Raised in Portland, Oregon, Carmen began acting in Hollywood at age 15, eventually performing with Keystone Studios.

She first garnered public attention for her involvement in a statutory rape case against a 35-year-old automobile dealer in Los Angeles, but the charges against him were ultimately dropped after she could not prove her age.

Carmen resumed her career, appearing in several films throughout the 1910s, including a small role in D.W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916), followed by leads in American Aristocracy (1916) with Douglas Fairbanks and in Frank Lloyd's A Tale of Two Cities (1917).

The consensus was that she inadvertently caused her own death by running her car inside the garage to warm herself after West locked her out of the home.

She lived the remainder of her life outside the public eye, then died in a nursing home in El Cajon, California in 1984 at age 86.

[7] Quick spent her early years near Tillamook, Oregon living on a farm before the family returned to Portland in 1900, where she attended Mount Tabor School[7] and St. Mary's Academy.

[9] In April 1913, Quick was involved in one of the first major scandals in Hollywood:[7] A grand jury had indicted 35-year-old William La Casse, a wealthy automobile dealer, on charges of statutory rape.

[11] One article covering the case claimed that, during a preliminary examination, it was stated that Quick had been an orphan and was adopted by her parents Amos and Minerva.

[14] Following the scandal, Quick resumed her career in films using the name Jewel Carmen, and she appeared in Daphne and the Pirate (1916) with Lillian Gish and in D. W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916).

West subsequently cast her as the lead of his 1921 film The Silver Lining, in which she portrayed one of two orphaned sisters who is adopted by a thief.

[25] Todd was found deceased from carbon monoxide poisoning in her car, which was parked and running inside the garage of Castillo del Mar, a residence owned by Carmen and West in Pacific Palisades.

[3] Biographer Hans J. Wollstein notes that the rumors surrounding Todd's death involving Carmen and West mostly had "no foundation whatsoever.