 (13 July 1897 - March 4, 1984)
Born Florence Lavina Quick, the daughter of Minerva Grey and William
Quick. Barely out of school when she began her screen career, Carmen
made her film debut as an extra in 1913 with the Keystone Company as
Evelyn Quick. Her blonde beauty and vivacious personality soon
brought her to the attention of Mack Sennett who promoted her from
the extra rank to one of his stock company of players. Under
Sennett's direction she appeared with Edgar Kennedy in A Life In
Balance. Before abruptly leaving Keystone she appeared in The
Professor's Daughter with Eddie Lyons and Their Husbands under the
direction of Henry Lehrman.
In the late 1910's Carmen was Douglas Fairbanks' leading lady and
star for the Fox Film Corporation. Later she left Mack Sennett's
Keystone Studios under a cloud of rumors, she changed her name from
Evelyn Quick to Jewel Carmen and became one of Fox's popular stars.
In 1918, upon her marriage to producer, director, and writer Roland
West the actress terminated her Fox contract. As West's wife, she
abandoned her film career for a long vacation and did not make
another film until 1920 when she was starred by West in his
production of the mystery melodrama Nobody with Kenneth Harlan and
The Silver Lining with the long forgotten leading man Coit
Albertson. In 1923 she returned to Fox in You Can't Get Away With
It. Three years elapsed before she returned to the screen in her
husband's mystery melodrama The Bat. In 1926, with the silent era
about to end, Carmen retired from films. |
