Solution to The Roaring Twenties

[forgottenhistoryhunt]

I was looking for the silent film actress, Olive Thomas, who died after accidentally ingesting mercury at the Ritz Hotel in Paris in 1920. Her ghost has been seen at the New Amsterdam Theater in NYC where she used to perform in the Ziegfeld Follies and the Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic. If all the clues were solved, it should lead you to:

Solution: Who: Olive Thomas/ What: a ghost/ Where: New Amsterdam Theater.

Clues in the picture:
1. The newspaper article has an image of Olive in the Midnight Frolic, dressed in Santa costume.
2. The added text in the article, "AL BARL IS CARM/N" = Mercury, using the atomic weights of different elements:
AL = aluminum =13 = M
B = boron = 5 = E
AR = argon = 18 = R
LI = lithium = 3 = C
SC = scandium = 21 = U
AR = argon =18 = R
MN = manganese = 25 = Y
3. The center photo shows Olive as a ghost in the halls of the New Amsterdam Theater.
4. The valentine heart = Olive was in the movie, "Everybody's Sweetheart."
5. The initials JCS = John Charles Smith, known as Jack Pickford, her husband.
6. SHE AIMS TO LOVE (along edge of heart) [-SE (extra letters)] = anagram of Olive Thomas.
7. The woman in a flapper smoking a cigarette = Olive was in the movie, "The Flapper"
8. The letter addressed to the Ritz Hotel, where Olive was staying when she was poisoned.
9. Le Rat Mort was a bohemian bar where Olive and Jack partied the night she was poisoned.
10. The scrambled text is from "Toton The Apache." in which she starred.
11. In the Toton text, it mentions a pickpocket, and Olive married Jack Pickford.
12. An image of a strand of syphilis, the disease Jack was using the mercury to treat.
13. A panel from the doors of the Pickford Mausoleum, where Olive is buried.
14. The shape of Washington County, PA, where Olive was born.
15. The background map is Amsterdam. You can see the word Gracht, the Dutch word for canal.

Clues in the poem:
16. Forever New = New Amsterdam Theater in New York.
17. And yet so old = Theater was built in 1903, so is old.
18. With many a story to be told. = The theater has a rich history.
19. These three clues can also refer to NYC, originally named New Amsterdam.
20/21. A special pick has two meanings: 1. She was selected the 'Most Beautiful Girl in New York" and 2. She married Jack Pickford.
22/23. And ever green has two meanings: 1. Her name is Olive, and 2. Her ghost is seen wearing a green dress.
24. Marking time, but rarely seen = She is now a ghost forever, but is only seen occasionally.
25. Upstairs down = She was in the movie, "Upstairs and Down."
26. And trapped by love = She was in the movie, "Love's Prisoner."
27/28. Dawn in the shadows, she lost track of has two meanings: 1. She played Dawn in the movie, "Footlights and Shadows," and 2. She 'lost track of' what medication she was taking, mistakenly taking mercury, in the dark pre-dawn hours of the morning.
29. Now give your hand = She was in the movie, "Betty Takes a Hand."
30. With glorious style = She was in the movie, "The Glorious Lady."
31. Midnight comes with a wink and a smile = The night security guard who first saw her ghost said she turned and gave him a wink and a smile before disappearing.
32. The background of the poem is a pattern of green olive branches.

[forgottenhistoryhunt]

I will announce all the winners later today, and will post pictures of the prizes.

Thank you to everybody who worked on this and who offered solutions, comments and feedback. My next hunt will be posted in a few weeks :-)

[molyn]

Very impressive to have so very much information contained in just 2 pages.
This was an entertaining and educational hunt!

[forgottenhistoryhunt]

Sept 28, 2020 9:26:36 GMT -5 molyn said:

Very impressive to have so very much information contained in just 2 pages.
This was an entertaining and educational hunt!

Thank you -  I hope to have more hunts about interesting bits of history most of us have either forgotten or never knew about!

[artofhiddenmessages]

I have a question. When you ask for the Who? What? Where? Do you ONLY require the "short" answers, or do you want an explanation on how a person arrived at those answers? Like telling you what clues they used to in your illustration and poem to solve to get those three answers?

There is a lot of information there! And I like how the prizes matched up with the theme!

[forgottenhistoryhunt]

Sept 28, 2020 15:15:12 GMT -5 artofhiddenmessages said:

I have a question. When you ask for the Who? What? Where? Do you ONLY require the "short" answers, or do you want an explanation on how a person arrived at those answers? Like telling you what clues they used to in your illustration and poem to solve to get those three answers?

There is a lot of information there! And I like how the prizes matched up with the theme!

For the first two prizes, who, what and where was all I was asking for. Because it wasn't really clear what I was looking for with the "what" and "where," I received a variety of combinations and in the end I accepted them because it was clear the winners had the right story and details, they just didn't know which "what' and "where" I was looking for, and they got them all, just in various combinations. They did both give examples of which clues they used to get to each combination.

The last two prizes went to the two people who could correctly figure out the most clues.

I will try in the future to be more specific in what I am looking for in the solution.

I had fun picking out the prizes and do try to make them fit with the history of the hunt I am working on!