Lucille Ricksen

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Lucille Ricksen
Born Lucille Ericksen
August 22, 1909 (1909-08-22)
Chicago, Illinois
Died March 13, 1925 (aged 15)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.

Lucille Ricksen (August 22, 1909 – March 13, 1925) was an American motion picture actress during the silent film era. [1]

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[edit] Biography

Born Lucille Ericksen in Chicago, Illinois, Ricksen began her career as a professional child model. In 1920 she arrived with her mother Ingeborg in Hollywood, California at the request of Samuel Goldwyn who immediately cast the eleven year old in comedy serial entitled The Adventures of Edgar Pomeroy. The serial shorts ran in approximately twelve installments and were based on the stories of Booth Tarkington, with actor Edward Peil, Jr. taking the role of 'Edgar'.

After leaving the Edgar Pomeroy serials, Ricksen was next cast in the 1922 Stuart Paton directed comedy The Married Flapper opposite Marie Prevost and Kenneth Harlan and the thirteen year old's career opportunities began to improve dramatically.

In 1922, Ricksen was signed to a contract with actor and director Marshall Neilan who cast her in the commercially and critically successful Neilan directed drama The Stranger's Banquet opposite Claire Windsor and Hobart Bosworth.

Lucille Ricksen would spend the early-1920s appearing in a number of high profile acting roles. One notable performance was her role as 'Ginger' in the 1923 John Griffith Ray directed drama Human Wreckage, which was a drug prevention film produced by and starring actress Dorothy Davenport after the death of her real life husband, the silent film actor Wallace Reid who died of a morphine addiction in January of that same year.

From 1920 to 1925, the teenage actress would star opposite some of the most popular actors of the silent era as: Conrad Nagel, James Kirkwood, Sr., Jack Pickford, Louise Fazenda, Laura La Plante, Anna Q. Nilsson, Blanche Sweet, Bessie Love, Cullen Landis and Patsy Ruth Miller. Often, Ricksen portrayed characters who were much older than the actress herself and Ricksen garnered critical acclaim from the public and within the motion picture industry for her maturity at handling adult themes. In 1924, at the age of fourteen, Lucille Ricksen was named one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars; a promotional campaign sponsored by the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers in the United States, which honored thirteen young women each year who they believed to be on the threshold of movie stardom. Other actresses named that year included Dorothy Mackaill and Clara Bow.

[edit] Early demise

While filming the Del Andrews directed comedy The Galloping Fish in 1924 opposite actors Sydney Chaplin and Louise Fazenda, Ricksen became ill. Ricksen would appear in prominent roles in ten films that year, including the popular drama The Painted Lady opposite George O'Brien and Dorothy Mackaill. However, by early 1925, the then fifteen year old's condition worsened and she was diagnosed as having tuberculosis. [2]

Lucille Ricksen's last screen appearance would be opposite Claire Windsor and William Haines in the drama The Denial, filmed in 1924 and released in early 1925.

Bedridden for the last few months of her life, Lucille Ricksen's mother Ingeborg became distraught and kept a bed-side vigil over her daughter. In late-February of 1925, her mother succumbed to a fatal heart attack and collapsed on top of her bedridden daughter. Lucille Ricksen died two weeks later, on March 13, 1925 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She was fifteen years old.[3]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Lucille Ricksen at the Internet Movie Database
  2. ^ [1] AllMovie.com
  3. ^ [2] New York Times Movies

[edit] External links

Persondata
NAME Ricksen, Lucille
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ericksen, Lucille
SHORT DESCRIPTION Actor
DATE OF BIRTH 1909-8-22
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago, Illinois
DATE OF DEATH 1925-3-13
PLACE OF DEATH Los Angeles, California, U.S.