Virginia Cherrill ✝

Virginia Cherrill (April 12, 1908 – November 14, 1996) was an American actress best known for her role as the blind flower girl in Charlie Chaplin's City Lights (1931). Virginia Cherrill was born on a farm in rural Carthage, Illinois to James E. and Blanche (née Wilcox) Cherrill. She attended schools in Chicago and Kenosha, Wisconsin. She initially did not plan on a film career, but her friendship with Sue Carol (who later married Alan Ladd) eventually drew her to Hollywood. She had been voted "Queen of the Artists Ball" in Chicago in 1925 and was invited to perform on the variety stage by Florenz Ziegfeld, an offer she declined. She found her first marriage unsatisfying, and through her friendship with Sue Carol, decamped to California where she met William Randolph Hearst, went to Hollywood for a visit and met Charlie Chaplin when he sat next to her at a boxing match; however, Chaplin wrote in his autobiography that she approached him on the beach wanting him to cast her in his film while acknowledging that he had met her before.