(Birth 1899, Borås, Västra Götalands
län, Sweden - Death 9 July 1970, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia)
Known
as the Swedish "Mary Pickford," in 1921 she asked Senator Knute
Nelson of Minnesota to start legislative action for a ministry of
fine arts stating that she wanted the government to "enforce the
national pursuit of the beautiful." Silent screen actress Sigrid
Holmquist arrived with quite a bit of fanfare in New York City in
October 1920. The blonde Swedish girl was clutching her contract
with Paramount, a studio that had just lost Pickford's closest
rival, Marguerite Clark, to retirement. Holmquist, of course, never
became another Marguerite Clark — much less a new Pickford — but she
did brighten a few otherwise dull melodramas. Her American debut,
Just Around the Corner (1922), in which she played a working class
girl persuading a rich playboy to pose as her fiancé, was directed
by Pickford's favorite scenarist, Frances Marion. The press made
much of Marion's handsome husband, future Western star Fred Thomson,
and generally overlooked Holmquist's debut. Despite good reviews,
the comedy-drama was too low-key to make much of an impact and
Holmquist found herself reduced to playing second leads. The studio
let her go in 1924 and she mainly worked for poverty row companies
until a severe case of the so-called "Klieg-eyes" — a common malaise
caused by the extremely bright arc lights used to illuminate movie
sets — forced her to retire in 1925. She finished on a high note,
however, co-starring in two pleasant comedies with Johnny Hines: The
Early Bird and The Crackerjack.
Known
as the Swedish "Mary Pickford," in 1921 she asked Senator Knute
Nelson of Minnesota to start legislative action for a ministry of
fine arts stating that she wanted the government to "enforce the
national pursuit of the beautiful." Silent screen actress Sigrid
Holmquist arrived with quite a bit of fanfare in New York City in
October 1920. The blonde Swedish girl was clutching her contract
with Paramount, a studio that had just lost Pickford's closest
rival, Marguerite Clark, to retirement. Holmquist, of course, never
became another Marguerite Clark — much less a new Pickford — but she
did brighten a few otherwise dull melodramas. Her American debut,
Just Around the Corner (1922), in which she played a working class
girl persuading a rich playboy to pose as her fiancé, was directed
by Pickford's favorite scenarist, Frances Marion. The press made
much of Marion's handsome husband, future Western star Fred Thomson,
and generally overlooked Holmquist's debut. Despite good reviews,
the comedy-drama was too low-key to make much of an impact and
Holmquist found herself reduced to playing second leads. The studio
let her go in 1924 and she mainly worked for poverty row companies
until a severe case of the so-called "Klieg-eyes" — a common malaise
caused by the extremely bright arc lights used to illuminate movie
sets — forced her to retire in 1925. She finished on a high note,
however, co-starring in two pleasant comedies with Johnny Hines: The
Early Bird and The Crackerjack.