Marie Dressler
Encyclopedia
Marie Dressler was a Canadian-American
actress and Depression-era
film star. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress
in 1930-31 in Min and Bill
.
, to parents Alexander Rudolph Koerber (who was Austria
n), a former officer in the Crimean War and Anna Henderson, a musician. Her father was a music teacher in Cobourg and the organist at St. Peter's Church, where as a child, Marie would sing and assist in operating the organ. Her first acting appearance was as Cupid
at age five in a church theatrical performance in Lindsay, Ontario
. Dressler left home at fourteen and began her acting career as a chorus girl with the Nevada Stock Company when she was fourteen. Her first job paid her $8 a week. It was at this time that Dressler adopted the name of an aunt as her stage name. Dressler's sister Bonita, five years older, left home at about the same time. Bonita also worked in the opera company.
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
. In vaudeville she was known for her full-figured body—fashionable at the time—and had buxom contemporaries such as her friends Lillian Russell
, Fay Templeton
, May Irwin
and Trixie Friganza
. She used the services of 'body sculptor to the stars' Sylvia of Hollywood
to keep herself at a steady weight. Dressler appeared in a play called Robber of the Rhine which was written by Maurice Barrymore
. Barrymore gave Dressler some positive advice about furthering her career and she later acknowledged his help. Years later she would appear with his sons, Lionel
and John
, in motion pictures.
Dressler's first marriage was to American George Hoeppert. According to Dressler's testimony, she married Hoeppert in Elizabeth, New Jersey
in 1899, although Kennedy puts the marriage date as May 6, 1894, and a divorce early in 1896. In 1907, Dressler met Maine business man James 'Sunny Jim' Henry Dalton, who would become her companion until his death in 1921. According to Dalton, the two were married in Europe in 1908. However, Dressler later learned that the "minister" who married them in Monte Carlo was actually a local man paid by Dalton to stage a fake wedding. Dalton's first wife Lizzie claimed that he had not consented to a divorce or been served divorce papers, while Dalton claimed to have divorced her in 1905. By 1921, Dalton had became an invalid due to degenerated kidneys and would watch her from the wings in a wheel-chair. After his death, Dressler was planning for Dalton to be buried as her husband, but Lizzie Dalton had Dalton's body returned to be buried in the Dalton family plot. Her first marriage to Hoeppert gave Dressler American citizenship, which was useful later in life, when American immigration rules meant permits were needed to work in the United States, and Dressler had to appear before an immigration hearing.
During the early 1900s, Dressler became a major vaudeville star, although she had appeared on stage in New York City earlier, for example, in 1492 Up To Date
(1895). In 1902, she met fellow Canadian Mack Sennett
and helped him get a job in the theater. For a time, Dressler had her own theatre troupe, which performed "Miss Prinnt" in cities of the American north-east. Dressler performed in London, England from 1907 to 1909 before returning to New York. In addition to her stage work, Dressler recorded for Edison Records
in 1909 and 1910.
Dressler continued to work in the theater during the 1910s, and toured the United States during World War I, selling Liberty Bonds and entertaining the American Expeditionary Forces. American GIs in France named both a street and a cow after Dressler. The cow was killed, leading to "Marie Dressler: Killed In Line of Duty" headlines, to which Dressler quipped "I had a hard time convincing people that the report of my death had been greatly exaggerated."
. The film was to be the first full-length, six-reel motion picture comedy. According to Sennett, a prospective budget of $200,000 meant that he needed "a star whose name and face meant something to every possible theatre-goer in the United States and the British Empire." The movie was based on Dressler's hit Tillie's Nightmare, a choice credited either to Dressler or to a Keystone studio employee. Dressler herself claims to have cast Charles Chaplin in the movie as her leading man
, and was "proud to have had a part in giving him his first big chance." Instead of his recently invented Tramp
character, Chaplin played a villainous rogue, and beautiful top screen comedienne Mabel Normand
also starred in the movie, billed under Dressler. Dressler appeared in two more "Tillie" sequels and other comedies until 1918, when she returned to vaudeville
.
In 1919, during the Actors' Equity strike in New York City
, the Chorus Equity Association
was formed and voted Dressler its first president. Dressler was blacklisted by the theater production companies due to her strong stance. Dressler found it difficult to find work during the 1920s. She left New York for Hollywood in search of work in films.
