# Violet Radcliffe

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{{short description|American actress}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = Violet Bonita Radcliffe
| image              = Violet Radcliffe as al Talib.jpg 
| birth_name         = 
| birth_date         = {{birth date|1904|08|20}}
| birth_place        = [Niagara Falls, New York](/source/Niagara_Falls%2C_New_York), United States
| death_date         = {{death date and age|1965|05|04|1904|08|20}}
| death_place        = New York, United States
| occupation         = Child actress
| years_active       = 1913–1918
| relatives          = 
}}

'''Violet Radcliffe''' (20 August 1904, Niagara Falls - 4 May 1965, Los Angeles) was a child actress active during Hollywood's silent era. She appeared in several dozen films for Fine Arts, Fox, and [Pathe](/source/Path%C3%A9_Exchange), and was frequently cast as a villain or as a little boy.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/355222395/?terms=%22violet+radcliffe%22+actress|title=Violet Radcliffe|date=29 Dec 1917|website=The Chicago Tribune|language=en|access-date=2019-08-17}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|date=1919|title=Child Parts|url=https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/2160/32189_1220702381_0020-00165?pid=1884&backurl=https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv%3D1%26dbid%3D2160%26h%3D1884%26tid%3D163154042%26pid%3D202122896877%26usePUB%3Dtrue%26_phsrc%3Dilm28652%26_phstart%3DsuccessSource&treeid=163154042&personid=202122896877&hintid=&usePUB=true&_phsrc=ilm28652&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&_ga=2.118264206.605399925.1565932251-603179934.1542181463|journal=Motion Picture Studios Directory}}</ref> One of her best-known roles was as Dirty Face Dan in a number of serials.

== Biography ==
According to several US censuses, Violet Bonita Radcliffe was born August 20, 1904, in [Niagara Falls, New York](/source/Niagara_Falls%2C_New_York), to Harry Belmont Radcliffe and Ida F. Davenport.<ref name="familysearch">{{Cite web |title=Violet Bonita Radcliffe |url=https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/LBS5-N11 |access-date=2022-12-02 |website=www.familysearch.org}}</ref><ref name="nitrateville" /> However, during her career she was said to be four years younger, resulting in an assumption she was born in 1908.<ref name="Horak" /> She began performing when she was only two months old, and she was quite young when she appeared in her first film, 1913's [''Quo Vadis''](/source/Quo_Vadis_(1913_film)).<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/99839256/?terms=%22violet+radcliffe%22|title=Company of Children|date=22 May 1915|website=The Ogden Standard|language=en|access-date=2019-08-17}}</ref>

She played boys role in at least eighteen films between 1915 and 1917.<ref name="Horak"/> She specialized in [comedies](/source/Comedy_film) and [fairy tales](/source/fairy_tales) in which all the actors were supposedly under the age of ten.<ref name="Horak"/> She played a series of lovable villains for Majestic, including the character Dan in ''The Straw Man'', ''Bilie's Goat'', ''The Little Cupids'' and ''The Little Life Guard'' (1915).<ref name="Horak"/> She then went to [Fox](/source/Fox_Film_Corporation) role of Al-Talib in ''[Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp](/source/Aladdin_and_the_Wonderful_Lamp_(1917_film))'' (1917) and [Long John Silver](/source/Long_John_Silver) in ''[Treasure Island](/source/Treasure_Island_(1918_film))'' (1918).<ref name="Horak"/>

She played Prince Rudolpho in ''[Jack and the Beanstalk](/source/Jack_and_the_Beanstalk_(1917_film))'' along [Francis Carpenter](/source/Francis_Carpenter_(actor)), [Virginia Lee Corbin](/source/Virginia_Lee_Corbin) and Carmen De Rue.{{sfn|Lussier|2018|p=38}} She became regular with Carmen De Rue in the Fox Kiddie Features.{{sfn|Lussier|2018|p=37}}

She left the movies in 1918, aged supposedly ten.<ref name="Horak">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3QRYCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA35 |title=Girls Will Be Boys: Cross-Dressed Women, Lesbians, and American Cinema, 1908-1934 |last=Horak |first=Laura |date=26 February 2016 |publisher=[Rutgers University Press](/source/Rutgers_University_Press) |isbn=9780813574844 |page=35}}</ref> Little was known of what became of her after her career in Hollywood ended, and she was assumed to have died in 1926, aged supposedly 18.<ref name="nitrateville" />

In 1922, she married Samuel Maddox, and in 1927, Archie Lee Sims, both in Los Angeles; in 1935, Eugene Woodford, in [Vancouver, Washington](/source/Vancouver%2C_Washington);<ref name="nitrateville" /><ref name="familysearch" /> and in 1940, George O. Beiriger, in [Las Vegas, Nevada](/source/Las_Vegas%2C_Nevada).<ref>{{cite web |title=Nevada County Marriages, 1862-1993 |url=https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QL4G-PTRK |website=FamilySearch |access-date=11 September 2025}}</ref> In 1950 she was an inmate in [Stockton State Hospital](/source/Stockton_State_Hospital), a mental institution.<ref>{{cite web |title=United States, Census, 1950 |url=https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6XG8-78DP |website=FamilySearch |access-date=11 September 2025}}</ref>  She died May 4, 1965, in Los Angeles, named Violet Bonita Beiringer.<ref name="nitrateville">{{Cite web|url=https://www.nitrateville.com/viewtopic.php?t=30013|title=Silent Child Actress Violet Radcliffe Real Death Date Found|date=8 April 2010|website=NitrateVille|access-date=2020-09-28}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0705379/|title=Violet Ratcliffe|website=IMDb|access-date=2020-09-28}}</ref>

== Selected filmography ==
*''[Treasure Island](/source/Treasure_Island_(1918_film))'' (1918)
*''[The Babes in the Woods](/source/The_Babes_in_the_Woods)'' (1917)
*[''Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp''](/source/Aladdin_and_the_Wonderful_Lamp_(1917_film)) (1917)
*[''Jack and the Beanstalk''](/source/Jack_and_the_Beanstalk_(1917_film)) (1917)
*''[Cheerful Givers](/source/Cheerful_Givers)'' (1917)
*[''Everybody's Doing It''](/source/Everybody's_Doing_It_(1916_film)) (1916)
*''[A Sister of Six](/source/A_Sister_of_Six_(1916_film))'' (1916)
*''[Gretchen the Greenhorn](/source/Gretchen_the_Greenhorn)'' (1916)
*''[The Little School Ma'am](/source/The_Little_School_Ma'am)'' (1916)
*[''Going Straight''](/source/Going_Straight_(1916_film)) (1916)
*''[Let Katie Do It](/source/Let_Katie_Do_It)'' (1916)
*[''Quo Vadis?''](/source/Quo_Vadis_(1913_film)) (1913)

== References ==
{{reflist}}

==Bibliography==
* {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vOxzDwAAQBAJ&q=Violet+Radcliffe&pg=PA37 |title="Bare Knees" Flapper: The Life and Films of Virginia Lee Corbin |first=Tim |last=Lussier |publisher=[McFarland Publishing](/source/McFarland_Publishing) |date=11 October 2018 |pages=218 |isbn=9781476675688 }}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Radcliffe, Violet}}
Category:American child actresses
Category:Actresses from New York (state)
Category:1904 births
Category:1965 deaths
Category:20th-century American women

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Violet Radcliffe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_Radcliffe) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_Radcliffe?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.