Sybil Tinkle was a promising starlet who is often confused with movie star Olive Borden
She was born Sybil Yvonne Tinkle on February 10, 1902 in Timpson, Texas. Sybil was the sixth of nine children. Her father, Jeremiah Tinkle, was a store manager, and her mother, Carrie Tinkle, was a housewife. After high school she briefly studied art in Tyler, Texas. She married Herman Downs Clark, a salesman, in 1920. They divorced a few years later. Her father gave her $1000 so she could move to Los Angeles and become an actress. Soon after she cut off all contact with her family in Texas. Sybil made her film debut in the 1926 drama Christine Of The Big Top. Unfortunately this was the only movie she ever made.
Then an article in her hometown newspaper claimed that she had changed her name to Olive Borden and was now a successful actress. Her family, who had not heard from her in years, really believed that Sybil was movie star Olive Borden. The truth is that Sybil and Olive were two different people! This strange myth has continued for decades and many biographies of Olive Borden still claim that her real name is Sybil Tinkle. She married screenwriter Clarence Marks on December 26, 1928. Sadly just a few months after their wedding she began suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis. On February 28, 1930 she died from the disease at the young age of twenty-eight. Sybil was cremated and her ashes were given to her husband.
Author Michael G. Ankerich has done a lot of research on Sybil on his blog