Trivia

One of her friends was Noël Coward, who encouraged her to be a writer, advice which she took.

Daughter of J. Borden Harriman, a New York banker, and Florence Jaffray "Daisy" Hurst Harriman, a suffragette and diplomat (United States Ambassador to Norway July 1, 1937 - April 22, 1940, appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt). While her father died young, in 1914, age 50, her mother outlived her by more than a decade, dying in 1967, age 97.

She married her first and only husband, Henry Potter Russell, a New York City stockbroker, in France, in 1918, immediately after World War I. She remained in France for a time, pursuing stage acting, while he returned to New YorkThey divorced in 1925, after having two children together, Phyllis Russell and Charles Howland Russell.