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Edna Purviance
Purviance in 1923
Born	Olga Edna Purviance (1895-10-21)October 21, 1895 Paradise Valley, Nevada, U.S.
Died	January 13, 1958(1958-01-13) (aged 62) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Resting place	Grand View Memorial Park Cemetery
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1915–1927
Spouse	John Squire ​ ​(m. 1938; died 1945)​

Olga Edna Purviance (/pɜːrˈvaɪ.ns/; October 21, 1895 – January 13, 1958) was an American actress of the silent film era. She was the leading lady in many of Charlie Chaplin's early films and in a span of eight years, she appeared in over 30 films with him.

Life and career

1895–1913: Early life

Edna Purviance was born in October 21, 1895, in Paradise Valley, Nevada, to English immigrant Louisa Wright Davey and American vintner to the western mining camps Madison (Matt) Gates Purviance. When she was three, the family moved to Lovelock, Nevada, where they assumed ownership of the Singer Hotel. Her parents divorced in 1902, and her mother later married Robert Nurnberger, a German plumber. Growing up, Purviance was a talented pianist.

She left Lovelock in 1913 and moved in with her married sister Bessie while attending business college in San Francisco.

1914–1927: Film career

In 1915, Purviance was working as a stenographer in San Francisco when actor and director Charlie Chaplin was working on his second film with Essanay Studios, working out of Niles, California, 28 miles (45 km) southeast of San Francisco, in Southern Alameda County. He was looking for a leading lady for A Night Out.

"A Chaplin talent scout recognized potential in a pretty stenographer named Edna Purviance ... spotted sipping coffee at Tate's Café on Hill Street in Noe Valley."

"...Tate's Cafe on Hill Street. There she met Carl Strauss, in town scouting for a leading lady for the young Charlie Chaplin."

Chaplin arranged a meeting with her, but he was concerned that she might be too serious for comedic roles. Purviance still won the role.

Edna Purviance was so closely associated with Chaplin on screen that trade reviewers took exception when she was away. Columnist Julian Johnson, reporting on Chaplin's solo performance in One A.M., wrote: "Congratulations, Mr. Chaplin, on speaking your piece so nicely, but—come on back, Edna!" The noticeably close relationship extended to the actors' private lives: Chaplin and Purviance were romantically involved during the making of his Essanay, Mutual, and First National films of 1915 to 1917. The romance ended suddenly when Purviance read a newspaper report of Chaplin having married 16-year-old Mildred Harris.

Purviance appeared in 33 of Chaplin's productions, including the 1921 The Kid. Her last credited appearance in a Chaplin film, A Woman of Paris, was also her first leading role. The film was not a success and effectively ended Purviance's career. She appeared in two more films: Sea Gulls, also known as A Woman of the Sea (which Chaplin never released) and Éducation de Prince, a French film released in 1927.

Purviance was peripherally involved in a scandal. She and Mabel Normand were guests of millionaire oil broker Courtland Stark Dines (1889-1945) on New Year’s Day 1924. Mabel’s chauffeur, R. C. Greer, alias Joe Kelly, got into an argument with Dines, produced a revolver and shot him, not fatally. As a result some cities banned A Woman of Paris.

Between Purviance's last film in 1924 and her death in 1958, Chaplin kept her on the payroll at $1000 a month.

1927–1958: Retirement and later years

For more than 30 years afterward, Edna Purviance lived quietly outside Hollywood. Purviance married John Squire, a Pan-American Airlines pilot, in 1938. They remained married until his death in 1945.

Chaplin kept Purviance on his payroll. She received a small monthly salary from Chaplin's film company until she got married, and the payments resumed after her husband's death. She later played bit roles in Chaplin's last two American movies, Monsieur Verdoux and Limelight.

“How could I forget Edna?” Chaplin responded to an interviewer after her death. "She was with me when it all began."

In her posthumously published memoir, actress Georgia Hale, who played opposite Chaplin in The Gold Rush (1925), reported that Chaplin always spoke affectionately of Purviance. Hale relates Chaplin’s account of an incident during the silent film era, when Chaplin and Purvience—he in “an old sweatshirt” and she in “a cotton house dress”—stopped at the exclusive Riverside Inn “looking like hoboes.” The head waiter, alarmed at the couple's appearance, ushered them to the back of the restaurant:

He seated behind a large pillar. While we were scanning the menu, some of the customers recognized us. The word spread like wildfire. Back rushed the waiter, waving us to a nice table by the window, where we’d be visible to all his guests. But Edna remained seated and motioned to me to be seated… said “I’m so sorry, I thought you were just common people.” Edna looked at him and said sweetly, “We want to thank you for treating us like humble people. You have just paid us the highest compliment. That will be all. Please send us the waiter.”

Death

On January 13, 1958, Purviance died from throat cancer at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, aged 62. Her remains are interred at Grand View Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

In popular culture

She was portrayed by Penelope Ann Miller in the film Chaplin (1992) and by Katie Maguire in the film Madcap Mabel (2010).

In the TV series Peaky Blinders (series three, episode four), the character Tatiana Petrovna played by Gaite Jansen is said to resemble her.

Filmography

Short subjects

All short subjects directed by Charlie Chaplin.

