Phyllis Haver

Phyllis Haver

Born: January 5, 1899
Died: November 19, 1960
in Douglass, Kansas, USA
From Wikipedia

Phyllis Haver (January 6, 1899 – November 19, 1960) was an American actress of the silent film era.

Haver auditioned for comedy producer Mack Sennett on a whim. Sennett hired her as one of his original Sennett Bathing Beauties. Within a few years, she appeared as a leading lady in two-reelers for Sennett Studios.

Later, while signed with DeMille-Pathé, Haver played the part of Roxie Hart in the first film adaptation of Chicago in 1927, opposite Hungarian film actor Victor Varconi. One reviewer called her performance "astoundingly fine," and added that Haver "makes this combination of tragedy and comedy a most entertaining piece of work."

She performed in the comedy film The Battle of the Sexes (1928), directed by D. W. Griffith, and appeared with Lon Chaney in his last silent film, Thunder (1929).

Haver retired from the industry with two 'sound' films to her credit.

In 1929, she married millionaire William Seeman with a service performed by New York Mayor James J. Walker  at the home of Rube Goldberg, the cartoonist. The couple divorced in 1945.

Haver retired in Sharon, Connecticut. She died at age 61 from an overdose of barbiturates in 1960, a suspected suicide. Haver left no survivors.

Movies for Phyllis Haver...

