Fay Elinora Lanphier (December 12, 1905 – June 21, 1959) was an American model and actress most noted for winning the title of Miss Santa Cruz in 1924 and then

Miss California The Miss California competition selects the representative for the state of California in the Miss America competition. The pageant began in Santa Cruz in 1924 and was held there in 1925. During the years 1926 through 1946 in years when the Mi ...

and

Miss America Miss America is an annual competition that is open to women from the United States between the ages of 17 and 25. Originating in 1921 as a "bathing beauty revue", the contest is now judged on competitors' talent performances and interviews. As ...

in 1925.

Early life

Lanphier was born in

El Dorado, California El Dorado (Spanish for "The Golden") is an unincorporated community in El Dorado County, California. It is located southwest of Placerville, at an elevation of 1608 feet (490 m). The population was 4,096 at the 2000 census. The town is reg ...

, the eldest child of six born to Percival Caspar Lanphier and Emily Elenora Olson. Her family later moved to

Alameda, California Alameda ( ; ; Spanish for " tree-lined path") is a city in Alameda County, California, located in the East Bay region of the Bay Area. The city is primarily located on Alameda Island, but also spans Bay Farm Island and Coast Guard Island, as we ...

. Lanphier's father died before she was a teenager. She graduated from Oakland High School in 1924 and was saving money to go to business college. In December 1924, Lanphier signed a contract with Max Graf to star in a series of shorts produced on the San Francisco Peninsula.

Career

Pageantry

She was the 1925 Rose Queen. To date, she is the only person to hold both titles at the same time. She is also the first Miss California to become Miss America. Before she was Miss California, she was Miss Santa Cruz 1924. Lanphier won Miss America in 1925 on a vote of 12–3.

Film career

Lanphier appeared in the

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...

film ''

The American Venus ''The American Venus'' is a 1926 American silent comedy film directed by Frank Tuttle, and starring Esther Ralston, Ford Sterling, Lawrence Gray, Fay Lanphier, Louise Brooks, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. The film was based on an original story ...

'' (1926) which featured a beauty contest, and co-starred

Louise Brooks Mary Louise Brooks (November 14, 1906 – August 8, 1985) was an American film actress and dancer during the 1920s and 1930s. She is regarded today as an icon of the Jazz Age and flapper culture, in part due to the bob hairstyle that she helpe ...

, and performed for a short time on stage in San Francisco with the Henry Duffy Players.

Personal life

On June 8, 1928, Lanphier married Sidney M. Spiegel, son of

Joseph Spiegel Joseph Spiegel (1840–1918) was the founder of the Spiegel catalog, a Civil War veteran, the younger brother of Union Army Colonel Marcus M. Spiegel, and patriarch of the Spiegel family. Biography Spiegel was born to a Jewish family, the son ...

, in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

. They divorced after six months of marriage. In 1931, she married high-school sweetheart Winfield Daniels, with whom she had two daughters. They remained married until her death in 1959.

Later years and death

After her second marriage, Lanphier largely retired from public life and became a housewife and mother. She lived in the

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the ...

suburb of Orinda until her death from

hepatitis Hepatitis is inflammation of the liver tissue. Some people or animals with hepatitis have no symptoms, whereas others develop yellow discoloration of the skin and whites of the eyes ( jaundice), poor appetite, vomiting, tiredness, abdominal ...

and viral pneumonia at age 53 on June 21, 1959. On June 24, 1959, Lanphier was interred at the Outdoor Mausoleum at the Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California.

References

External links

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Biography1920 Census
1905 births 1959 deaths 20th-century American actresses Actresses from Oakland, California American silent film actresses American stage actresses Burials at Mountain View Cemetery (Oakland, California) Deaths from hepatitis Deaths from pneumonia in California Miss America 1920s delegates Miss America winners Female models from California People from El Dorado County, California People from Orinda, California Spiegel family {{US-model-stub