June Caprice (born Helen Elizabeth Lawson, November 19, 1895 – November 9, 1936) was an American

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized Sound recording and reproduction, recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) ...

actress.

Early life and career

Born Helen Elizabeth Lawson in

Arlington, Massachusetts Arlington is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. The town is six miles (10 km) northwest of Boston, and its population was 46,308 at the 2020 census. History European colonists settled the Town of Arlington in 1635 as a village ...

, Caprice was educated in Boston. She began her acting career in

live theatre Live Theatre, formerly Live Theatre Company, is a new writing theatre and company based in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. As well as producing and presenting new plays many of which go on to tour nationally and internationally, it seeks out an ...

and in 1916 signed with the

Fox Film Corporation The Fox Film Corporation (also known as Fox Studios) was an American Independent film production studio formed by William Fox (1879–1952) in 1915, by combining his earlier Greater New York Film Rental Company and Box Office Attractions Film C ...

. In 1916 William Fox searched to find a "second

Mary Pickford Gladys Marie Smith (April 8, 1892 – May 29, 1979), known professionally as Mary Pickford, was a Canadian-American stage and screen actress and producer with a career that spanned five decades. A pioneer in the US film industry, she co-founde ...

." By the summer of that year he believed he had located the woman he predicted would be the best known female on the screen within six months time. The 1916 press release claimed both that she was a 17-year-old teenager, and in the same press release "just a little over 17 years of age." Her obituary in 1936 listed her age as 40, making her about 20 years of age at her discovery. Caprice's screen debut came in ''

Caprice of the Mountains ''Caprice of the Mountains'' is a 1916 American silent drama film directed by John G. Adolfi, and starring June Caprice, Harry Hilliard, Joel Day, Lisle Leigh, and Richard Hale. The film was released by Fox Film Corporation on July 9, 1916. Plot ...

'' (1916). A

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

film critic said of her, "she is young, pretty, graceful, petite, with an eloquence of gesture that augurs a bright future in the movies." Adopting the

stage name A stage name is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers—such as actors, comedians, singers, and musicians. Such professional aliases are adopted for a wide variety of reasons and they may be similar, or nearly identical, to an individu ...

June Caprice, she made sixteen films for Fox, half of which were directed by Harry F. Millarde. The two began a personal relationship and eventually married.

Retirement

She left the film business to begin a family, giving birth to a daughter June Elizabeth Millarde in 1922. It is believed she returned to working on stage and modeling, appearing on 1920s

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atla ...

company calendars holding a fountain glass of Coke. In 1931 her husband died at the age of forty-six. Caprice died five years later from a heart attack in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wor ...

. She had been suffering from cancer. She was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in

Glendale, California Glendale is a city in the San Fernando Valley and Verdugo Mountains regions of Los Angeles County, California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents ac ...

. Caprice's daughter was fourteen years old when orphaned and was raised by her grandparents on

Long Island, New York Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the 18t ...

. June Millarde became a

cover girl A cover girl is a woman whose photograph features on the front cover of a magazine. She may be a model, celebrity or entertainer. The term would generally not be used to describe a casual, once-off appearance by a person on the cover of a maga ...

known as

Toni Seven June Elizabeth Millarde (July 6, 1922 – May 21, 1991), better known as Toni Seven, was an American cover girl and actress. Early life Millarde was born in July 1922 in New York City, the only child of actress June Caprice and film director H ...

. She was the heiress to an estimated $3,000,000 fortune.

Filmography

References

Bibliography

External links

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June Caprice
New York Public Library Digital Gallery photo

at silentsaregolden {{DEFAULTSORT:Caprice, June American film actresses American silent film actresses American stage actresses Vaudeville performers People from Arlington, Massachusetts Actresses from Massachusetts 1895 births 1936 deaths 20th-century American actresses Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale)