Jewel Carmen

Jewel Carmen (born Florence Lavina Quick) was an American silent film actress who appeared in over 30 films, primarily in the late 1910s. In addition to her film career, she was involved in several scandals. Raised in Portland, Oregon, Carmen began acting in Hollywood at age 15, eventually performing with Keystone Studios. She first garnered public attention for her involvement in a statutory rape case against a 35-year-old automobile dealer in Los Angeles, but the charges against him were ultimately dropped after she could not prove her age. Carmen resumed her career, appearing in several films throughout the 1910s, including a small role in D.W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916), followed by leads in American Aristocracy (1916) with Douglas Fairbanks and in Frank Lloyd's A Tale of Two Cities (1917). She also starred as Cosette in Lloyd's adaptation of Les Misérables (also 1917). In 1918, she married film director Roland West. Carmen made her final film appearance in West's horror film The Bat (1926). In December 1935, Carmen drew significant media coverage over the death of actress Thelma Todd, who died of carbon monoxide poisoning in the garage of Carmen and West's home in Pacific Palisades. Carmen became embroiled in the investigation after she claimed to have seen Todd on Hollywood Boulevard hours after the time police determined Todd had died. A grand jury ultimately ruled Todd's death accidental. The consensus was that she inadvertently caused her own death by running her car inside the garage to warm herself after West locked her out of the home. Todd and West had been engaged in a romantic affair at the time. Following Todd's death, Carmen and West divorced. She lived the remainder of her life outside the public eye, then died in a nursing home in El Cajon, California in 1984 at age 86.