Tweet Searching for Phyllis Haver

What a bizarro poem by Frost ... wherever did you find it? I've never seen it before....

The Visionary Eye, by philosopher-mathmetician-genius Jacob Bronowski, a collection of essays on art & literature.

Thanks for the stills, Bruce. In Battle of the Sexes, Phyllis managed a near-impossible feat, to infuse a D.W. Griffith picture with some honest-to-goodness sex appeal!
The film has some surface similarities with Citizen Kane: Wealthy guy is mesmerised by "cheap blonde" and sets her up in an apartment for trysts, where she pleases him by playing the piano (among other things). We get a glimpse of the sheet music on her piano, one song is titled "Rose of My Bud"...

Your Office Scandal still makes me all the more eager to see it — Phyllis duking it out with Margaret Livingston!

Not meaning to be too picky, but the song is "Rose in the bud". It's pretty obscure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_fXZWQMS4I

the song is "Rose in the bud". It's pretty obscure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_fXZWQMS4I" target="_blank" target="_blank

Thanks for the correction, and for the song — sure sounds like something that would be right down the sentimental D.W.'s alley!

Thanks for the stills, Bruce. In Battle of the Sexes, Phyllis managed a near-impossible feat, to infuse a D.W. Griffith picture with some honest-to-goodness sex appeal!
The film has some surface similarities with Citizen Kane: Wealthy guy is mesmerised by "cheap blonde" and sets her up in an apartment for trysts, where she pleases him by playing the piano (among other things). We get a glimpse of the sheet music on her piano, one song is titled "Rose of My Bud"...

Your Office Scandal still makes me all the more eager to see it — Phyllis duking it out with Margaret Livingston!

Not meaning to be too picky, but the song is "Rose in the bud". It's pretty obscure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_fXZWQMS4I" target="_blank" target="_blank

I did track it down for the score we did on the Image DVD, so you're hearing it (though we played it a little faster than Carmen Hill approaches it...). But her playing of Rose in the Bud is nothing compared to her earlier playing of the piano a la Jerry Lee Lewis, which is one of my favorite bits from that film.

Here's an article that ties Haver's suicide to the death of Mack Sennett the preceding week.



Considering that Haver had been inactive in show business for nearly 30 years and didn't make a dent in talkies, she seems to have gotten a lot of attention at the end.

But her playing of Rose in the Bud is nothing compared to her earlier playing of the piano a la Jerry Lee Lewis, which is one of my favorite bits from that film.

I'll bet you had to resist the temptation to use "Great Balls of Fire" in that scene!

On my next viewing of Battle of the Sexes, I'll pay special attention to the piano scenes.

Rollo,

If you haven't seen it, Phyllis is especially delightful in FIG LEAVES. She is much more prominent in this movie than WHAT PRICE GLORY? Appearing throughout the picture. Not just in a couple of scenes. How about her brief cameo in DON JUAN? That's another very memorable sequence.

Here's an article that ties Haver's suicide to the death of Mack Sennett the preceding week.

Thanks for that.

Since she was known to be a movie and theatre goer throughout her life, I'd like to have known what she made of Sunset Blvd. if she ever saw it. Would she have agreed with Marion Davies that "None of us floozies was ever that zonked"?

Rollo,

If you haven't seen it, Phyllis is especially delightful in FIG LEAVES. She is much more prominent in this movie than WHAT PRICE GLORY? Appearing throughout the picture. Not just in a couple of scenes. How about her brief cameo in DON JUAN? That's another very memorable sequence.

I've seen all of those, and yes, she's a delight as "Temptation" (good typecasting!) in Fig Leaves. On the other hand, though her role in What Price Glory may be brief, she certainly makes it memorable.

How nice if Fox could see fit to give us these and others of their Hawks and Walsh films, to follow up the Ford and Murnau/Borzage box sets.

[Christopher Jacobs]

What a bizarro poem by Frost ... wherever did you find it? I've never seen it before....

The Visionary Eye, by philosopher-mathmetician-genius Jacob Bronowski, a collection of essays on art & literature.

I remember having to read that poem in a high school English class back in the early 70s. Just getting into classic movies at the same time, as a teenager I found it quite touching and a nice complement to Kevin Brownlow's vivid eye-witness accounts of the silent film era in THE PARADE'S GONE BY and the contemporary reviews reprinted in George Pratt's SPELLBOUND IN DARKNESS, both of which I was also reading about then.

