Her Story

 
Thelma Hill was born Thelma Hillerman in Emporia, Kansas on December 12, 1906. When she was a teenager her family moved to California. They lived just a few blocks from the Mack Sennett studios. Thelma dreamed of becoming an actress and hung around by the gates trying to getting noticed. While working in her parents cafe she met actor Fatty Arbuckle who helped her get a screen test. She became one of Sennett's famous bathing beauties and appeared as an extra in dozens of his films. Her nickname was the "Mah Jongg Bathing Girl" because of the type of bathing suit she wore. The petite beauty was five feet tall and weighed only 100 pounds. When she wasn't posing for pictures she worked as Mabel Normand's stand-in. Thelma starred alongside Ben Turpin a several shorts including The Prodigal Bridegroom. In 1927 she landed a role in the Marion Davies comedy The Fair Co-Ed. The following year she was chosen to play the lead in a series of short films based on the popular comic strip Toots And Casper.

Thelma seemed destined for stardom but her career stalled with the talkies. She made a few more short films and had a small role in Frank Capra's The Miracle Woman. Thelma became engaged to director St. Elmo Boyce. Their romance came to a tragic end in 1930 when Boyce committed suicide. She married John Sinclair, a writer and stunt double for W.C. Fields, in 1934. The couple moved into a house near the Sennett studio where Thelma used to work and she started a new life as a housewife. Unfortunately by this time she had a serious drinking problem. In the spring of 1938 she entered a sanitarium suffering from chronic alcoholism, a vitamin D deficiency, and malnutrition. Thelma died from a cerebral hemorage on May 11, 1938. She was only 31 years old. Her body was cremated and her ashes are at Forest Lawn in Glendale. Thelma's widow John Sinclair died in 1945 from cirrhosis of the liver.

~ Original biography by Elizabeth Ann 2013