Lucita Squier

{{Infobox person | name = Lucita Squier | image = Lucita_Squier.jpg | birth_name = | birth_date = April 9, 1889 | birth_place = Buffalo, New York, USA | death_date = November 1980 (aged 91) | death_place = Boston, Massachusetts, USA | occupation = Screenwriter | years_active = | spouse = Albert Rhys Williams }}

'''Lucita Squier''' (April 9, 1889 – November 1980) (sometimes credited as '''Lucita Squier Williams''') was an American screenwriter active during Hollywood's silent era. She wrote more than 50 scripts during the course of her career, working in the U.S., Britain, and Russia.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/437018083/?terms=%22lucita+squier%22|title=19 Jun 1979, 25 - The Boston Globe at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com|language=en|access-date=2019-03-10}}</ref>

== Biography == Lucita was born in Buffalo, New York, to George Squier and Lucinda Lilliendahl. Her family had been wealthy thanks to the Mexican railroads they owned, but they lost most of their money during the Mexican Revolution, as she would later recount.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/326847915/?terms=%22lucita+squier%22|title=5 Oct 1921, 10 - The Buffalo Enquirer at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com|language=en|access-date=2019-03-10}}</ref> She grew up speaking Spanish and vacationing in Mexico, attending school in New York City. At one point, she was the only girl attending the exclusive Horace Mann School.<ref name=":0" />

After getting a job as a secretary in Hollywood through her family's connection to Cecil B. DeMille, she began writing scripts for Marshall Neilan's company, where she became lifelong friends with Mary Pickford.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/281184089/?terms=%22lucita+squier%22|title=2 Jul 1922, 34 - The Morning Call at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com|language=en|access-date=2019-03-10}}</ref> At the time, newspapers reported that with the release of her first script, ''Bits of Life'', she was the youngest scenario writer to have a produced film under her belt.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/321820522/?terms=%22lucita+squier%22|title=28 Jul 1921, 7 - The Montgomery Times at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com|language=en|access-date=2019-03-10}}</ref> After heading back to New York City, she met and married journalist Albert Rhys Williams, and the pair later lived in Soviet Russia for seven years.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/104986010/?terms=%22lucita+squier%22|title=6 May 1928, Page 79 - The Indianapolis Star at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com|language=en|access-date=2019-03-10}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9-pTDwAAQBAJ&q=%22lucita+squier%22&pg=PT382|title=Revival: Little Golden America (1944)|last1=Ilf|first1=Ilya|last2=Petrov|first2=Eugene|date=2018-03-29|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781351341400|language=en}}</ref>

After their son was born, she moved to San Francisco, where she focused on raising her family. She made an attempt to break back into movies, which didn't pan out as script structure had changed with the advent of talkies.<ref name=":0" /> After her husband died, she moved to Boston.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/428642692/?terms=%22lucita+squier%22|title=17 Nov 1980, 23 - The Boston Globe at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com|language=en|access-date=2019-03-10}}</ref>

She died in November 1980, and was survived by her son.<ref name=":1" />

Squier appeared posthumously as one of the Witnesses in Warren Beatty’s 1981 film ''Reds''.

== Selected filmography ==

*''The Third Life of Mullah'' (1928) (lost)<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/413298702/?spot=27265867|title=27 Feb 1927, 21 - The Billings Gazette at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com|language=en|access-date=2019-03-10}}</ref> *''Tons of Money'' (1926) * ''A Daughter of Love'' (1925) * ''Straws in the Wind'' (1924) * ''The Royal Oak'' (1923) * ''A Gamble with Hearts'' (1923) * ''Penrod'' (1922) * ''Bits of Life'' (1921)

== References == <references />

{{DEFAULTSORT:Squier, Lucita}} Category:American women screenwriters Category:Horace Mann School alumni Category:1889 births Category:1980 deaths Category:20th-century American women writers Category:20th-century American screenwriters