Thelma Hill

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Thelma Hill (12 December 1906 – 11 May 1938) was an American silent-screen comedian.

Born Thelma Floy Hillerman in Emporia, Kansas, she was one of the few Mack Sennett Bathing Beauties to make it into featured roles. Hill was widely known as the mah jongg bathing girl because of the mah jongg bathing suit she was photographed in extensively.

As a youth she lived not far from the motion picture studios and was noticed by both Sennett and Dick Jones. During her school years she did atmosphere and bits on Saturdays, Sundays, and vacation time. As she became older Hill began to double for Mabel Normand.

She was first featured in a series of two-reel comedies with Ralph Graves, which were made for Sennett on Glendale Boulevard in Los Angeles, California.

Hill starred opposite Ben Turpin in The Prodigal Bridegroom; from 1927 to 1929 with Bud Duncan in Larry Darmour's series of silent comedy shorts Toots and Casper; and was Laurel & Hardy's leading lady in 1928's Two Tars. She completed her F.B.O. contract in 1927 and was signed by MGM for a role in The Fair Coed (1927).

She ended her career at the Hal Roach fun factory shortly after the changeover to sound, and by 1932 her life had taken on a dark side of depression and alcohol abuse. She would die before her thirty-second birthday from acute alcohol poisoning. Her husband at the time was actor John Sinclair. Sinclair's residence was at 8229 Blackburn Avenue, Los Angeles, California. He was a writer for W.C. Fields.

Thelma Hill died at the Edward Merrill Sanitarium in Culver City, California in 1938. She was buried in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park.

[edit] References

Los Angeles Times, Additions To Cast, August 13, 1924, Page A9.
Los Angeles Times, Bathing Girl Given Lead In New Comedy, August 17, 1924, Page B33.
Los Angeles Times, Thelma Hill, Former Sennett Player, Dies, May 12, 1938, Page A20.