In 1927, Frances Marion
, an MGM screenwriter, came to Dressler's rescue. Dressler had shown great kindness to Marion during the filming of Tillie Wakes Up in 1917, and in return, Marion used her influence with MGM's production chief Irving Thalberg
to return Dressler to the screen. Her first MGM feature was The Callahans and the Murphys (1927), a rowdy silent comedy co-starring Dressler (as Ma Callahan) with another former Mack Sennett comedienne, Polly Moran
, written by Marion.
The film was initially a success, but the portrayal of Irish characters caused a protest in the Irish World newspaper, protests by the American Irish Vigilance Committee, and pickets outside the film's New York theatre. The film was first cut by MGM in an attempt to appease the Irish community, then eventually pulled from release after Cardinal Dougherty of the diocese of Philadelphia called MGM president Nicholas Schenck. It was not shown again, and the negative and prints may have been destroyed.
The film, while it brought her to Hollywood, did not establish Dressler. Her next appearance was a minor part in the First National film Breakfast at Sunrise. She appeared again with Moran in Bringing Up Father
, another film written by Marion. She appeared in an early color film, The Joy Girl
. Dressler returned to MGM in 1928's The Patsy
in a winning portrayal playing the fluttery mother to star Marion Davies
and Jane Winton
.
Hollywood was converting from silent films, but "talkies" presented no problems for Dressler, whose rumbling voice could handle both sympathetic scenes and snappy comebacks (she's the wisecracking stage actress in Chasing Rainbows and the dubious matron in Rudy Vallee
's Vagabond Lover). Early in 1930, Dressler joined Edward Everett Horton
's theater troupe in L.A.
to play a princess in Ferenc Molnar's The Swan. But after one week, she quit the troupe. She proceeded to leave Horton flat, much to his indignation.
Frances Marion persuaded Thalberg to give Dressler the role of Marthy, the old harridan who welcomes Greta Garbo
home after the search for her father, in the 1930 film Anna Christie
. Garbo and the critics were impressed by Dressler's acting ability, and so was MGM, which quickly signed Dressler to a $500-per-week contract.
A robust, full-bodied woman of very plain features, Dressler went on to act in comic films which 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 at age 65. In addition to her comedic genius and her natural elegance, Dressler demonstrated her considerable talents by taking on serious roles. For her starring portrayal in Min and Bill
, co-starring Wallace Beery
, she won the 1930-31 Academy Award for Best Actress
(the eligibility years were staggered at that time). Dressler was nominated again for Best Actress for her 1932 starring role in 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 largely unknown young actor named Richard Cromwell
, in the lead opposite her. This break helped launch his career.
Dressler followed these successes with more hits in 1933, including the comedy Dinner at Eight
, in which she played an aging but vivacious former stage actress. Dressler had a memorable bit with Jean Harlow
in the film:
Following the release of that film, Dressler appeared on the cover of Time
magazine, in its August 7, 1933, issue. MGM held a huge birthday party for Dressler in 1933, broadcast live via radio.
Her newly regenerated career came to an abrupt end when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer
in 1934. 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.
Dressler appeared in more than 40 films, and achieved her greatest successes in talking pictures made during the last years of her life. Always seeing herself as physically unattractive, she wrote an autobiography titled, The Life Story of an Ugly Duckling.
. Dressler is interred in a crypt in the Great Mausoleum in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California
. Dressler left an estate worth $310,000, the bulk left to her sister Bonita. Dressler left her 1931 automobile and $35,000 in her will to her maid of twenty years, Mamie Cox, and $15,000 to Cox's husband Jerry, who had served as Dressler's butler for four years. The two used the funds to open the Cocoanut Grove night club in Savannah, Georgia
in 1936, named after the night club in Los Angeles
.
.
For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Marie Dressler has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
at 1731 Vine Street
, added in 1960.
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, by Matthew Kennedy
, titled Marie Dressler: A Biography (1999), is the more comprehensive source; however, only Lee had access to the diary of an intimate friend of Dressler's, the silent film actress Claire Dubrey. At least one of these biographers speculatively claims Dressler bore a son around 1896 or that even Dubrey was Dressler's biological daughter hence their close relationship.
