellow student, Robert Andrews, fell madly in love with her and printed the news of their “engagement” all over a New York newspaper. Since Andrews had forgotten to tell Thelma that they were engaged, she gave him a stern talking-to and he quickly dropped out of the actress’s affections.

  Although the reason she was initially invited to the studio was because of the beauty pageant, Thelma was always adamant that it was not as a result of the contest that she was later signed by the studio. In a 1931 interview, Thelma told reporter Alice L. Tildesley that the beauty pageant had nothing to do with her eventual rise to fame: “I never heard of a beauty-contest winner getting very far in any other line. I didn’t crash the movie gate by way of a contest, because I was already under contract when I won my title. The fact that I was Miss Massachusetts had nothing to do with it.”