Olive Thomas

At 25 years old, Olive Thomas physical status not available right now. We will update Olive Thomas's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

In 1914, Thomas entered and subsequently won the "Most Beautiful Girl in New York City" contest held by Howard Chandler Christy, a commercial artist. Winning the contest helped establish her career as an artists' model, and she would later pose for Harrison Fisher, Raphael Kirchner, Penrhyn Stanlaws, and Haskell Coffin. Thomas was featured on many magazine covers, including that of the Saturday Evening Post.

Fisher wrote a letter of recommendation to Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., resulting in Thomas' being hired for the Ziegfeld Follies. However, Thomas later disputed this, claiming she "walked right up and asked for the job". She made her stage debut in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1915 on June 21, 1915. Thomas' popularity in the Follies led to her being cast in Ziegfeld's more risqué Midnight Frolic show. The Frolic was staged after hours in the roof garden of the New Amsterdam Theatre. It was primarily a show for famous male patrons who had plenty of money to bestow on the beautiful young female performers. Thomas received expensive gifts from her admirers; it was rumored that German Ambassador Albrecht von Bernstorff had given her a $10,000 string of pearls.

During her time in The Follies, Thomas began an affair with Florenz Ziegfeld. Ziegfeld, who was married to actress Billie Burke, had affairs with other Ziegfeld girls, including Lillian Lorraine and Marilyn Miller (who later married Thomas' widower Jack Pickford). Thomas ended the affair with Ziegfeld after he refused to leave Burke to marry her.

Thomas continued modeling while appearing in the Follies. Alberto Vargas, Florenz Ziegfeld’s artist-in-residence who painted many stars of the Ziegfeld stage, immortalized Thomas in the portrait he painted of from memory after her death and titled it Memory of Olive Thomas or The Lotus Eater as noted on the label he placed on the back of the completed work. "Lotus Eater" was a reference to Lotus-eaters of Greek mythology. The portrait depicts Thomas nude from the waist up, covering her left breast with her left hand while holding a rose with her right above her upraised face. The painting remained in his personal collection until his death in 1982 and was sold by his estate to a private collector in 1986. Vargas called Thomas "one of the most beautiful brunettes that Ziegfeld ever glorified.

In July 1916, Thomas signed with the International Film Company. She made her on-screen debut in Episode 10 of Beatrice Fairfax, a film serial. In 1917, she made her full-length feature debut in A Girl Like That for Paramount Pictures.

That same year, she signed with Triangle Pictures. Shortly after, news broke of her engagement to actor Jack Pickford, whom she had married a year prior. Thomas and Pickford, who was the younger brother of Mary Pickford, kept the marriage secret because Thomas did not want people to think her success in film was due to her association with the Pickfords. Her first film for Triangle, Madcap Madge, was released in June 1917. Thomas' popularity at Triangle grew with performances in Indiscreet Corrine (1917) and Limousine Life (1918). In 1919, she portrayed a French girl who poses as a boy in Toton the Apache. Thomas later said that she felt her work in Toton was "the first real thing I've ever done." She made her final film for Triangle, The Follies Girl, that same year.

After leaving Triangle, Thomas signed with Myron Selznick's Selznick Pictures Company in December 1918 for a salary of $2,500 a week. She hoped for more serious roles, believing that with her husband signed to the same company, she would have more influence. Her first film for Selznick, Upstairs and Down (1919), proved successful and established her image as a "baby vamp". She followed with roles in Love's Prisoner and Out Yonder, both in 1919. In 1920's The Flapper, Thomas played a teenage schoolgirl who yearns for excitement beyond her small Florida town. Thomas was the first actress to portray a lead character who was a flapper, and the film was the first of its kind to portray the flapper lifestyle. Frances Marion, who wrote the scenario, was responsible for bringing the term into the American vernacular. The Flapper proved to be popular and became one of Thomas' most successful films. On October 4, 1920, Thomas' final film, Everybody's Sweetheart, was released.

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