Marie Dressler
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| Marie Dressler | |||||||
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 1909 portrait of Marie Dressler |
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| Born | Leila Marie Koerber November 9, 1868 Cobourg, Ontario, Canada |
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| Died | July 28, 1934 (aged 65) Santa Barbara, California, U.S. |
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Marie Dressler (November 9, 1868 – July 28, 1934) was an Academy Award-winning Canadian actress.
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[edit] Biography
Born Leila Marie Koerber in Cobourg, Ontario to parents Alexander Rudolph Koerber (who was Austrian) and Anna Henderson. She was a rather overweight child and spent a lot of time developing the defense mechanisms at which many overweight children become skilled. The young Dressler was able to hone her talents to make other people laugh, and began her acting career when she was fourteen. In 1892 she made her debut on Broadway. At first she hoped to make a career of singing light opera, but then gravitated to vaudeville.
[edit] Career
During the early 1900s, she became a major vaudeville star. In 1902, she met fellow Canadian, Mack Sennett, and helped him get a job in the theater. In addition to her stage work, Dressler recorded for Edison Records in 1909 and 1910. After Sennett became the owner of his namesake motion picture studio, he convinced Dressler to star in his highly successful 1914 film Tillie's Punctured Romance opposite Sennett’s newly discovered actor, Charlie Chaplin. Dressler appeared in two more "Tillie" sequels plus other comedies until 1918 when she returned to work in vaudeville.
In 1919, during the Actors' Equity strike in New York City, the Chorus Equity Association was formed and voted Dressler its first president.
In 1927, Dressler was secretly blacklisted by the theater production companies due to her strong stance in a labor dispute. It would turn out to be another Canadian who gave her the opportunity to return to motion pictures, MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayer who called her "the most adored person ever to set foot in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio."
In 1929, once again, Marie Dressler found herself out of work, so she joined Edward Everett Horton's theater troup in L.A.. However, soon after this, Dressler yet again found herself in demand, due to the arrival of talkies and the need for stage trained performers. She the proceeded to leave Horton flat, much to his indignation.
After several supporting roles in unsuccessful talkies, Frances Marion, an MGM screenwriter, and personal friend of Irving Thalberg, came to the rescue. Dressler had shown great kindness to Marion during the filming of Tillie Wakes Up in 1917, and in return, Marion used her influence over Thalberg to get Dressler a number of supporting roles, such as that of a queen in Breakfast at Sunrise, and that of a snappy maid in Chasing Rainbows. She was then established as a funny supporting woman. Marion persuaded Thalberg to give Dressler the role of Marthy in Anna Christie, the old harridan who welcomes Greta Garbo home after the search for her father. Garbo was impressed by Dressler's acting ability, so were the critics, and so was MGM, who quickly signed Dressler to a five-hundred dollar-a-week contract
A robust, full-bodied woman of very plain features, Dressler’s ensuing comedy films were very popular with the movie-going public and an equally lucrative investment for MGM. Although past sixty years of age, she quickly became Hollywood’s number one box office attraction and stayed on top until her death. In addition to her comedic genius and her natural elegance, she also demonstrated her considerable talents by taking on serious roles. For her starring portrayal in Min and Bill, co-starring Wallace Beery, she won the 1931 Academy Award for Best Actress. Dressler was nominated again for Best Actress for her 1932 role as Emma. With that film, Dressler demonstrated her profound generosity to other performers. Dressler personally insisted that her studio bosses cast a friend of hers, a then largely unknown young actor, Richard Cromwell, in the lead opposite her. It was a break that helped launch his career.
Dressler followed these successes with more hits in 1933 (like the comedy Dinner at Eight, in which she played an aging and poor former stage actress) and made the cover of the August 7, 1933 issue of Time magazine. However, her career came to an abrupt end when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. MGM head Louis B. Mayer learned of Dressler's illness from her doctor and asked that she not be told. To keep her home, he ordered her not to travel on her vacation because he wanted to put her in a new film. Dressler was furious but complied.
In all, Dressler appeared in more than 40 films but only achieved superstardom near the end of her life. Always seeing herself as physically unattractive, she wrote an autobiography, The Life Story of an Ugly Duckling.
