Dimny Lee

born: 03 November 1898
Duluth, Minnesota,
United States of America
died: 12 April 1992
Sunnyvale, California,
United States of America
(heart failure, age 93)

American actress of the 1920s. Some sources and articles, including some 1925 Standard Casting Directory type lists and the entry for "Get Out and Get Under" in The Harold Lloyd Encyclopedia, spell her name as "Dimmy," but "Dimny" (with an "n") was the spelling she used in both her private and professional lives.
Her parents were Ada Althea (née Heath, 1873-1952) and Paul Phillips (1873-1941), who married in 1896 in Iowa. They split sometime in the 1910s, with Paul remarrying to Pearl Duke Miller (1873-1950) in the 1920s. Virginia/Dimny had one sister, Marrion (Phillips) Anderson (1897-1979). The family moved to California in 1910, where Virginia/Dimny attended Hollywood High School, afterwards embarking on her film career.
She was married twice, first to auto salesman Dave M. Vaughan (1894-1958) on 26 May 1923; Dimny filed for and was granted a divorce in late 1926. On 6 December 1929, she married Joseph Harlan Walton (1898-1956), later a building contractor. They quickly relocated to Walton's hometown of Dubuque, Iowa (Dimny and her family also resided in Iowa, where the parents previously married, for a time after the girls' Minnesota births). There, they welcomed a son, Joseph Harlan Walton, Jr. (1931-2016), but the Walton family soon returned to California. After Joseph, Sr.'s death in 1956, Dimny Lee Walton went into business for herself as an interior decorator; she spent 25 years as an active member of the American Society of Interior Designers. She is buried alongside her husband at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.
Real name: Virginia Lee Phillips
Films listed on this page: complete Hal Roach filmography.

8


1920
Get Out And Get Under
[?]

1922
Newly Rich
[?]

1925
Isn't Life Terrible?
[?]

1925
Madame Sans Jane
[?]

1925
His Wooden Wedding
[?]

1926
Mama Behave
Cafe Riskae patron

1926
The Nickel-Hopper
[?]

1927
Anything Once
[?]

Acknowledgements:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M9G9-16F (1900 Census)
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:ML7H-VWH (1910 Census)
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MH7M-3YG (1920 Census)
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K8N3-WGQ (1923 marriage)
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K8NY-3GQ (1929 marriage)
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XMJQ-ZD6 (1930 Census)
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K97J-37D (1940 Census)
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6XGS-SSR8 (1950 Census)
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VPSQ-K2R (CA Death Index)
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6418751 (Find a Grave)
https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/380375341/ (Los Angeles Times, 27 Jan 1924)
https://archive.org/details/sim_los-angeles-times_the-los-angeles-times_1924-01-27_43_0/page/n76/mode/1up (Los Angeles Times, 27 Jan 1924)
https://digitalcollections.oscars.org/digital/collection/p15759coll35/search/searchterm/dimny (The Standard Casting Directory, 1923-24 issues)
https://digitalcollections.oscars.org/digital/collection/p15759coll35/id/3804/rec/6 (The Standard Casting Directory, Nov 1924)
https://archive.org/details/standardcastingd03unse/page/n180/mode/1up?q=dimny+dimmy (The Standard Casting Directory, 1925 issues)
https://digitalcollections.oscars.org/digital/collection/p15759coll35/id/4848/rec/4 (The Standard Casting Directory, Aug 1925)
https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/380346472/ (Los Angeles Times, 17 Sep 1926)
https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/380610286/ (Los Angeles Times, 10 Nov 1926)
https://time.com/archive/6805147/national-affairs-cash-on-the-whang-bang/ (TIME, 01 Apr 1957)
https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/387204292/ (Los Angeles Times, 01 May 1981)
https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/177305949/ (Los Angeles Times, 08 May 1992)
https://www.newspapers.com/search/results/?keyword=%22dimny+lee%22&sort=paper-date-asc (Newspapers.com, search)
https://archive.org/search?tab=fulltext&query=%22dimny+lee%22&sort=date (Internet Archive, search)
The Harold Lloyd Encyclopedia by Annette D'Agostino Lloyd (book)
Robert Demoss (cast listings for several films)
Jesse Brisson (bio notes and research)

This page was last updated on: 20 January 2026