Canada Post
, as part of its "Canada in Hollywood" series, issued a postage stamp on June 30, 2008 to honour Marie Dressler.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
actress and Depression-era
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
film star. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
in 1930-31 in Min and Bill
Min and Bill
Min and Bill is a 1930 American comedy-drama film starring Marie Dressler and Wallace Beery and based on Lorna Moon's novel Dark Star, adapted by Frances Marion and Marion Jackson....
.
Early life and stage career
Dressler was born Leila Marie Koerber in Cobourg, OntarioCobourg, Ontario
Cobourg is a town in the Canadian province of Ontario, located in Southern Ontario 95 km east of Toronto. It is the largest town in Northumberland County. Its nearest neighbour is Port Hope, to the west. It is located along Highway 401 and the former Highway 2...
, to parents Alexander Rudolph Koerber (who was Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n), a former officer in the Crimean War and Anna Henderson, a musician. Her father was a music teacher in Cobourg and the organist at St. Peter's Church, where as a child, Marie would sing and assist in operating the organ. Her first acting appearance was as Cupid
Cupid
In Roman mythology, Cupid is the god of desire, affection and erotic love. He is the son of the goddess Venus and the god Mars. His Greek counterpart is Eros...
at age five in a church theatrical performance in Lindsay, Ontario
Lindsay, Ontario
Lindsay is a community of 19,361 people on the Scugog River in the Kawartha Lakes region of south-eastern Ontario, Canada. It is approximately west of Peterborough...
. Dressler left home at fourteen and began her acting career as a chorus girl with the Nevada Stock Company when she was fourteen. Her first job paid her $8 a week. It was at this time that Dressler adopted the name of an aunt as her stage name. Dressler's sister Bonita, five years older, left home at about the same time. Bonita also worked in the opera company.
In 1892 she made her debut on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
. At first she hoped to make a career of singing light opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
, but then gravitated to vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
. In vaudeville she was known for her full-figured body—fashionable at the time—and had buxom contemporaries such as her friends Lillian Russell
Lillian Russell
Lillian Russell was an American actress and singer. She became one of the most famous actresses and singers of the late 19th century and early 20th century, known for her beauty and style, as well as for her voice and stage presence.Russell was born in Iowa but raised in Chicago...
, Fay Templeton
Fay Templeton
Fay Templeton was an American stage actress.Her parents were actors/vaudevillians and she followed in their footsteps, making her Broadway debut in 1900. She continued to appear there until 1934...
, May Irwin
May Irwin
May Irwin , was a Canadian actress, singer and star of vaudeville.-Early life and career:Born at Whitby, Ontario 1862 as Georgina May Campbell, her father, Robert E. Campbell of Whitby, Ontario, died when she was 13 years old and her stage-minded mother, Jane Draper, in need of money, encouraged...
and Trixie Friganza
Trixie Friganza
Trixie Friganza , born Delia O’Callaghan, began her career as an operetta soubrette, working her way from the chorus to starring in musical comedies to having her own feature act on the vaudeville circuit....
. She used the services of 'body sculptor to the stars' Sylvia of Hollywood
Sylvia of Hollywood
Sylvia Ulback , known as Sylvia of Hollywood, was an early Hollywood fitness guru. Between 1926 and 1932, "Madame Sylvia", as she was also known, specialised in keeping movie stars camera-ready through stringent massage, diet and exercise.-Early life:Sylvia was born Symnove Johanne Waaler in Oslo ...
to keep herself at a steady weight. Dressler appeared in a play called Robber of the Rhine which was written by Maurice Barrymore
Maurice Barrymore
Herbert Arthur Chamberlayne Blythe —stage name Maurice Barrymore — was the patriarch of the Barrymore acting family and great-grandfather of actress Drew Barrymore.-Early life:...
. Barrymore gave Dressler some positive advice about furthering her career and she later acknowledged his help. Years later she would appear with his sons, Lionel
Lionel Barrymore
Lionel Barrymore was an American actor of stage, screen and radio. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul...
and John
John Barrymore
John Sidney Blyth , better known as John Barrymore, was an acclaimed American actor. He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III...
, in motion pictures.
