Solo Theatre - Wide Eyes Productions - Ages 14+ - 45 mins

When I first saw Thelma Todd in Monkey Business, the classic early Marx Bros. picture, I knew I’d found a new favorite performer. So when I looked her up and discovered what happened to her, my heart broke.

Thelma Todd was a brilliant comic actress, with the chops for a much bigger, more complex career. On Dec. 16, 1935, she was found dead in her car, inside the garage of her restaurant, Thelma Todd’s Sidewalk Cafe on the PCH. The media flurried, and her death was ultimately ruled an accident, possible suicide… but anecdotal reports began to surface that contradicted many details in the official report. Combine this with Todd’s romantic and professional history with mobsters, abusers, manipulators, and, of course, Hollywood, and you’ve got a juicy mystery that has remained unsolved — and the object of rabid tabloid speculation — for almost a hundred years.

In Ice Cream Blonde, Thelma Todd speaks directly to the audience, ready to solve the mystery of who snuffed her life out before she had the chance to turn thirty — but as the suspects are explored and the past uncovered, the complex web presents a brand new question: what happens to a person’s legacy when the salaciousness of their death overshadows their life?

The show is a bittersweet, comic, tragic reflection on life, death, violence against women, and dignity.

Location: The Little Theater

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