[edit] Death
Marie Dressler died in Santa Barbara, California and is interred in a crypt in the Great Mausoleum in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
[edit] Legacy
She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1731 Vine Street. Each year the Marie Dressler Film Festival is held in her home town of Cobourg, Ontario.
In the late 1990s, two biographies of Dressler were published. One was entitled: Marie Dressler: The Unlikeliest Star by Ontario resident and writer Betty Lee. The other was by Matthew Kennedy, and is the more comprehensive source except that only Lee had access to the diary of an intimate friend of Dressler's.
Canada Post Corporation, as part of its Canada in Hollywood Series, will issue a stamp on June 30, 2008 to honour Marie Dressler.
[edit] Filmography and awards
| Year | Film | Role | Other notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1910 | Actors' Fund Field Day | Herself | |
| 1914 | Tillie's Punctured Romance | Tillie Banks, Country Girl | with Mabel Normand and Charles Chaplin |
| 1915 | Tillie's Tomato Surprise | Tillie Banks | |
| 1917 | Fired | comedy short written and directed by Dressler | |
| The Scrub Lady | |||
| Tillie Wakes Up | Tillie Tinkelpaw | ||
| 1918 | The Red Cross Nurse | ||
| The Agonies of Agnes | |||
| 1927 | Breakfast at Sunrise | Queen | |
| The Joy Girl | Mrs. Heath | ||
| The Callahans and the Murphys | Mrs. Callahan | ||
| 1928 | The Patsy | Ma Harrington | with Marion Davies |
| Bringing Up Father | Annie Moore | ||
| 1929 | Voice of Hollywood | Herself | uncredited |
| The Vagabond Lover | Mrs. Ethel Bertha Whitehall | ||
| Dangerous Females | |||
| The Hollywood Revue of 1929 | Herself | with Joan Crawford, Lionel Barrymore, Marion Davies, John Gilbert, Buster Keaton, Norma Shearer, Stan Laurel, and Oliver Hardy |
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| The Divine Lady | Mrs. Hart | ||
| 1930 | The Voice of Hollywood No. 14 | Herself | uncredited |
| Screen Snapshots Series 9, No. 14 | Herself, at Premiere | ||
| Min and Bill | Min Divot, Innkeeper | Academy Award for Best Actress | |
| The March of Time | Herself, Old Timer Sequence | ||
| Anna Christie | Marthy Owens | with Greta Garbo | |
| Derelict | |||
| Let Us Be Gay | Mrs. 'Bouccy' Bouccicault | ||
| Caught Short | Marie Jones | ||
| One Romantic Night | Princess Beatrice | with Lillian Gish | |
| The Girl Said No | Hettie Brown | ||
| Chasing Rainbows | Bonnie | ||
| 1931 | Jackie Cooper's Birthday Party | Herself | |
| Politics | Hattie Burns | ||
| Reducing | Marie Truffle | ||
| 1932 | Prosperity | Maggie Warren | |
| Emma | Emma Thatcher Smith | Nominated - Academy Award for Best Actress | |
| 1933 | Going Hollywood | Herself, Premiere Clip | uncredited |
| Dinner at Eight | Carlotta Vance | with John Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, Lionel Barrymore, and Billie Burke | |
| Tugboat Annie | Annie Brennan | with Wallace Beery, Robert Young, and Maureen O'Sullivan | |
| Christopher Bean | Abby |
| Awards | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Norma Shearer for The Divorcee |
Academy Award for Best Actress 1931 for Min and Bill |
Succeeded by Helen Hayes for The Sin of Madelon Claudet |
[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Marie Dressler at the Internet Broadway Database
- Marie Dressler at the Internet Movie Database
- Marie Dressler cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.
- Web site dedicated to Marie Dressler
- Marie Dressler Web site
- Marie Dressler at Find A Grave
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| Persondata | |
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| NAME | Dressler, Marie |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Koerber, Leila Marie |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Actress |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 9, 1868 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Cobourg, Ontario, Canada |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 28, 1934 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Santa Barbara, California, U.S. |
