Death of a Flapper

During the late teens of the last century, no girl was more beautiful or more celebrated than Olive Thomas. Painted by Vargas, married to Jack Pickford and the girl who gave the flapper a face, Olive Thomas wasn’t just The Most Beautiful Girl in New York (a title which she won in 1914), she was a rising Hollywood star and the world was her oyster.


Then one night in the early fall of 1920, she and her husband were out doing the rounds of Montparnasse, toasting and, it’s been said, doing more than just a little nose powder. Upon returning to their hotel she, for unknown reasons, managed to imbibe her husband’s syphilis medicine (a mercury bichloride solution) and despite the efforts that were made to save her, she died on Sep 10th, 1920, only 26 years old. Today, hardly anyone remembers her name.

“I think that you die when your time comes and not until then. I feel the same about other things as I do about death. I don’t think you can change anything that is going to happen to you any more than you can change anything that has happened to you. That’s why I never worry, and that is why I don’t think people should get conceited and think themselves better than others.”/ Olive Thomas on death in June 1919

PS. The moral of the story? Stay away from men with syphilis, I guess…