Actress, Author. Gene Gauntier received world-wide recognition as an American silent film star. She appeared in 87 silent films between 1906 and 1920. Being a pioneer in the film industry, she became a screenwriter of 42 films, with her first being "Tom Sawyer." She directed the 1909 film, "The Grandmother." Born Genevieve Gauntier Liggett, she was the middle of three children. Her younger sister Marguerite Gauntier Liggett married Swedish billionaire Axel Wenner-Gren. She attended Kansas City School of Oratory. At the age of 19, she left for New York City to appear on the stage, then acting with stock company tours, before starting to work for Kalem Company in 1909, coming to Jacksonville, Florida to film. She married Harry R. Pottery on January 2, 1901. In 1903, she returned to stage acting as the lead female role in George Ade's "The County Chairman" at Kansas City's Grand Opera House in Missouri. She divorced her husband in June of 1905. While she was performing, her one-year-old son, Jean Jerome, died at her parents' home on December 1, 1906. In 1907, she wrote the script for "The Days of '61," the first film ever made about the American Civil War. In 1907 she wrote and appeared in the first, and very successful, film version of "Ben-Hur." The film led to a landmark United States Supreme Court case concerning the use of copyrighted materials in films. After years in the court system, the ruling was against Kalem Company. In 1912 she wrote and acted in the film "From the Manger to the Cross," which has been archived at the United States National Film Registry. By December of 1912, she had become disillusioned with Kalem Company, leaving to start her own company, Gene Gauntier Feature Players, which lasted for three years. At the International Exposition of Motion Pictures, June 11, 1914 was declared as "Gauntier Day." In 1918 she divorced her second husband Jack Clark after a six-year marriage. During World War I while she was visiting her sister in Sweden, she became stranded there with the raging war. With the end of war by 1919, she became a film and drama critic for the "Kansas City Post." After leaving the film industry in 1920, she published in 1928 an autobiography "Blazing the Trail," which was serialized from 1928 through 1929 in the American magazine, "Women's Home Companion." The manuscript is on display in the Film Library of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. She lived in Europe for long periods of time. She authored two novels, "Cabbages and Harlequins" in 1929 and "Sporting Lady" in 1933. She is buried in Sweden next to her sister and brother-in-law on the grounds of Häringe Castle.