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Thelma White, a spirited comedienne, became an unexpected cult film icon through her notorious role as the blonde seductress "Mae Colman" in the 1930s cult classic Reefer Madness (1938), originally titled Tell Your Children. In the film, she tempts unsuspecting schoolchildren with marijuana, dubbed "demon weed." Though this was not the legacy she desired, Thelma eventually embraced her cult status with good humor.
Born Thelma Wolpa in Lincoln, Nebraska, she was the daughter of traveling carnival performers in the Midwest. By age two, she was part of the family circus act, billed as "Baby Dimples," and by ten, she joined the popular singing and dancing duo, The White Sisters.
Thelma's vaudeville career peaked early through performances in the Ziegfeld Follies and Earl Carroll Revues, followed by Broadway appearances alongside stars such as Milton Berle. She transitioned into radio and then film.
In 1928, RKO signed her, and she freelanced with other studios in two-reel talkies. She starred in numerous comedies and musicals, including shorts for Pathé, Vitaphone, and MGM, featuring top comics like Edgar Kennedy and Leon Errol. During her prime, Thelma worked with legends like W.C. Fields and Jack Benny. By 1935, she advanced to "B" features, co-starring with Richard Talmadge in the crime film Never Too Late (1935). However, the studio pressured her into starring in the exaggerated propaganda film Tell Your Children, produced by an overzealous religious group.
In Tell Your Children, Thelma portrayed a predatory vamp who, encouraged by her drug-dealing boyfriend, entices young students to her apartment for marijuana and ensuing sex parties. The film was a critical failure, marked by poor acting, melodramatic direction, and unintentionally humorous writing, which damaged Thelma's film career.
Rediscovered in 1972 and retitled Reefer Madness, the film became a cult favorite, beloved especially by stoned audiences for its campy entertainment. Meanwhile, Thelma continued her career, better known for her colorful private life, including relationships with partners of both sexes. She returned to bit parts, except for notable roles in the low-budget films Spy Train (1943) and Bowery Champs (1944).
During World War II, Thelma toured overseas as a USO performer with personalities like Carmen Miranda but contracted a rare polio strain while performing in the Aleutian Islands. Bedridden and partially disabled for years, she eventually recovered enough to appear in a few more films, including her final role in Mary Lou (1948). Later, she became a talent agent representing stars such as Debbie Reynolds, Robert Blake, James Coburn, and actress-turned-nun Dolores Hart. She also occasionally produced films and television.
After two unsuccessful marriages to actors Claude Stroud and Max Hoffman Jr. in the 1930s and 1940s, Thelma found lasting happiness with actor-turned-costume designer Maurice Millard, to whom she was married for 42 years until his death in 1999. She had no children.
Thelma White passed away from pneumonia at age 94 on January 11, 2005, at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Woodland Hills, California.
