Sally’s recollections of those earliest studio years were vivid and tender: she remembered perching on Charlie Chaplin’s knee between takes and the terror of a runaway stagecoach during filming. By her teens, she had transformed from a cherubic child actor into a glamorous contract player at Fox Studios, appearing in nearly two dozen films and making a fleeting but memorable appearance in F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise—a masterpiece now regarded as one of the greatest silent films ever produced.
Her ascent, however, was shadowed by tragedy. In 1927, while filming her two-reel comedy Gentlemen Prefer Scotch, word reached her that her father, a respected state senator, had died under scandalous circumstances. The same year, she was chosen as one of the coveted WAMPAS Baby Stars—an honor reserved for Hollywood’s most promising ingénues—alongside future icons whose fame would endure long after the silent era faded.
At the height of her screen appeal, Phipps made the bold decision to leave Hollywood for New York City. There she reinvented herself as a society darling and headline-maker, her name often appearing in the columns of Walter Winchell and other Broadway gossip writers. She performed in two Broadway productions, starred in a Vitaphone short, and married (and soon divorced) one of the heirs to the Gimbel department store fortune. Restless and uncontainable, she embarked on a global odyssey that carried her through Europe, India, and beyond before returning to New York.
Settling into a quieter rhythm, she married again, raised two children, and later made her home in Hawaii. In 1938, she made the newspapers once more when columnist Earl Wilson profiled her under the wry headline, “WAMPAS Ex-Baby Lives on WPA $23 — And Likes It,” chronicling her work for the Federal Theatre Project during the Great Depression. Her final public recognition came in the form of the Rosemary Award, a fitting tribute to a woman whose life and career embodied both remembrance and resilience—a star who never truly faded, but simply changed stages.
Even after her death in 1978, Sally Phipps’s legend endures through photographs—glamorous studio portraits, playful pinups, and rare candid shots from her private albums. Her son, Robert L. Harned, independently wrote a book devoted to her remarkable journey which features more than 150 images chronicling her evolution from silent film cherub to Broadway headliner and beyond. This is the kind of book I wish everyone did for their silent screen parents. Her legacy is preserved, documented, and available for everyone to review. The book is available on Amazon.com through the link below.
