Broadway Features and Reviews
Broadway Disney's Scandalous Ghost: Olive Thomas
By Edith Haight, Broadway Magazine
It is 1920. Olive Thomas is considered the most beautiful girl in the world. Now, having swallowed mercury pills shaped like coffins, Olive Thomas is writhing in pain in Paris, her husband Jack Pickford, brother to famous screen star Mary Pickford was at her side. It is her second day of agony since ingesting the poison. In America, the New York Times reports that "investigation also is being made by the police into rumors of cocaine orgies, intermingled with champagne dinners which lasted into the early hours of the morning." Shortly after that report, Olive's painful final days of suffering from the poison came to an end. Her body eventually shipped to New York, where people like Irving Berlin gathered to say good-bye. She was 26.
French authorities ruled the death accidental, even though according to the same times report "Miss Thomas was certified as perfectly well a few weeks ago for a very heavy insurance policy by the same doctor who later attended her to the end." Was it murder? Was it an accident? If her life was sensational and her death mysterious, Olive Thomas' current state is a combination of the two. According to a recent Playbill Radio program and numerous reports over several years, Olive Thomas is currently quite active and haunting Broadway's New Amsterdam theater where Disney's musical Mary Poppins is currently playing.
Married at 15 and divorced soon after, Olive Elaine Duffy moved to New York City from McKee's Rocks near Pittsburgh. As Olive Thomas, her rise to fame was quick, and the famous artist Harrison Fisher called her "the most beautiful girl in the world." She spent one season in the Ziegfeld Follies and two in the risque Midnight Frolic that took place at the rooftop theater at Broadway's New Amsterdam. An architectural feature of that stage was a glass bottom cover that extended over the tables. The chorus girls would "fish for millionaires" by sitting on the glass, and according to Playbill Radio "some would wear bloomers...and some would not."
Reports have Olive's ghost appearing mainly to men, often she holds a blue bottle (recalling the poison, perhaps). Those who have purportedly seen the apparition at the New Amsterdam feel comforted by her presence, whether they see her whole body, or just her alabaster legs gracefully ascending a staircase. Other manifestations include the banging together of costumes from The Lion King, when the show occupied the New Amsterdam, the odd shirt continually being moved without explanation, and abnormal bumps and sounds with no justification. The Playbill Radio broadcast includes an actual example. Some who have seen the figure recall her blowing a kiss.
When Disney took over the New Amsterdam, it had fallen into ruin and decay. The once glorious theater had holes in the ceiling, mushrooms growing near the orchestra pit, and piles of plaster from the crumbling walls. As visitors to Mary Poppins can attest, the theatre has been restored to its former glory. Perhaps in the restoration, Disney has restored an actual ghost as well. In acknowledgment of her history, there is a portrait of Olive Thomas in the lobby of theatre. No doubt, Olive approves.
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