Mildred Harris (November 29, 1901 – July 20, 1944) was an American stage, film, and vaudeville actress[1] during the early part of the 20th century.[2] She began her career in the film industry as a child actress at age 10. She was also the first wife of Charlie Chaplin.
She found the transition to sound films difficult, and her career slowed dramatically. She performed in vaudeville and burlesque, and at one point, she toured with comedian Phil Silvers. She was critically praised for her performance in the 1930 film adaptation of the Broadway musical No, No Nanette. In the 1936 Three Stooges comedy Movie Maniacs, she portrayed a film starlet who is startled by Curly Howard when he strikes a match on the sole of her foot.
Mildred Harris, c. 1920Mildred Harris Chaplin, 1920 (Motion Picture Studio Directory)
At age 16, Harris met actor Charlie Chaplin in mid-1918, dated, and she thought she was pregnant by him, but the pregnancy was found to be a false alarm. They married privately on October 23, 1918, in Los Angeles. She later became pregnant.[6] The couple quarreled about her contract with Louis B. Mayer and her career. Chaplin felt she was not his intellectual equal. Their child, Norman Spencer, died in July 1919, at age 3 days,[7][8] and the couple separated in Autumn 1919.
Chaplin moved to the Los Angeles Athletic Club. Harris believed a happy marriage was possible, but in 1920, she filed for divorce based on mental cruelty. Chaplin accused her of infidelity, and although he would not name her lover publicly, actress Alla Nazimova was suspected.[9] The divorce was granted in November 1920, with Harris receiving $100,000 [a] in settlement and some community property.[10]
In 1924, Harris married Everett Terrence McGovern. The union lasted until November 26, 1929, when Harris filed for divorce in Los Angeles on the grounds of desertion. The couple had one son, Everett Terrence McGovern, Jr., in 1925. Their son, Everett, died in 2014. In 1934, she married former football player William P. Fleckenstein in Asheville, North Carolina.[11] Fleckenstein owned a musical show in which he and Harris were performing at the time of their marriage.[1]
Death
Harris and Fleckenstein remained married until Harris's death on July 20, 1944, of pneumonia, following a major abdominal operation. She had been ill for three weeks.[2] She is interred in the Abbey of the Psalms Mausoleum at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles.[3]
Legacy
In 1960, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame posthumously was dedicated to Harris. It is located at 6307 Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, California.[12] Harris was played by actress Milla Jovovich in the 1992 biographical film Chaplin.[13]
^ ab"Mildred Harris Dies In West". St. Petersburg Times. Associated Press. July 21, 1944. Retrieved November 29, 2021. ... actress in the silent film days, and first wife of Comedian Charles Spencer Chaplin, died yesterday of pneumonia which followed a major abdominal operation....