How about her brief cameo in DON JUAN? That's another very memorable sequence.

Goodness, missed that one entirely! Of course, if she was anywhere near that hunka-burnin'-love Estelle Taylor, she'd had to have been nude to catch my attention.

OK, here is the sequence, or most of it on TCM-CFU.

http://fan.tcm.com/_John-Barrymore-Cham ... 66470.html

I remember having to read that poem in a high school English class back in the early 70s. Just getting into classic movies at the same time, as a teenager I found it quite touching and a nice complement to Kevin Brownlow's vivid eye-witness accounts of the silent film era in THE PARADE'S GONE BY and the contemporary reviews reprinted in George Pratt's SPELLBOUND IN DARKNESS, both of which I was also reading about then.

Growing up in Maine, all we ever got of Frost in High school in the 60s was his "New England" stuff. It wasn't until I was deep into my doctoral program on Modern American/British Lit that I realized just how many writers were not included in "the canon" and how much good stuff there was from writers were were in "the canon" that was pretty much unknown.

Actually a touch of Norma Desmond .... Miss Haver in her mansion, surrounded by enlarged pictures from her movie days.

Ooo nice - where did this photo come from ???

Found it in an issue of Photoplay while browsing through the fantastic collection of that mag on archive org. (http://archive.org/search.php?query=photoplay) Unfortunately I didn't think to note down the issue's year or number!

Found it - it was in the April 1928 edition. From the number of mentions she gets, looks like Phyllis was quite the flavour of the month at the time. I hadn't realised 'Chicago' had (deservedly) received such good reviews at the time.

She might be another candidate for the 'comebacks that never happened' thread - I've seen her mentioned in a lot of 'where are they now' type of articles from the 40s and 50s, along with claims that she refused several comeback offers. It would be interesting to know how concrete those were.

She might be another candidate for the 'comebacks that never happened' thread - I've seen her mentioned in a lot of 'where are they now' type of articles from the 40s and 50s, along with claims that she refused several comeback offers. It would be interesting to know how concrete those were.

Although her split with Hollywood seems to have been quite definitive, it's certainly possible, in fact very likely considering what a high profile name she'd been. Reminds me of another actress who got lucky and married a rich guy: Grace Kelly. And we know that she did get comeback offers, from Hitchcock at least - but as with Phyllis, there was no pressing need to return to work - and, I guess, the "muse" had left them.

Phyllis’s own story, from How I broke into the movies: Signed autobiographies by sixty famous screen stars, edited by Hal C Herman. Originally published in 1928, this is evidently from a later edition.



Since the text is barely legible, I've transcribed it:

How I Broke Into the Movies
By PHYLLIS HAVER

I DON’T know whether the fact I was born in Kansas is responsible for my entrance into Motion pictures—perhaps it was. For like many other Kansans my parents deserted their native state in favor of California when I was but a youngster. Once in California I was at least in prospect for the films—for living where the pictures are made is half the battle.

When I came to the West I was Phyllis O’Haver. When I entered the films I became Miss Haver, merely dropping the ”O” which goes in front of so many good old Irish names. Yes, I’m Irish and proud of it.

I attended grammar school in Los Angeles, later entering Manual Arts High School, of that city, where I was busy absorbing Latin, geometry, algebra and other popular high school subjects, when the urge struck me to enter pictures. It was at Manual Arts that I met Marie Prevost. We entered pictures together and ever since have been very intimate friends.

I began my motion picture career by riding a street car early each morning many miles across the city to the Mack Sennett studios where I was one of Sennett’s galaxy of bathing beauties. Marie Prevost also was one of that number as was Gloria Swanson.

I slapsticked in the comedies for a year or more—and then tried a fling as a feature comedienne. At first my success was only mediocre—many times I became very discouraged and was about to give it up as a bad job but always there was that urge to try, try again. And I always did.

Although I was successful to a certain degree, reviewers having spoken kindly of my work in several feature productions up to the time of ”What Price Glory”. I shall always count my role as Shanghai Mabel in that picture as the turning point in my career.

