Phyllis Haver
Phyllis Haver was born Phyllis O'Haver Jan. 6, 1899,
in Douglas, KS. At four years of age, she and her mother moved
to Los Angeles where she said she and Bebe Daneiels played together
as children. At the age of 14, she beame a pianist in a silent
movie theater so she could have "pretty clothes like the
other girls," and which her mother could not afford. She
attended Manual Arts High School and became close friends with
Marie Prevost. She decided to audition for Mack Sennett where
she said her audition consisted of having the attractiveness of
her knees assessed by a bored Mack Sennett. She was hired as a
bathing beauty in 1915 and appeared along with some of the biggest
stars at Keystone over the next seven years such as Bobby Vernon,
Gloria Swanson, Ford Sterling, Ben Turpin and others. According
to Haver, she did more than bathing beauty parts - she willingly
played any part given to her, which included playing a boy, if
necessary, and, at one time, as many as nine parts in one film.
She said she stayed on with Sennett while friends such as Marie
Prevost and Gloria Swanson moved on to bigger things because she
and her mother needed the steady income. One of her best roles
in a two-reeler came in 1923 when she proved to be an equal match
for Buster Keaton in his outstanding comedy "The Balloonatic."
Also, that same year, she left Sennett to star as Polly Love in
Maurice Tourneur's "The Christian" with Richard Dix
and Mae Busch. Disappointingly, the movie made stars of Dix and
Busch but "nobody noticed me in it." She worked regularly
in features over the next few years in such films as William S.
Hart's "Singer Jim McKee" (1924), James Cruze's "The
Fighting Coward (1924) with Ernest Torrence, Mary Astor and Cullen
Landis, "So Big" (1924) with Colleen Moore, "Up
in Mabel's Room" (1926) wtih girlhood friend Marie Prevost,
the John Ford production of "3 Bad Men" (1926), "The
Nervous Wreck" (1926) with Harrison Ford, as Shanghai Mabel
in the outstanding WWI epic "What Price Glory?" (1926),
and Victor Fleming's "The Way of All Flesh" (1927) with
Emil Jannings, among many other films. However, true stardom seemed
to elude her until Cecil B. DeMille chose her for the lead role
of Roxie Hart in "Chicago" (1927) in which Haver's outstanding
acting ability quickly became evident. Another film available
for viewing today that shows Haver at her best is D.W. Griffith's
"The Battle of the Sexes" (1928) with Jean Hersholt.
After a handful of films over the next year or so, Haver met and
married Manhattan millionaire William Seeman. They divorced in
1945. Haver did not remarry and retired to Connecticut where she
died at age 60 in 1960 from an overdose of bartibuates. The death
was ruled a suicide. Some have conjectured that she was still
despondent over her divorce 15 years earlier and distraught over
the death of Mack Sennett earlier that year. She had appeared
six years earlier on the TV show "This is Your Life"
which paid tribute to Mack Sennett and his career.
Selected films of this star available for viewing:
Yankee Doodle in Berlin (1919)
The Balloonatic (1923) (Buster Keaton short)
The Fighting Coward (1924)
The
Nervous Wreck (1926)
Up In Mabel's Room (1926)
Three
Bad Men (1926)
Fig Leaves (1926)
What Price Glory (1926)
Chicago
(1927)
The Fighting Eagle (1927)
The Battle
of the Sexes (1928)
Return to photos page