From her longtime home at the theater, Ollie’s ghost tells her story from her early life in Pittsburgh to her tragic death at twenty-five.Īfter winning a contest for “The Most Beautiful Girl in New York,” shopgirl Ollie modeled for the most famous artists in New York, and then went on to become the toast of Broadway. They say she’s the ghost of Olive Thomas, one of the loveliest girls who ever lit up the Ziegfeld Follies and the silent screen. A presence lurks in New York City’s New Amsterdam Theatre when the lights go down and the audience goes home. Lesley is the author of Legends of the Five Directions (The Golden Lynx, The Winged Horse, and, as of April 2016, The Swan Princess), a historical fiction series set in 1530s Russia, during the childhood of Ivan the Terrible. The ostrich scene alone isâ€”dare we say it?â€”unforgettable.Ĭ. Laini Giles vividly captures both the culture of those early days when films were still called 'flickers' and Olive Thomas's complex, charming, and compelling personality. The Forgotten Flapper: A Novel of Olive Thomas (Sepia Stories, 2015) brings this forgotten actress back to life. Then she and Jack decide to vacation in Paris â€¦ Over the course of four years, Olive makes twenty films, including The Flapperâ€”the film that introduced that term into the national lingo.

To the great distress of his family, the two of them drink and party their way around movie sets on both coasts.

In Santa Monica, she runs into Jack Pickford, Mary's younger brother, and discovers her kindred spirit. Soon she and Ziegfeld are involved in an affair, but when Ziegfeld goes back to his wife, Olive takes off for Hollywood. Ziegfeld takes a shine to Olive, and soon she is not only dancing for him but has become a regular in the much racier Midnight Follies. After winning a contest as the Most Beautiful Girl in New York, she becomes an artist's model before securing a position with Flo Ziegfeld, the mogul behind the Follies. Her name is Olive Thomas, and she is one of the first silent movie stars, although her early death means that she is much less famous than her sister-in-law, Mary Pickford.īorn near Pittsburgh, Olive moves to New York to escape a teen marriage and a life raised in poverty. She wears a green outfit in flapper style, and she's just a little annoyed to realize that no one is scared of her, even though she mostly rearranges the scenery rather than clanking chains or leaping out and scaring people. A ghost haunts the New Amsterdam Theatre, near Times Square in New York.

The Forgotten Flapper by Laini Giles