Down Memory Lane
Title: Down Memory Lane
Character: (archive footage)
Released: August 1, 1949
Type: Movie
This film is a compilation, with narration by Steve Allen, of comedies from the old Mack Sennett silent studio. Sennett, himself, appears in a cameo at the end of the film.
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Happy Times and Jolly Moments
Title: Happy Times and Jolly Moments
Character: (archive footage)
Released: January 1, 1943
Type: Movie
This short film takes a nostalgic look at the Mack Sennett comedies of the silent cinema era.
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A Small Town Idol
Title: A Small Town Idol
Character: Mary Brown
Released: February 11, 1939
Type: Movie
In Sleepytown, cross-eyed Sam Smith and Mary Brown are about to get married. But the scoundrel, Jim Jones, wants Mary for himself. Jim uses a publicity still that Sam sent away for against him to show Sam the cad in the eyes of Mary. Disgraced and without Mary, Sam leaves town and heads for Hollywood to redeem himself. Despite not being typical leading man material, Sam is able to make a success of it in Hollywood, and wants to return to Sleepytown a new man and to get Mary back. But Jim will not give Mary up without a fight, he using any means, including lying, to turn the town, including Mary, against Sam, their newly beloved hometown son. This 1939 version was re-edited from a 1921 film with added sound.
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Thunder
Title: Thunder
Character: Zella
Released: July 8, 1929
Type: Movie
A train operator's obsession with being on time leads to tragedy for his family.
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The Office Scandal
Title: The Office Scandal
Character: Jerry Cullen
Released: March 3, 1929
Type: Movie
Haver, a newspaper reporter persuades a judge to release the suspected killer of a wealthy racetrack owner.
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Sal of Singapore
Title: Sal of Singapore
Character: Sal
Released: November 4, 1928
Type: Movie
SAL OF SINGAPORE was nominated for an Oscar for achievement in Writing during the second year of the Academy Awards. The film, being a part-talkie, nearly disappared from view. However, a preservation print does exist at UCLA, although it is unavailable for public viewing, awaiting restoration.
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The Battle of the Sexes
Title: The Battle of the Sexes
Character: Marie Skinner
Released: October 12, 1928
Type: Movie
Gum-chewing frizzy-haired golddigger Marie Skinner cooks up a scheme with her lover Babe Winsor, a jazz hound, to fleece a portly middle-aged real estate tycoon, William Judson. Marie moves into Judson's apartment building and contrives to meet and seduce him, plying him with compliments, music, swoons, décolletage, and batted eyes. When his loyal wife (and their two children) see him out catting with Marie at a night club, mom's devastated and confronts him. He moves out. Babe wants Marie to sell Judson worthless bonds. Will mom commit suicide? Will sis shoot the floozy? Will pops figure out he's being a fool?
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Tenth Avenue
Title: Tenth Avenue
Character: Lyla Mason
Released: August 6, 1928
Type: Movie
Joe, a weakling gangster, and Bob, an ex-gambler, compete for Lyla Mason, a working girl who also runs a 10th Avenue rooming house in New York city. Bob's desire to show Lyla he can support her leads him back to the gambling table when past-due rent threatens her with eviction. Bob and Joe are both suspected when Fink, a bootlegger, is found murdered in his room.
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Chicago
Title: Chicago
Character: Roxie Hart
Released: December 23, 1927
Type: Movie
Based on a true story, two-timing boozing wife Roxie Hart kills her lover in cold blood after he leaves her, and finagles her way out being indicted. The basis for Kander/Ebb's 1975 Broadway musical of the same name and its Oscar-winning 2002 film adaptation.
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The Wise Wife
Title: The Wise Wife
Character: Helen Blaisdell
Released: October 23, 1927
Type: Movie
John Blaisdell, a stolid businessman married for 10 years, concludes that romantic love is a thing of the past for him. His wife, Helen, a very domestic and conservative woman, invites Jenny Lou, a young southern girl, as her houseguest, and the girl flirts with John; she is conspicuously unsuccessful until she pretends to faint on the golf course and the unsuspecting victim finds her in his arms.
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The Way of All Flesh
Title: The Way of All Flesh
Character: The Temptress
Released: October 1, 1927
Type: Movie
The story takes place in Milwaukee during the early 1900s with a bank clerk named August Schiller who is happy with both his job and his family. He is tasked with transporting $1,000 in securities to Chicago. On the train he meets a blond seductress who convinces him to buy her a bottle of champagne, and takes him to a saloon. The next morning he awakes alone in a dilapidated bedroom and without the securities.
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The Fighting Eagle
Title: The Fighting Eagle
Character: Countess de Launay
Released: August 28, 1927
Type: Movie
The exploits of Brigadier Gerard who helps expose Foreign Minister Talleyrand as a traitor to Napoleon.