Dressler's first marriage was to American George Hoeppert. According to Dressler's testimony, she married Hoeppert in Elizabeth, New Jersey
Elizabeth, New Jersey
Elizabeth is a city in Union County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city had a total population of 124,969, retaining its ranking as New Jersey's fourth largest city with an increase of 4,401 residents from its 2000 Census population of 120,568...
in 1899, although Kennedy puts the marriage date as May 6, 1894, and a divorce early in 1896. In 1907, Dressler met Maine business man James 'Sunny Jim' Henry Dalton, who would become her companion until his death in 1921. According to Dalton, the two were married in Europe in 1908. However, Dressler later learned that the "minister" who married them in Monte Carlo was actually a local man paid by Dalton to stage a fake wedding. Dalton's first wife Lizzie claimed that he had not consented to a divorce or been served divorce papers, while Dalton claimed to have divorced her in 1905. By 1921, Dalton had became an invalid due to degenerated kidneys and would watch her from the wings in a wheel-chair. After his death, Dressler was planning for Dalton to be buried as her husband, but Lizzie Dalton had Dalton's body returned to be buried in the Dalton family plot. Her first marriage to Hoeppert gave Dressler American citizenship, which was useful later in life, when American immigration rules meant permits were needed to work in the United States, and Dressler had to appear before an immigration hearing.
During the early 1900s, Dressler became a major vaudeville star, although she had appeared on stage in New York City earlier, for example, in 1492 Up To Date
1492 Up To Date
1492 Up To Date is a burlesque, created in observance of the quadricentennial of Columbus's finding the New World. The libretto is by R. A. Barnet, with music by Carl Pflueger. It was presented by Edward E. Rice's "Surprise Party."It was originally written for and presented by the Boston...
(1895). In 1902, she met fellow Canadian Mack Sennett
Mack Sennett
Mack Sennett was a Canadian-born American director and was known as the innovator of slapstick comedy in film. During his lifetime he was known at times as the "King of Comedy"...
and helped him get a job in the theater. For a time, Dressler had her own theatre troupe, which performed "Miss Prinnt" in cities of the American north-east. Dressler performed in London, England from 1907 to 1909 before returning to New York. In addition to her stage work, Dressler recorded for Edison Records
Edison Records
Edison Records was one of the earliest record labels which pioneered recorded sound and was an important player in the early recording industry.- Early phonographs before commercial mass produced records :...
in 1909 and 1910.
Dressler continued to work in the theater during the 1910s, and toured the United States during World War I, selling Liberty Bonds and entertaining the American Expeditionary Forces. American GIs in France named both a street and a cow after Dressler. The cow was killed, leading to "Marie Dressler: Killed In Line of Duty" headlines, to which Dressler quipped "I had a hard time convincing people that the report of my death had been greatly exaggerated."
Film career
Dressler had appeared in two shorts as herself, but her first role in a film came in 1914, at the age of 44. After Mack Sennett became the owner of his namesake motion picture studio, he convinced Dressler to star in his highly successful 1914 silent film Tillie's Punctured RomanceTillie's Punctured Romance (1914 film)
Tillie's Punctured Romance is the first feature-length comedy film from Keystone Film Company and the Christie Film Company, produced in 1914. A silent film directed by Mack Sennett, the film stars Marie Dressler, Mabel Normand, Charles Chaplin, and the Keystone Cops...
. The film was to be the first full-length, six-reel motion picture comedy. According to Sennett, a prospective budget of $200,000 meant that he needed "a star whose name and face meant something to every possible theatre-goer in the United States and the British Empire." The movie was based on Dressler's hit Tillie's Nightmare, a choice credited either to Dressler or to a Keystone studio employee. Dressler herself claims to have cast Charles Chaplin in the movie as her leading man
Leading man
Leading man or leading gentleman is an informal term for the actor who plays a love interest to the leading actress in a film or play. A leading man is usually an all rounder; capable of singing, dancing, and acting at a professional level, but never outshining his female co-star...
, and was "proud to have had a part in giving him his first big chance." Instead of his recently invented Tramp
The Tramp
The Tramp, also known as The Little Tramp was Charlie Chaplin's most memorable on-screen character, a recognized icon of world cinema most dominant during the silent film era....
character, Chaplin played a villainous rogue, and beautiful top screen comedienne Mabel Normand
Mabel Normand
Mabel Normand was an American silent film comedienne and actress. She was a popular star of Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios and is noted as one of the film industry's first female screenwriters, producers and directors...
also starred in the movie, billed under Dressler. Dressler appeared in two more "Tillie" sequels and other comedies until 1918, when she returned to vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
.
