Lucille Ricksen

Biography

Lucille Ricksen (born Ingeborg Myrtle Elisabeth Ericksen; August 22, 1910 – March 13, 1925) was an American motion picture actress during the silent film era. She died of tuberculosis on March 13, 1925, at the age of 14.

== Early life == Ingeborg Myrtle Elisabeth Ericksen was born in Chicago, Illinois on August 22, 1910. Her parents were Danish immigrants named Samuel and Ingeborg Nielsen Ericksen. Although Ricksen's birth year has been stated to be earlier, particularly as she often portrayed adult characters in films, her birth certificate states 1910 as her true birth year. She had an older brother, Marshall, who was born in 1907 in Chicago, who also appeared in early silent films. She became known as Lucille Ricksen.

== Edgar Pomeroy series == Ricksen began her career as a baby model, initially within poorly-paid modeling roles. Upon her parents' urging, she advanced to more professional child modeling and acting roles, adopting the pseudonym Lucille Ricksen at age four. Through these modelling and acting roles, she and her brother rose to fame and provided a revenue for their parents as both children were committed to increasingly exhaustive work schedules.

By the time Lucille was eight, her parents had divorced and her mother reportedly began to view the income from her daughter's acting career as a primary source of stability for her entire family. At the request of Samuel Goldwyn, Ingeborg relocated to Hollywood with her children in 1920. Shortly thereafter, Goldwyn cast the 11-year-old in a comedy serial entitled The Adventures of Edgar Pomeroy, and from this point on, Ricksen's acting and modeling commitments increased greatly, although at least outwardly, Ricksen enjoyed the fame and attention her career attracted. The serial shorts of The Adventures of Edgar Pomeroy ran in approximately 12 installments and were based on the stories of Booth Tarkington, with child actor Edward Peil Jr. taking the leading role of Edgar, and Ricksen the leading female role. In one review of her performances in this series, Ricksen was described as: "One of the most promising Hollywood actresses" and through this acting role, Ricksen formed close acquaintances with many notable directors, actors and actresses of the 1920s. She would also extensively tour the entire country, appearing in theaters and attending celebrity events, thus becoming one of the best known child actresses of the era.

After leaving the Edgar Pomeroy serials, Ricksen appeared in more than 12 films between 1920 and 1921 alone. She was next cast in the 1922 Stuart Paton directed comedy The Married Flapper opposite Marie Prevost and Kenneth Harlan and the 13-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 in which she was cast alongside both Claire Windsor and Hobart Bosworth.

=== Progression of career === Beginning with the development of her career via the Edgar series, Ricksen took great care to preserve records of the early years of her career and her experiences in the silent films in which she starred. She is known to have preserved flyers and posters documenting her career, and to have cut and pasted newspaper clippings relating to any works in which she held a role into a journal. Beneath each cutting or photograph, she would write her personal sentiments as to her feelings relating to her progressing career. Throughout the early 1920s, Ricksen appeared in a number of high-profile acting roles, although in many instances, she had to portray a character much older than her years. Her first assigned role as the leading female actress in a major film was in the 1923 movie The Rendezvous; a World War I satire in which she was cast as a deaf Russian peasant girl named Vera. Another notable performance Ricksen undertook in 1923 was her role as Ginger in the John Griffith Wray directed drama Human Wreckage: a drug prevention film produced by and starring actress Dorothy Davenport. (This film was made in reaction to the death of Davenport's husband, actor Wallace Reid, as a result of his morphine addiction). Initially, her true age was accurately reported in the press, with one typical editorial, the Covington Republic, appraising her in February 1923 as being "The youngest leading lady on the screen".

From 1920 to 1925, Ricksen starred opposite some of the most popular actors of the silent era, including 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, although the number of contracts and thus the required hours to be devoted to her career increased dramatically, with Ricksen completing no fewer than 10 films within a seven-month period within 1924 alone, often portraying characters who were much older than she was.

In 1924, at age 14, 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.