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The Little Adventuress
Title: The Little Adventuress
Character: Victoria Stoddard
Released: April 11, 1927
Type: Movie
When Victoria’s husband Leonard leaves her for Helen , Victoria takes up with artist Antonio. However both couples end up on George La Fuente's dude ranch. Everybody begins arguing with the poor Senor Fuentes.
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Nobody's Widow
Title: Nobody's Widow
Character: Betty Johnson
Released: January 12, 1927
Type: Movie
Roxanna is married to British official John Clayton, but when she catches John in the apparent embrace of another woman, Roxanna leaves England and goes to visit her friend Betty in America. There she tells people that her 'beloved' husband is dead. Betty's friends take to Roxanna, especially Ned, for whom Betty has strong feelings. Further complications arrive in the presence of John Clayton, who has followed Roxanna and now pretends to be the Duke of Morebay and another potential suitor for 'widowed' Roxanna.
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What Price Glory
Title: What Price Glory
Character: Shanghai Mabel
Released: November 23, 1926
Type: Movie
U.S. Marine sergeants Quirt and Flagg are inveterate romantic rivals on peacetime assignments in China and the Philippines. In 1917, W.W. I brings them to France, where Flagg, now a captain, takes up with flirtatious Charmaine, inn-keeper's daughter. Of course, Quirt has to arrive and spoil his fun. But the harsh realities of war and the threat of a shotgun marriage give the two men a common cause...
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The Nervous Wreck
Title: The Nervous Wreck
Character: Sally Morgan
Released: October 9, 1926
Type: Movie
Henry Williams, out in Arizona looking for a cure for his imaginary ills, stops at the ranch of Jud Morgan, and decides to stay. Jud's daughter, Sally, attracts his attention, although she is engaged to be married to Sheriff Bob Wells. Henry rides with her to town, where she wants to go shopping for her wedding clothes, but they run out of gas. No, problem' Henry holds up a passing motorist, with a monkey-wrench, and takes gasoline out of his car. They stop at a ranch where the foreman makes them become the cook and dishwasher. Then Jerome Underwood and his daughter, Harriet, arrive and they recognize Henry and Sally as the ones who held them up for gas. The jealous sheriff adds to the complications.
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3 Bad Men
Title: 3 Bad Men
Character: Lily
Released: August 28, 1926
Type: Movie
Three outlaws come to the aid of a young girl after her father is killed.
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Fig Leaves
Title: Fig Leaves
Character: Alice Atkins
Released: August 22, 1926
Type: Movie
Adam, a plumber, is happily married to Eve, a wardrobe-obsessed housewife, until she accidentally meets a supercilious fashion designer. At the prompting of her neighbor, who has secret designs on Adam, Eve secretly becomes a fashion model by day, knowing that her husband would disapprove.
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Don Juan
Title: Don Juan
Character: Imperia (uncredited)
Released: August 6, 1926
Type: Movie
If there was one thing that Don Juan de Marana learned from his father Don Jose, it was that women gave you three things - life, disillusionment and death. In his father's case it was his wife, Donna Isobel, and Donna Elvira who supplied the latter. Don Juan settled in Rome after attending the University of Pisa. Rome was run by the tyrannical Borgia family consisting of Caesar, Lucrezia and the Count Donati. Juan has his way with and was pursued by many women, but it is the one that he could not have that haunts him. It will be for her that he suffers the wrath of Borgia for ignoring Lucrezia and then killing Count Donati in a duel. For Adriana, they will both be condemned to death in the prison on the river Tigre.
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Up in Mabel's Room
Title: Up in Mabel's Room
Character: Phyllis Wells
Released: June 20, 1926
Type: Movie
Mabel catches her husband buying lingerie, and he won't explain who it's for. She divorces him, but later learns he was buying her an anniversary gift. She becomes determined to win him back.
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Hard Boiled
Title: Hard Boiled
Character: Justine Morton
Released: June 6, 1926
Type: Movie
Tom Mix plays an Eastern dandy who finds himself banished to a Western ranch in this silent Western
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Other Women's Husbands
Title: Other Women's Husbands
Character: Roxana
Released: March 17, 1926
Type: Movie
When his wife, Kay, goes out of town on a visit, Dick Lambert attends a party arranged by an old college friend, Jack Harding, with whom Kay has flirted on a previous dinner engagement; there he finds solace in the charms of Roxana, and he soon is making excuses to his wife for his frequent absences from home.
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The Cave Man
Title: The Cave Man
Character: Dolly Van Dream
Released: February 6, 1926
Type: Movie
A bored society girl cuts a hundred dollar bill in half, writes a message on one half for whoever finds it and throws it out the window of her apartment. The person who finds it turns out to be the driver of a coal truck. So she decides to give him a complete makeover in order to make him presentable to her society friends.