In 1919, during the Actors' Equity strike in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, the Chorus Equity Association
Chorus Equity Association
The Chorus Equity Association was created on August 12, 1919 in New York City, New York during the strike by the Actors' Equity Association. After Florenz Ziegfeld revealed that he was joining the Producing Managers' Association, with the help of a substantial donation from superstar actress and...
was formed and voted Dressler its first president. Dressler was blacklisted by the theater production companies due to her strong stance. Dressler found it difficult to find work during the 1920s. She left New York for Hollywood in search of work in films.
In 1927, Frances Marion
Frances Marion
Frances Marion was an American journalist, author, and screenwriter often cited as the most renowned female screenwriter of the twentieth century alongside June Mathis and Anita Loos.-Career:...
, an MGM screenwriter, came to Dressler's rescue. Dressler had shown great kindness to Marion during the filming of Tillie Wakes Up in 1917, and in return, Marion used her influence with MGM's production chief Irving Thalberg
Irving Thalberg
Irving Grant Thalberg was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and his extraordinary ability to select the right scripts, choose the right actors, gather the best production staff and make very profitable films.-Life and...
to return Dressler to the screen. Her first MGM feature was The Callahans and the Murphys (1927), a rowdy silent comedy co-starring Dressler (as Ma Callahan) with another former Mack Sennett comedienne, Polly Moran
Polly Moran
Polly Moran was an American actress and comedian.Born in Chicago, Illinois, Moran started out in vaudeville, and widely toured North America, as well as various other locations that included Europe and South Africa...
, written by Marion.
The film was initially a success, but the portrayal of Irish characters caused a protest in the Irish World newspaper, protests by the American Irish Vigilance Committee, and pickets outside the film's New York theatre. The film was first cut by MGM in an attempt to appease the Irish community, then eventually pulled from release after Cardinal Dougherty of the diocese of Philadelphia called MGM president Nicholas Schenck. It was not shown again, and the negative and prints may have been destroyed.
The film, while it brought her to Hollywood, did not establish Dressler. Her next appearance was a minor part in the First National film Breakfast at Sunrise. She appeared again with Moran in Bringing Up Father
Bringing up Father
Bringing Up Father was an influential American comic strip created by cartoonist George McManus . Distributed by King Features Syndicate, it ran for 87 years, from January 12, 1913 to May 28, 2000....
, another film written by Marion. She appeared in an early color film, The Joy Girl
The Joy Girl
The Joy Girl is an American silent comedy film starring Olive Borden, and based on the novel of the same name by May Edginton.-Plot:...
. Dressler returned to MGM in 1928's The Patsy
The Patsy (1928 film)
The Patsy is a 1928 silent comedy/drama film directed by King Vidor, produced and starring Marion Davies for her Cosmopolitan Productions, and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer...
in a winning portrayal playing the fluttery mother to star Marion Davies
Marion Davies
Marion Davies was an American film actress. Davies is best remembered for her relationship with newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, as her high-profile social life often obscured her professional career....
and Jane Winton
Jane Winton
Jane Winton was a movieactress, dancer, opera soprano, writer, and painter. She was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.During the 1920s she began her stage career as a dancer with the Ziegfeld Follies.-Film actress:...
.
Hollywood was converting from silent films, but "talkies" presented no problems for Dressler, whose rumbling voice could handle both sympathetic scenes and snappy comebacks (she's the wisecracking stage actress in Chasing Rainbows and the dubious matron in Rudy Vallee
Rudy Vallée
Rudy Vallée was an American singer, actor, bandleader, and entertainer.-Early life:Born Hubert Prior Vallée in Island Pond, Vermont, the son of Charles Alphonse and Catherine Lynch Vallée...
's Vagabond Lover). Early in 1930, Dressler joined Edward Everett Horton
Edward Everett Horton
Edward Everett Horton was an American character actor. He had a long career in film, theater, radio, television and voice work for animated cartoons. He is especially known for his work in the films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.-Early life:Horton was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Isabella...
's theater troupe in L.A.
