Lucille Ricksen

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Lucille Ricksen
Born	Lucille Ericksen August 22, 1909(1909-08-22) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died	March 13, 1925 (aged 15) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1920–1925

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

Life and career

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 spent 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. It was made in reaction to the death of Davenport's husband, the actor Wallace Reid as a result of a morphine addiction.

From 1920 to 1925, Ricksen starred 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. Ricksen often portrayed characters who were much older than herself and she 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, she 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.

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 appeared 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, her condition worsened and she was diagnosed as having tuberculosis.^[1]

Lucille Ricksen's last screen appearance was 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, Ricksen's mother Ingeborg became distraught and kept a bed-side vigil over her daughter. In late February 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 at the age of fifteen.^[2]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Lucille Ricksen

• Lucille Ricksen at the Internet Movie Database
• Lucille Ricksen at New York Times Movies^{[dead link]}
• Lucille Ricksen at Young Hollywood Hall of Fame
• Lucille Ricksen at Silent Ladies & Gents
• Lucille Ricksen at Allmovie