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New Brooms
Title: New Brooms
Released: October 12, 1925
Type: Movie
Thomas Bates Sr. (Robert McWade) takes his broom manufacturing business very seriously, and his idle son, Tom Jr. (Neil Hamilton), calls him a grouch. As a result, Bates decides to teach his son a lesson by putting him in charge of the business for a year.
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The Golden Princess
Title: The Golden Princess
Released: October 5, 1925
Type: Movie
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Rugged Water
Title: Rugged Water
Character: Myra Fuller
Released: August 17, 1925
Type: Movie
After years of service, the Captain of the Setuckit Life Saving Station on Cape Cod retires, Calvin Homer, the second in command, Calvin Homer expects to be promoted; but the appointment goes instead to Bartlett, a religious fanatic who has been the recipient of a good deal of favorable newspaper publicity. Calvin hands in his resignation.
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After Business Hours
Title: After Business Hours
Character: Sylvia Vane
Released: June 16, 1925
Type: Movie
A young woman marries a rich young man. However, he doesn't trust her with money and won't let her have any of her own. Desperate, she turns to gambling and finally forgery. Complications ensue.
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So Big
Title: So Big
Character: Dallas O'Meara
Released: December 28, 1924
Type: Movie
After graduating from a fashionable finishing school and touring Europe with her father, Selina Peake returns to the United States, where her father is accidentally killed after losing his fortune in a gambling den. Selina is reduced to teaching in a high school in the Dutch community at High Prarie near Chicago. She boards in the farmhouse of Klass Poole, a dull-witted market gardener, and finally marries Pervus DeJong, a poor and backward farmer. She shares the drudgery of her husband's futile life and finds happiness only in their small son, Dirk, whom she calls "So-Big."
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One Glorious Night
Title: One Glorious Night
Character: Sarah Graham
Released: December 1, 1924
Type: Movie
A 1924 silent drama.
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The Snob
Title: The Snob
Character: Dorothy Rensheimer
Released: November 10, 1924
Type: Movie
Two schoolteachers, married for love, are parted by the husband's obsessive desire for wealth and social position.
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The Foolish Virgin
Title: The Foolish Virgin
Released: August 15, 1924
Type: Movie
Jim Owens (Robert Frazer), a reformed thief and successful inventor, meets quiet, meek and refined Mary Adams (Elaine Hammerstein) at a jazz party. They fall in love and all goes well until she finds out about his sordid past. It's Only after he rescues her from a blazing forest fire that she forgives him and confirms her love.
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The Midnight Express
Title: The Midnight Express
Character: Jessie Sybil
Released: June 1, 1924
Type: Movie
Wastrel son of a railroad magnate, Jack's father becomes frustrated with his son's wild ways. To prove himself, Jack goes to work in the railroad yard as a laborer. An escaped convict, Silent Bill Brachley, steals Jack's car, and the chase leads to a meeting between Jack, the engineer of the Midnight Express, and the engineer's pretty daughter, Mary. As he is led back to jail, Brachley swears revenge.
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The Perfect Flapper
Title: The Perfect Flapper
Character: Gertrude Trayle
Released: May 25, 1924
Type: Movie
A 1924 film directed by John Francis Dillon.
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The Hollywood Kid
Title: The Hollywood Kid
Character: Self
Released: April 19, 1924
Type: Movie
A short packed with more stars and gags than most features of its day, this film delivered a gaggle of guffaws!
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The Fighting Coward
Title: The Fighting Coward
Character: Elvira
Released: March 14, 1924
Type: Movie
Southerner Tom Rumford was sent up north to be raised by relatives who happen to be Quakers. As a result, he returns home a passive, peace-loving young man, completely out of place in an area where men kill over issues of honor.
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Singer Jim Mckee
Title: Singer Jim Mckee
Character: Mary Holden
Released: March 3, 1924
Type: Movie
Jim McKee and his friend Buck rob a stagecoach to get money to support Buck's daughter. Buck is killed, but Jim and the daughter escape. Fifteen years later, Jim finds that he must turn robber again to continue to provide for Buck's daughter.
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Lilies of the Field
Title: Lilies of the Field
Character: Gertrude
Released: February 29, 1924
Type: Movie
A young mother, Mildred, doesn't know that her husband Walter is cheating on her. One night she attends a party with a friend of her husband's, and the man gets drunk and begins groping her when they get home. Her husband sees this and uses it as an excuse to sue his wife for divorce. In the ensuing trial he wins, due to fraudulent evidence, and gets custody of the child. Complications ensue.
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The Temple of Venus