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
to play a princess in Ferenc Molnar's The Swan. But after one week, she quit the troupe. She proceeded to leave Horton flat, much to his indignation.
Frances Marion persuaded Thalberg to give Dressler the role of Marthy, the old harridan who welcomes Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo , born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of Garbo's films were sensational hits, and all but three were profitable...
home after the search for her father, in the 1930 film Anna Christie
Anna Christie (1930 film)
Anna Christie is a 1930 MGM Pre-Code drama film adaptation of the 1922 play by Eugene O'Neill. It was adapted by Frances Marion, produced and directed by Clarence Brown with Paul Bern and Irving Thalberg as co-producers. The cinematography was by William H...
. Garbo and the critics were impressed by Dressler's acting ability, and so was MGM, which quickly signed Dressler to a $500-per-week contract.
A robust, full-bodied woman of very plain features, Dressler went on to act in comic films which 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 at age 65. In addition to her comedic genius and her natural elegance, Dressler demonstrated her considerable talents by taking on serious roles. For her starring portrayal in Min and Bill
Min and Bill
Min and Bill is a 1930 American comedy-drama film starring Marie Dressler and Wallace Beery and based on Lorna Moon's novel Dark Star, adapted by Frances Marion and Marion Jackson....
, co-starring Wallace Beery
Wallace Beery
Wallace Fitzgerald Beery was an American actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Bill in Min and Bill opposite Marie Dressler, as Long John Silver in Treasure Island, as Pancho Villa in Viva Villa!, and his titular role in The Champ, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...
, she won the 1930-31 Academy Award for Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
(the eligibility years were staggered at that time). Dressler was nominated again for Best Actress for her 1932 starring role in 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 largely unknown young actor named Richard Cromwell
Richard Cromwell (actor)
Richard Cromwell, born LeRoy Melvin Radabaugh , was an American actor. His family and friends called him Roy, though he was also professionally known and signed autographs as Dick Cromwell. Cromwell's career was at its pinnacle with his work in Jezebel with Bette Davis and Henry Fonda and again...
, in the lead opposite her. This break helped launch his career.
Dressler followed these successes with more hits in 1933, including the comedy Dinner at Eight
Dinner at Eight (film)
Dinner at Eight is a Pre-Code 1933 comedy of manners/drama produced by MGM Studios. The film was adapted to the screen by Frances Marion and Herman J. Mankiewicz from the play by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber, with additional dialogue supplied by Donald Ogden Stewart. Produced by David O...
, in which she played an aging but vivacious former stage actress. Dressler had a memorable bit with Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow was an American film actress and sex symbol of the 1930s. Known as the "Blonde Bombshell" and the "Platinum Blonde" , Harlow was ranked as one of the greatest movie stars of all time by the American Film Institute...
in the film:
Harlow: Do you know, machinery is going to take the place of every profession?
Dressler: My dear, that is something you need never worry about.
Following the release of that film, Dressler appeared on the cover of Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine, in its August 7, 1933, issue. MGM held a huge birthday party for Dressler in 1933, broadcast live via radio.
Her newly regenerated career came to an abrupt end when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
in 1934. MGM head Louis B. Mayer
Louis B. Mayer
Louis Burt Mayer born Lazar Meir was an American film producer. He is generally cited as the creator of the "star system" within Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in its golden years. Known always as Louis B...
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.
Dressler appeared in more than 40 films, and achieved her greatest successes in talking pictures made during the last years of her life. Always seeing herself as physically unattractive, she wrote an autobiography titled, The Life Story of an Ugly Duckling.
Death
Dressler died at the age of 65 on Saturday July 28, 1934 in Santa Barbara, CaliforniaSanta Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
. Dressler is interred in a crypt in the Great Mausoleum in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California
Glendale, California
Glendale is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the city population is 191,719, down from 194,973 at the 2000 census. making it the third largest city in Los Angeles County and the 22nd largest city in the state of California...
. Dressler left an estate worth $310,000, the bulk left to her sister Bonita. Dressler left her 1931 automobile and $35,000 in her will to her maid of twenty years, Mamie Cox, and $15,000 to Cox's husband Jerry, who had served as Dressler's butler for four years. The two used the funds to open the Cocoanut Grove night club in Savannah, Georgia
Savannah, Georgia
Savannah is the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. Established in 1733, the city of Savannah was the colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. Today Savannah is an industrial center and an important...
in 1936, named after the night club in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
.
