The screen credits of June Mathis, one of the major figures of the silent film, include some of the best-known films ever made: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921), Blood and Sand (1922), and Ben-Hur (1925). She was also personally responsible for bringing Rudolph Valentino to prominence in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. A determined woman, Mathis became at one point in the early 1920s one of the most powerful behind-the-scenes figures in Hollywood.

June Mathis was born in Leadville, Colorado, into a theatrical family. During her youth, she worked for several years as an actress in California in order to support herself and her mother after the death of her father. She worked in vaudeville and acted in several plays, some with the well-known stage actor Julian Eltinge. She was plagued by ill health for much of her short life. The poor quality of the movies in those...