Frances White

Frances White (born Frances Mae Caples; January 1, 1896 – February 24, 1969) was an American singer and actress on Broadway, on the vaudeville stage, and in silent films. She popularized the spelling song "M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I". She played "Fanny Warden" in The New Adventures of J. Rufus Wallingford, a series of silent short comedies. She was also in the cast of the eugenics film The Black Stork (1917).

Early life Frances Caples was the daughter of Edward T. Caples and Caroline Leibfried Caples. Her grandfather was a wealthy Texas banker. She may have been from Texas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Seattle She joined William Rock; the duo Rock & White found success on the vaudeville circuit She was also known for a very short "neat and smart" haircut, brushed back to the nape with oil. Jimmie (1921), and The Hotel Mouse (1922).

White's last film role was in Face to Face (1922), with Marguerite Marsh. "This unique actress knows her limitations and flatly refuses to be anything but her breezy, slangy, fresh young self," said a 1925 newspaper profile. Also in 1925, she explained to Lorena Hickok that the distinctive sound of her voice was the result of a tonsillectomy.

Legal problems In 1922, Frances White was sued for alienation of affections by Dorothy Wolfe Stothart, the wife of composer Herbert Stothart. A Seattle jeweler sued White for money owed in the late 1920s. In 1930, she was briefly jailed for failure to pay a taxi fare in New York City. In 1931, she declared bankruptcy. She next married comedian Frank Fay in 1917; they soon divorced. She married again, to businessman Clinton Donnelly in 1923; they too divorced.