Geneva Mitchell

Geneva Doris Mitchell (February 3, 1908 – March 10, 1949) was an American actress born in Medaryville, Indiana, who built a career spanning Broadway and Hollywood film. Her mother, Verna Mitchell Foss, had herself performed in the Ziegfeld Follies, and Mitchell entered the entertainment industry at the age of twelve as a chorus girl.

Mitchell's stage career extended from 1920 to 1927 and included appearances in several notable Broadway productions. Her credits encompassed the Ziegfeld Follies of 1918, the Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic of 1919, and The Girl in the Spotlight. She also appeared in the musicals Yours Truly and Take the Air. At seventeen, she performed in the choruses of Sally and the Ziegfeld Follies of 1921.

Her personal life attracted public attention during her Broadway years. In March 1922, at the age of fourteen, she married Robert Savage, the son of a millionaire, in Milford, Connecticut. Five days after the wedding, she returned his ring, stating she was too young to be a wife. Later, on October 15, 1935, she married financier Harry J. Bryant in Yuma, Arizona.

Mitchell transitioned to film after signing a contract with Warner Brothers in October 1929, followed by a contract with Columbia Pictures in June 1934. She became particularly associated with the Three Stooges short films of 1935, appearing in Restless Knights, Pop Goes the Easel, and Hoi Polloi. In Hoi Polloi, she played a dance instructor whose encounter with a bumblebee on her bare back causes a series of startled reactions that the Stooges proceed to mimic. That footage was later reused in the 1941 short In the Sweet Pie and Pie.

Poor health reduced Mitchell's output significantly after 1936, and she appeared in only one film during the 1940s. She died in Los Angeles, California on March 10, 1949, at the age of forty-one.