Title: The Temple of Venus
Character: Constance Lane
Released: November 11, 1923
Type: Movie
Venus, the Goddess of Love (Celeste Lee) sends Cupid to Earth to look for romance.
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The Common Law
Title: The Common Law
Character: Rita Terris
Released: August 30, 1923
Type: Movie
Valerie West, a beautiful artist's model, falls for wealthy artist Louis Neville. However, his aristocratic family doesn't approve of the relationship and persuades Valerie to promise that she won't marry him. She does, however, tell Louis that she will become his common-law wife on a certain date the following summer. Complications ensue.
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The Balloonatic
Title: The Balloonatic
Character: The Young Woman
Released: January 22, 1923
Type: Movie
Buster and Phyllis endure a number of outdoor adventures trying to prove to each other their survival skills. The balloon which lands Buster in the wilderness proves useful later on as their canoe is about go over a waterfall.
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The Christian
Title: The Christian
Character: Polly Love
Released: January 14, 1923
Type: Movie
Glory Quayle and John Storm, sweethearts since childhood on the Isle of Man, go to London, Glory to become a nurse and John to enter a monastery. Instead, Glory becomes a theater star, and John renounces his vows because he cannot forget his love for her. Lord Robert Ure, who has already betrayed Glory's friend, Polly Love, incites the London populace against John....
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Step Forward
Title: Step Forward
Character: Rodney's Sweetheart
Released: April 13, 1922
Type: Movie
The conductor of a one-man streetcar has to deal with getting passengers on and off, getting tickets, making sure no one tries to ride for free and operating the car all at the same time.
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Bright Eyes
Title: Bright Eyes
Character: The Modest Maid
Released: December 24, 1921
Type: Movie
An oil heir and the daughter of a social climbing family are set to marry.
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Love and Doughnuts
Title: Love and Doughnuts
Character: The Baker's Sweetheart
Released: September 14, 1921
Type: Movie
Ben and fiancée Haver run a bakery and grocery. A mostly lost film, only seven minutes survive.
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A Small Town Idol
Title: A Small Town Idol
Character: Mary Brown
Released: February 13, 1921
Type: Movie
Sam, a young man in a small town, is accused of being a thief. Unable to prove his innocence--and not knowing that he's being framed by a local villain to keep him away from pretty young Mary, the town beauty whom the villain wants for himself--he leaves town and goes to Hollywood to become an actor. He eventually returns home to town as a star, but once again finds himself the victim of the town villain, who this time abducts sweet young Mary. Sam must use all his acting skills to track down the villain and save Mary.
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Down on the Farm
Title: Down on the Farm
Character: Herself - in Prologue
Released: April 17, 1920
Type: Movie
The day starts off as any normal day on Roach's farm, where Teddy, the farmhouse dog, is doing more productive work than everyone else combined. But the day changes when Roach's farmhand sees an opportunity to be the knight in shining armor to Louise, Roach's daughter, who he wants to marry.
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Hearts and Flowers
Title: Hearts and Flowers
Character: Prune Magnate's Daughter
Released: June 22, 1919
Type: Movie
A flirtatious hotel orchestra leader provokes conflict.
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Why Beaches Are Popular
Title: Why Beaches Are Popular
Character: Bathing Girl
Released: May 10, 1919
Type: Movie
This short was a promo piece for Mack Sennett's Yankee Doodle in Berlin
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Yankee Doodle in Berlin
Title: Yankee Doodle in Berlin
Character: Minor Role (uncredited)
Released: March 2, 1919
Type: Movie
Behind enemy lines, Captain Bob White disguises himself as a woman in order to fool members of the German High Command, including the Kaiser himself.
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It Pays to Exercise
Title: It Pays to Exercise
Character: Dental Assistant
Released: February 24, 1918
Type: Movie
short subject comedy - fun at the gym!
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'49–'17
Title: '49–'17
Character: Young Bee Adams
Released: October 15, 1917
Type: Movie
A judge who had taken part in the gold rush of 1849 hires an acting troupe to recreate the experience in this rather fanciful silent Western. The make-believe turns serious when a real gold mine is discovered nearby and a local girl is kidnapped by a nasty gambler.
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The Sultan's Wife
Title: The Sultan's Wife
Character: Harem Girl (uncredited/unconfirmed)
Released: September 29, 1917
Type: Movie
On a sailing trip, sweethearts Bobby and Gloria arrive in a very sinister-looking India, where an evil rajah attempts to force Gloria into his harem.
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Sunshine
Title: Sunshine
Released: May 6, 1916
Type: Movie
A 1916 short starring Jack Cooper, Hank Mann & Bobby Dunn.