June Caprice on AllMovie

The success of Mary Pickford engendered well-remembered rivals such as Marguerite Clark and the ill-fated Mary Miles Minter. Less memorable, perhaps, but in her day a force to reckon with, June Caprice chose her screen name from her first film, a little romance entitled Caprice of the Mountains (1916). Having won a local Massachusetts Pickford look-alike contest, June was signed on the spot by movie mogul William Fox, who confidently promised a skeptical trade that "within six months June Caprice will be the best known woman on the screen." Though never quite achieving that lofty goal, Caprice did enjoy an increasingly large following via a string of Pickfordian melodramas such as Little Miss Happiness (1916) and A Modern Cinderella (1917). She married director Harry A. Millarde, and together they collaborated on Blue Eyed Mary (1918) and The Heart of Romance (1918). But, like Pickford, Caprice yearned to grow up and play sophisticated young ladies her own age. Unfortunately The Love Cheat (1919), based on a musical-comedy by P. G. Wodehouse, was not a success, and following the 1921 serial The Sky Ranger, Caprice retired. Her early death was attributed to a long bout with cancer.