Tinseltown mystery inspires award-winning song from NI band The Mono Trio

The Mono Trio’s song, ‘17575 Pacific Coast Highway’, is a tribute to film star Thelma Todd whose death at the age of 29 sparked one of Hollywood’s great mysteries.

Also known as the Ice Cream Blond, Todd was born 115 years ago on July 29, 1906.

Up until her suspicious death just before Christmas 1935 she starred in over 120 films, including Laurel and Hardy and Marx Brothers comedies.

Thelma Todd had strong links to Northern Ireland and she often spoke about her Irish heritage; her father John Todd was from Comber, Co Down, before emigrating to Massachusetts where he became a prominent city official. Sadly he died of a heart attack just before his daughter’s first film release in 1926.

But it was his daughter’s death a decade later that still resonates today. Following the discovery of her lifeless body slumped at the wheel of her Lincoln convertible in a locked garage, many newspapers, including the LA Times, claimed that she had been murdered.

A subsequent grand jury however, decided that there was insufficient evidence and concluded that carbon monoxide poisoning was to blame along with ‘suicidal tendencies’. This decision has been hotly disputed ever since.

Thelma Todd was one of the very first celebrity restaurateurs opening her sidewalk café at 17575 Pacific Coast Highway in 1933, a popular haunt for the Hollywood film glitterati. The cafe’s name was the inspiration for The Mono Trio’s award-winning song.

The band’s singer and pianist Stephen Dunwoody explained: “A few years ago I came across the name Thelma Todd when I worked as a journalist. At that time the Laurel and Hardy fan club The Sons of the Desert were trying to trace Thelma Todd’s relatives who lived in or near Comber.

“Several years later, the name came back to me when we were putting songs together for an album entitled ‘Film Noir’. The Thelma Todd mystery just seemed a perfect fit.”

Stephen added: “Although her death was almost 85 years ago, writers still discuss the case. What I thought was particularly sad, and something that completely rules out suicide, was that Thelma had bought around 100 Christmas presents that had been wrapped and ready to send to family, friends and staff at the Hal Roach Studios where she was popular with everyone she came in contact with.”

Mono Trio’s song and video will be released on the band’s website www.themonotrio.com this week to coincide with the movie star’s birthday.