Funny thing, too—I almost turned that role down. Often producers had said to me, ”Phyllis, this is only a bit, but see what you can do with it. I am sure you can make something of the part.” When the Fox studios called me over to talk about the part of Shanghai Mabel this remark, in substance, was repeated. I was told the part was colorful, but that of course it was a bit.

I had heard this so much this was the last ”straw”. It came just at a time when I was about to sign a long term contract with the De Mille Studio to play featured roles. But I thought a lot about the part—studied its possibilities—and finally decided to take it. And am glad I did, I most certainly am. True enough that role was the turning point.

Since that time I have played many roles which I have enjoyed immensely including ”The Way of All Flesh”, ”Chicago”, ”Sal of Singapore”, ”The Battle of the Sexes”, ”The Shady Lady”, ”The Office Scandal” and ”Murder.”

But motion pictures are a riddle—you don’t know just exactly how you happened into them—you don’t know just exactly why you stay—but there’s a fascination about picture work that cannot be denied. Every minute of my time in the films has been thoroughly enjoyable—and if I had it to do all over again I’d do it exactly the same way.

In April of 1929 I married William Seeman of New York, and immediately retired from the screen.

Though attributed to Haver, it's very possible that this was written by the editor based on an interview with her. One indication is the glaring mistake in the list of films: "Murder." I assume "Thunder" was meant. (Unless it should come to light that Haver had a hitherto unknown bit part in the early Hitchcock talkie!)

If Haver actually wrote any of that it was given a heavy going over by an editor. I'm not saying she was incapable or ignorant but that is a very polished piece of writing with some rather pretentious features-
Quote: I had heard this so much this was the last ”straw” Unquote. Who but a pedantic editor would ever put "Straw" in quotes like that?

Yeah, at least it would make slightly more sense to put the quotes around "the last straw" instead of just that one word.

It might be that using quotation marks on expressions or slang remarks was more common in old days. On a recent re-watch of Steamboat Bill, Jr. I noticed this on an intertitle, Ernest Torrence bawling out Buster:

"I'm trying to teach
you to run it — —
not 'wreck' it."

Ring Lardner's classic short story Some Like Them Cold has the heroine using quotes around every fifth word or so! Maybe he regarded this is a typically female trait.

Two more for the road.

Sheet music for the aforementioned "Rose in the Bud":



And another in the popular series "Mislabeled ebay offers":

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Phyllis-Haver-ONE-8x10-bxw-photo-photograph-101-/370604225937?pt=Art_Photo_Images&hash=item5649bbb591#ht_583wt_1012

This is of course not Phyllis but her pal Marie Prevost.

A couple of recent finds:

1) A quite marvelous still from the 1919 Sennett short The Foolish Age, directed by F. Richard Jones (A big, big tip o' the hat to Turpinutz of SilentComedians.com for this one):



Phyllis is at the organ, Chester Conklin is conducting, and the formidable choir, L-R: James Finlayson, Louise Fazenda, Ben Turpin, Charlie Lynn aka Heinie Conklin, Paddy McGuire and unidentified gent.

A close-up of Phyllis' sheet music:



Fast-forward to 35 years later and Phyllis' last known media appearance: "This Is Your Life: Mack Sennett", 1954.



L-R: Harold Lloyd, Phyllis, Mack, Sally Eilers and Jack Mulhall.

A late friend of mine enjoyed recalling the time he went out to the Motion Picture Country Home in the late 1950s to see Mack Sennett. As he was arriving, an older blonde woman was just leaving. He went in to see Mack, and had a nice visit. Mack signed an autograph for my friend and told him that it had been a good day, since his old friend Phyllis Haver had been in to see him just before my friend arrived.

So near, yet so far!

Rob

Such a great beauty in the '30s, Sally Eilers still looks much better than her companions in the above '50s photo. I've gone out of way to watch every picture shown on TCM that includes her, but most of them have been such low-budget loosers, that my admiration has been severely tested. She deserved better.

Such a great beauty in the '30s, Sally Eilers still looks much better than her companions in the above '50s photo.

As someone who visited her twice in the early 1970s, I'm sorry to say that was most definitely no longer the case in the years following this photo. Apparently she had been a lifelong heavy smoker and drinker, so by the time I saw her she was a mess. And that is putting it charitably.