Olga[1][note 1] Edna Purviance (/pɜːrˈvaɪ.ns/;[2] October 21, 1895 – January 13, 1958) was an American actress of the silent film era.
[citation needed] She left Lovelock in 1913 and moved in with her married sister Bessie while attending business college in San Francisco.
"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.
"[23] 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.
[24] The romance ended suddenly when Purviance read a newspaper report of Chaplin having married 16-year-old Mildred Harris.
Mabel’s chauffeur,[30] R. C. Greer, alias Joe Kelly,[29] got into an argument with Dines, produced a revolver and shot him, not fatally.
She received a small monthly salary from Chaplin's film company until she got married, and the payments resumed after her husband's death.
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 [Edna and myself] behind a large pillar.
Please send us the waiter.”[35]On January 13, 1958, Purviance died from throat cancer at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, aged 62.