Feature films

Footnotes

1. Wada, Linda. "How to pronounce Purviance". Edna Purviance's official site. Wada Works. Retrieved May 30, 2024.
2. "Madison Gates Purviance – Edna Purviance's father". EdnaPurviance.org.
3. "Purviance Family Lovelock, Nevada Home - Part Two".
4. "The Singer Hotel Brief Property HIstory".
5. ^ "Edna Purviance".
6. Toll, David W. (2002). The Complete Nevada Traveler: The Affectionate and Intimately Detailed Guidebook to the Most Interesting State in America. University of Nevada Press. p. 12. ISBN 0-940936-12-7.
7. Monush, Barry, ed. (2003). Screen World Presents the Encyclopedia of Hollywood Film Actors: From the silent era to 1965, Volume 1. Hal Leonard Corporation. p. 612. ISBN 1-55783-551-9.
8. "Charlie Chaplin and Edna Purviance Dates and Events". www.ednapurviance.org. Retrieved December 1, 2018.
9. "Nevadan Edna Purviance went from Silver State to silver screen". Las Vegas Review-Journal. May 13, 2014. Retrieved January 10, 2024.
10. Stein, Ruthe (April 10, 2009). "S.F.'s stories, style caught Hollywood's eye". CT Insider. Retrieved January 10, 2024.
11. "Chaplin at Essanay".
12. "WHITEMAN, Paul: Sweet and Low Down - NaxosDirect".
13. "Streetwise: Tait's".
14. "Silent Era : Home Video Reviews".
15. 37.7561202, -122.4211713
16. ^ "Reno Gazette-Journal from Reno, Nevada". November 21, 1999.
17. "Los Angeles Herald from Los Angeles, California". December 10, 1907.
18. Chaplin, Charlie (December 26, 2012). My Autobiography. Melville House. ISBN 978-1-61219-193-5.
19. Lynn, Kenneth Schuyler (January 22, 1997). Charlie Chaplin and His Times. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-80851-2.
20. Milton, Joyce (July 2014). Tramp: The Life of Charlie Chaplin. Open Road Media. ISBN 978-1-4976-5916-2.
21. This is not the way Purviance met Chaplin, according to Gerith von Ulm's Charlie Chaplin – King of Tragedy, pp. 90–91.
22. Julian Johnson, Photoplay, October 1916, p. 80.
23. Robinson, David (1986). Chaplin : his life and art. Collins. pp. 141, 219. ISBN 978-0-586-08544-8. Retrieved December 1, 2018.
24. ^ Powrie 2005, p. 95.
25. "LA BARA - Vintage Powder Room".
26. "100 Years Ago This Month: Historical events from January 2024". Dubois County Herald. January 4, 2024. Retrieved January 10, 2024.
27. "100 Years Ago This Month: Historical events from January 1924". Perrysburg Messenger Journal. January 2, 2024. Retrieved August 17, 2024.
28. ^ "Dines clip". Oakland Tribune. January 2, 1924. p. 1.
29. "BLAME JEALOUSY FOR DINES SHOOTING; Los Angeles Police Think the Chauffeur Was Infatuated with Miss Normand. SHE CONTRADICTS HIS STORY Breaks Down from Excitement and Goes to Hospital -- Dines Develops Pneumonia. BLAME JEALOUSY FOR DINES SHOOTING". The New York Times. January 3, 1924.
30. "Charlie's London: Chaplin's women – part two". August 13, 2012.
31. Eyman, 2023 p. 274: “…he paid Edna Purviance $100 a week…”
32. Toll, David W. (December 1994). "Edna Purviance: Nevada's Forgotten Movie Star". Nevada Magazine – via nevadaweb.com.
33. Kiernan, 1999 p. 79: See footnote no. 1
34. Hale, 1995 p. 79-80
35. "Edna Purviance". The Montreal Gazette. January 16, 1958. p. 35. Retrieved August 13, 2021.
36. ^ Ellenberger, Allan R. (2001). Celebrities in Los Angeles Cemeteries: A Directory. McFarland & Company Incorporated Pub. p. 104. ISBN 0-7864-0983-5.
37. Eyman, 2023 p. 47: “...Edna gradually became, in the words of actress Virginia Cherrill ‘a terrible alcoholic’”
38. ^ Neibaur 2012, p. 225.
39. ^ "Edna Purviance Filmography". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. American Film Institute. Archived from the original on October 3, 2019. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
40. ^ Neibaur 2012, p. 226.

Sources

• Eyman, Scott 2023. Charlie Chaplin vs. America: When Art, Sex and Politics Collided. Simon & Schuster, New York. ISBN 978-1-9821-7635-8
• Hale, Georgia 1995. Charlie Chaplin: Intimate Close-ups. The Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland. Heather Kiernan, editor. ISBN 1-57886-004-0
• Jacobs, Lewis. 1967. The Rise of the American Film: Experimental Cinema in America, 1921-1947. Teachers College Press, Teacher’s College, Columbia University, New York. Library of Congress Catalog Number: 68-25845
• Kiernan, Heather. 1999. Introduction to Charlie Chaplin: Intimate Close-ups. The Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland. Heather Kiernan, editor. ISBN 1-57886-004-0
• Neibaur, James L. (2012). Early Charlie Chaplin: The Artist as Apprentice at Keystone Studios. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-810-88242-3.
• Powrie, Phil (2005). Pierre Batcheff and Stardom in 1920s French Cinema. Edinburgh, Schotland: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-748-62960-2.

External links

• Edna Purviance at IMDb
• Edna Purviance—tribute and research site
• Edna Purviance at Then & Now
• Edna Purviance at Find a Grave

• 1895 births
• 1958 deaths
• 20th-century American actresses
• Actresses from Nevada
• American film actresses
• American people of English descent
• American silent film actresses
• Burials at Grand View Memorial Park Cemetery
• Deaths from throat cancer in California
• People from Humboldt County, Nevada
• Silent film comedians
• 20th-century American comedians
• People from Lovelock, Nevada
• Comedians from Nevada