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from: Da' Reefer Reaper
cache-rtc-ab05.proxy.aol.com
05-01-15
14:41:05
THELMA WHITE, ACTRESS, DEAD AT 94 Actress Thelma White, who starred in the 1936 movie "Reefer Madness," has died in Los Angeles of pneumonia at age 94. White, who started her career as a carnival performer as a toddler, died Tuesday at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Woodland Hills. During her heyday as an actress, she appeared alongside W.C. Fields, Will Rogers, Red Skelton and Jack Benny. "Reefer Madness" was a low-budget propaganda film written by a religious group to broadcast the dangers of marijuana. It was largely forgotten until 1972, when Keith Stroup, founder of the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws, discovered it in the Library of Congress archives and paid $297 for a print. He then screened it in New York as a benefit for the advocacy group, launching it on the road to cult-film history. "I'm ashamed to say that it's the only one of my films that's become a classic," White told The Times in a 1987 interview.
