Gale Sondergaard

Biberman died in 1971, and Sondergaard made a few more film and television appearances, before dying from cerebral vascular thrombosis at Woodland Hills, California. Baker premiered her documentary on Olive Thomas' short life titled Olive Thomas: The Most Beautiful Girl in the World. Highly controversial when it was made, and not a commercial success, its artistic and cultural merit was recognised in 1992 when the National Film Preservation Board selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. In 2004, with funding from Timeline Films and with the help of Hugh Hefner and his film preservation organization, Sarah J. With her career stalled, she supported her husband during the production of Salt of the Earth (1954). Thomas Episcopal Church in New York and she was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York. Biberman from 1930, her career suffered irreparable damage during the Red Scare of the early 1950s, when her husband was accused of being a communist and named as one of the Hollywood Ten. Olive Thomas' funeral service was held at St.

Married to the film director Herbert J. Jack Pickford brought her body home to the United States and on the return trip, family friend and film director Allan Dwan had to talk him out of committing suicide. She received a second Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress for her role in Anna and the King of Siam in 1946. A police investigation followed and her death was ruled accidental. In 1940 she played a role which would become one of her most identifiable, as the exotic and sinister wife in The Letter. She was taken to the American Hospital in the Paris suburb of Neuilly, where her husband and former in-law Owen Moore stayed by her side until she succumbed to the poison a few days later. Originally cast as the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz (1939), she was replaced by Margaret Hamilton when MGM decided to change the Wicked Witch from a glamorous character to an ugly one. Returning to their room in the Hotel Ritz at around 3:00 in the morning, an apparent drunken Olive Pickford accidentally ingested a large dose of mercury biochloride which had been prescribed for her husband's ongoing venereal disease.

Walt Disney Studios used her as the main inspiration for the Wicked Queen in the animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). While doing film preparations mixed with a vacation in Paris, France, she and her husband went out for a night of entertainment at the famous bistros in the Montparnasse Quarter. Her career as a supporting actress flourished during the 1930s. Florenz Ziegfeld hung the painting in his New Amsterdam Theatre office, much to the chagrin of his wife, actress Billie Burke. She made her first film appearance in Anthony Adverse (1936) and became the first recipient of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for this performance. By 1920, she had become one of the brightest young stars in America and renowned artist Alberto Vargas painted another portrait of her, nude from the waist up. Born Edith Holm Sondergaard in Litchfield, Minnesota to Danish parents, Sondergaard began her acting career in the theater. The following year, gossip columnists such as Louella Parsons were gushing about her career and the name Olive Thomas was emblazoned in electric lights on Broadway while magazines were filled with stories and photos of her soaring career.

Gale Sondergaard (February 15, 1899 - August 13, 1985) was a US film actress. In 1918, film mogul and master promoter, Myron Selznick signed her for Selznick Pictures Company. Alcohol began playing a larger and larger role in Thomas' life and in a short span crashed her automobile on three occasions. They married in October of 1916, and although Olive was the love of his life, the marriage was a stormy one sometimes filled with highly charged conflict followed by lavish making up through expensive gifts. Through her work she met actor Jack Pickford (1896-1933), an alcoholic, drug-using, womanizer who lived extravagantly off the wealth and fame of his sister, Mary Pickford.

She went on to appear in more than twenty Hollywood films over the next four years. Approached by an executive from Triangle Pictures, she was put under contract and in 1916 made her motion picture debut using her married name, Thomas. Before long, the gorgeous Olive Thomas was the center of attention of the in-crowd such as those associated with Conde Nast and she was being pursued by a number of very wealthy and powerful men. She then modeled for another famous artist Harrison Fisher and eventually wound up on the cover of "Saturday Evening Post." She was hired by the Ziegfeld Follies and then worked for the much racier revue, the Ziegfeld Frolics," a show staged after hours in the roof garden of the New Amsterdam Theatre for mainly male patrons with plenty of money to bestow on the young and beautiful lady performers.

In 1914 she entered and won "The Most Beautiful Girl in New York City" contest run by the celebrated commercial artist, Howard Chandler Christy. A beautiful and ambitious girl, she went to stay with an aunt in New York City where she worked in a department store. At the age of 16, she married Bernard Thomas but the marriage lasted only a short time. Born Oliva Elaine Duffy into a working class family in a Pittsburgh suburb, her father died when she was young and she had to leave school to help support her mother and siblings.

Olive Thomas, born October 20, 1894 in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, United States – died September 10, 1920 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, was an actress.