[1] Mildred was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1890, the daughter of Thomas Bell and May Greene.
Her father, the city auditor (and a respected journalist), died of typhoid fever when she was 8.
By the early 1920s, she was living in Los Angeles with her mother, where she was working as an assistant film editor and script girl.
In 1921, she married Richard Johnston, an assistant director and production manager at Paramount.
She was also a founding member of the Blind Children's Center of Los Angeles.