Lillian Walker

Biography

A Brooklyn-born chorus girl with a smile that folded into two perfect commas, Lillian Walker was hoofing through the 1910 edition of The Follies when a publicity still reached the desk of Vitagraph’s J. Stuart Blackton. One glance at those cheek-dents and he wired New York: “Get the girl with the dimples.” Weeks later she was before the camera for The Inherited Taint, a one-reeler that launched her from chorus line to close-up. By 1913 audiences were buying tickets just to watch her light up the screen; the studio christened her “Dimples” and kept her working at a breathless clip. When her contract expired in 1917 she walked away from leading roles, reinvented herself as a sharp-eyed character player, and kept slipping into bit parts until the cameras rolled for the last time in 1934. Forty-one quiet years later she closed her eyes for good on the sun-warmed island of Trinidad, the 88-year-old former star still carrying the faint imprint of those famous dimples.