Lillian Rich

Biography

English silent screen siren Lillian Rich was 19 when she arrived in New York, courtesy of her Canadian husband Lionel Edward Nicholson. The couple had met while "Leo" was on active duty as a fighter pilot with the Royal Naval Air Service during World War I. He came from a well-to-do middle-class family and was both able and keen to bankroll Lillian's entry into Hollywood with a stake of $1000. Prior to entering films, the dimple-chinned, auburn-haired Londoner had briefly made a name in musical comedy on the stage. In 1919, she started out on the screen playing sultry leads in westerns opposite stalwart sagebrush heroes like Jack Hoxie and Harry Carey. By the end of 1922, Lillian had already amassed 19 feature film credits on her resume. Following a divorce from Leo, she took a year's sabbatical from the screen before resuming her career with renewed vigor in 1924. The next year she was cast by the ever-extravagant Cecil B. DeMille in her defining role, as an aristocratic social-climbing, impecunious vamp in Paramount's The Golden Bed (1925). Attired in sables and bedecked with diamond bracelets, Lillian added to the general opulence (and excess) of the proceedings. She then gave what is considered her other notable performance, opposite H.B. Warner in the western railroad drama Whispering Smith (1926). There was also a minor Christie comedy, Seven Days (1925), a crime thriller with Boris Karloff and a host of low-budget B-pictures for independent producers and Poverty Row outfits like Chesterfield and Tiffany. Between 1928 and 1930, Lillian unsuccessfully attempted a comeback in sound pictures, filming in England at Beaconsfield and at Nettlefold Studios (Walton-on-Thames, Surrey). Alas, these low-budget "quota quickies" were made for the mass market and did nothing to reboot her career. Back in the States she found herself relegated to the bottom of the bill in "Our Gang" shorts. She saw out the rest of the 1930's in uncredited, no-name bits as "nurse", "nun", "telephone operator", and so on, before fading into relative obscurity.