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(Marie C. Armstrong)
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| 13 December 21 |
is born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Arthur W. Armstrong, a steel executive and one-time associate of industrial magnate Andrew Mellon. Her mother's maiden name is Debosque.
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| February 39 |
marries Chicago real estate man-turned-producer Benedict Earl Bogeaus in Newport, Connecticut. He's 34; she's 17.
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| September 40 |
goes from New York to Hollywood. She is heiress to the Armstrong coal and coke millions.
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| 41 |
remarries Bogeaus for sentimental reasons in Arizona
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| 3 June 41 |
her son, Geoffrey Forsythe, is born in Los Angeles
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| October 42 |
columnist Jimmy Fidler tells: "Mimi Forsythe, film-contracted by Gregory Ratoff, and currently getting a high-pressure build-up as an unwed eastern socialite, is really Mrs. Ben Bogeaus, wife of the president of General Service studios, and mama of a year-old-child."
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| August 43 |
columnist Louella Parsons reports that Oona O'Neil, Charlie Chaplin's bride, was on the set of The Girl from Leningrad, watching Mimi Forsythe, who plays the role she was to have had before she became Mrs. Chaplin..."
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| March 44 |
says about her husband: "He's Russian and French but he looks like a Syrian, with eyebrows like the devil. There's a bit of devil in him anyway, more than just in his eyebrows," she asserts. "We like a lot of the same things, traveling, working, seeing people. We fight a lot - wonderful screaming battles, I tell him what I think about his work, and he sues on to me about mine. Every so often, I make noises about a divorce, think of filing suits and so on. But Bogeaus is just as crazy as I am and I think it might be hard to find as good a match anywhere else!"
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| 5 July 44 |
is injured when the Santa Fe Chief, a fast streamlined passenger train, tears itself from the tracks and furrows its way into the high mountain plateau of northern Arizona. She suffers a broken wrist and possible internal injuries.
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| Early August 44 |
she and Bogeaus are reported giving their marriage another chance
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| August 44 |
leaves "the mansion of Benedict Bogeaus, movie producer, zipper inventor and her husband of several years. She said she'd sue for divorce on a terribly amicable basis."
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| September 44 |
Parsons notes her at the fights "the other night with Seymour Chotiner, attorney..."
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| October 44 |
columnist Jimmy Fidler asks "Wotzis anent Venita Varden (Mrs. Jack Oakie) and Mimi Forsythe trading left hooks at a party?..."
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| Mid-October 44 |
files for divorce from Bogeaus in Los Angeles. She claims mental cruelty and asks custody of their son, Geoffrey, 3.
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| 5 June 45 |
divorces Bogeaus after five years of marriage. She testifies he threatened to kill her if she left on a vacation. She claims "I am a great deal younger than Mr. Bogeaus and have an affinity for people my own age."
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| July 46 |
columnist Walter Winchell notes her "whispering with Guy McCandles..."
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| September 46 |
marries husband number two, Warren Leslie McCanless, son of a very well-known Kansas City family, in Kansas. He's 30; she's 24.
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| 3 November 46 |
becomes the widow of McCanless, who's killed instantly when his car runs into a telephone pole in Los Angeles
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| 20 November 47 |
announces she’ll marry Chicago auto dealer James Parnell Turner November 23
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| ? |
marries Turner
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| 1 August 49 |
files for divorce form Turner
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| 3 August 49 |
concerning her divorce, she's reported having used "a gal's prerogative by changing her mind and deciding they loved each other truly, after all"
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| 11 June 50 |
gets an interlocutory divorce decree from Turner in Los Angeles
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| 26 June 51 |
wins her final divorce decree from Turner in Los Angeles. Turner says they were reconciled after she won an interlocutory decree in June 1950. They lived together in a Chicago apartment in the same manner they did during 'the happiest days of their married life," he says. Mimi says they had occasional dates, but there was no real reconciliation. She had broken her leg in three places, she says, and was using a wheelchair at the time. She contends that a legal reconciliation would mean setting up housekeeping like any other married couple, but that her injury was proof she was unable to do that.
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| 17 August 52 |
as Marie Forsythe Turner, age 30, she is pronounced dead on arrival, "presumably of natural causes," on Sunday morning at Santa Monica Hospital. She was taken to the hospital from a hotel where she had been living for a short time with a maid. Relatives order a private post mortem examination.
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| 22 August 52 |
her funeral services take place at night in Santa Monica. The press reports that the "30-year-old steel heiress, socialite and actress, who had forsaken the glitter of the theater and society to live quietly here in recent years, died at her home four days ago. Her death did not become known, however, until it was disclosed in a funeral service announcement yesterday. She died of a blood ailment."
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| 25 August 52 |
columnist Dorothy Manners reports: "Mimi Forsythe must have had a premonition of how desperately ill she was. Just two days before she died she turned over the custody of her adored little four-year-old son to his father, Ben Bogeaus. Since their divorce - and during two subsequent marriages, the little boy had been with Mimi. She hadn't talked to Ben in several months when she unexpectedly called him and said: 'I want you to take little Ben now - and keep him.'"
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Sources:
The New York Times, Mansfield News-Journal, Nevada State Journal, Middletown Times Herald, Oakland Tribune, The Chronicle-Telegram, The Modesto Bee, Olean Times Herald, Burlington Daily Times-News, Long Beach Press-Independent, Long Beach Press-Independent, The Charleston Gazette, San Mateo Times, Albuquerque Journal, www.Ancestry.com |
Recommended Books:
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Links:
Filmography |
