Nancy Caswell

Biography

Nancy Caswell was born in Hollywood, California to English-born parents, Edward Caswell and Minnie Olive Hopkins. She began her stage career at age two performing as a child in numerous stage plays around the country. Minnie took her beautiful and talented daughter Nancy at age three to audition for her first silent motion picture for a small role in 'The End of the Rainbow' at Universal Film Manufacturing Company in 1916. She was signed with the Fox Film Corporation and then co-starred with Jewel Carmen in 'The Kingdom of Love' directed by the legendary Frank Lloyd. Nancy went on to make many silent films at Fox in California and New Jersey, Universal, Screen Classics Films, and worked with directors, Frank Lloyd and Raoul Walsh (Fox Film Corp.), including Zane Grey's 'Riders of the Purple Sage' starring William Farnum. Due to her early career she was taught by private tutors at Fox, where she also learned to dance and sing. She married a prosperous Los Angeles attorney, Max Gilford, at age 17. When 'Talkies' arrived, Nancy worked at Richard Talmadge Productions, Paramount, Columbia and finally Weiss Productions in 1936. Divorced from her first husband, she married Lionel R. Brooks, French/American oil and gold tycoon, in Trinidad in 1937, gave up her acting career and moved to Paris before eventually retiring to Beverly Hills, California. Nancy lived in her beloved California until towards the end of her life. She died of heart failure in Miami, Florida in 1987.