Theo-Alice Jeanne Carpenter (February 1, 1917 – January 5, 1994) was an American

child actress The term child actor or child actress is generally applied to a child acting on stage or in movies or television. An adult who began their acting career as a child may also be called a child actor, or a "former child actor". Closely associated t ...

of the

silent era A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, wh ...

"Ashes of Vengeance"
''Silent Cinema''. Retrieved 2015-09-05. whose career in the entertainment industry spanned 74 years.

Biography

Born in

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central ...

, Carpenter started her film career at the age of three. Her film debut came in ''Daddy Long Legs''. At age four, she traveled around the United States appearing in theaters on a promotional tour of her films. Her fame grew in the early-1920s as she made a series of successful appearances in films such as, '' Helen's Babies'' with

Baby Peggy Diana Serra Cary (born Peggy-Jean Montgomery; October 29, 1918 – February 24, 2020), known as Baby Peggy, was an American child film actress, vaudevillian, author and silent film historian. She was the last living person with a substantial car ...

, and ''The Sign of the Rose''. Maturity led to a change of roles for Carpenter. Becoming a young woman, she moved into character roles. She had occasional adult roles through 1940s, then she retired from film business. Carpenter married Robert Grimes in 1949. She had four daughters and one son from two marriages. In 1964, she and all five children performed in the Plaza Players' production of ''Gypsy'' in Oxnard, California. On January 5, 1994, Carpenter died of

emphysema Emphysema, or pulmonary emphysema, is a lower respiratory tract disease, characterised by air-filled spaces ( pneumatoses) in the lungs, that can vary in size and may be very large. The spaces are caused by the breakdown of the walls of the alve ...

Oxnard, California Oxnard () is a city in Ventura County, California, United States. On California's South Coast, it is the most populous city in Ventura County and the 22nd-most-populous city in California. Incorporated in 1903, Oxnard lies approximately west ...

Filmography

References

External links

* * 1917 births 1994 deaths Actresses from Kansas City, Missouri American film actresses American silent film actresses American child actresses Deaths from emphysema 20th-century American actresses Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale) {{US-film-actor-1910s-stub