Legacy
Dressler's birth home in Cobourg, Ontario is known as "Marie Dressler House" and is open to the public. The home was converted to a restaurant in 1937 and operated as a restaurant until 1989, when it was damaged by fire. It was restored but did not open again as a restaurant. It was the office of the Cobourg Chamber of Commerce until its conversion to its current use as a museum about Dressler and as a visitor information office for Cobourg. Each year, the Marie Dressler Foundation Vintage Film Festival is held, with screenings in Cobourg and in Port Hope, OntarioPort Hope, Ontario
Port Hope is a municipality in Southern Ontario, Canada, about east of Toronto and about west of Kingston. It is located at the mouth of the Ganaraska River on the north shore of Lake Ontario, in the west end of Northumberland County...
.
For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Marie Dressler has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
at 1731 Vine Street
Vine Street
Vine is a street in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California that runs north-south from Melrose Avenue up past Hollywood Boulevard. The intersection of Hollywood and Vine was once a symbol of Hollywood itself...
, added in 1960.
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, by Matthew Kennedy
Matthew Kennedy (author)
Matthew Kennedy is an American author, film historian, and anthropologist.-Biography:Kennedy was born in Redding, California, attended Shasta High School, and the University of California, Los Angeles, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in theater arts in 1979...
, titled Marie Dressler: A Biography (1999), is the more comprehensive source; however, only Lee had access to the diary of an intimate friend of Dressler's, the silent film actress Claire Dubrey. At least one of these biographers speculatively claims Dressler bore a son around 1896 or that even Dubrey was Dressler's biological daughter hence their close relationship.
Canada Post
Canada Post stamp releases (2005-2009)
In the latter half of the decade, Canada Post continued to issue a large number of stamps with different designs and themes. One of the key changes in the decade was that Canada Post issued series of stamps on a yearly basis. An example is the 400th Anniversary of the French Settlement in North...
, as part of its "Canada in Hollywood" series, issued a postage stamp on June 30, 2008 to honour Marie Dressler.
Filmography
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1909 | Marie Dressler | Herself | |
| 1910 | Actors' Fund Field Day | Herself | |
| 1914 | Tillie's Punctured Romance Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914 film) Tillie's Punctured Romance is the first feature-length comedy film from Keystone Film Company and the Christie Film Company, produced in 1914. A silent film directed by Mack Sennett, the film stars Marie Dressler, Mabel Normand, Charles Chaplin, and the Keystone Cops... |
Tillie Banks, Country Girl | With Charlie Chaplin Charlie Chaplin Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I... and Mabel Normand Mabel Normand Mabel Normand was an American silent film comedienne and actress. She was a popular star of Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios and is noted as one of the film industry's first female screenwriters, producers and directors... |
| 1915 | Tillie's Tomato Surprise | Tillie Banks | |
| 1917 | Fired | Short subject Writer and director |
|
| 1917 | |||
| 1917 | Tillie Wakes Up | Tillie Tinkelpaw | |
| 1918 | |||
| 1918 | |||
| 1927 | Breakfast at Sunrise | Queen | |
| 1927 | Mrs. Heath | ||
| 1927 | Mrs. Callahan | ||
| 1928 | Ma Harrington | ||
| 1928 | Bringing Up Father Bringing up Father Bringing Up Father was an influential American comic strip created by cartoonist George McManus . Distributed by King Features Syndicate, it ran for 87 years, from January 12, 1913 to May 28, 2000.... |
Annie Moore | |
| 1929 | Voice of Hollywood | Herself | Uncredited |
| 1929 | Mrs. Ethel Bertha Whitehall | ||
| 1929 | Dangerous Females | ||
| 1929 | Herself | ||
| 1929 | Mrs. Hart | ||
| 1930 | Herself | Uncredited | |
| 1930 | Screen Snapshots Series 9, No. 14 | Herself, at Premiere | |
| 1930 | The March of Time | Herself, Old Timer Sequence | |
| 1930 | Anna Christie Anna Christie (1930 film) Anna Christie is a 1930 MGM Pre-Code drama film adaptation of the 1922 play by Eugene O'Neill. It was adapted by Frances Marion, produced and directed by Clarence Brown with Paul Bern and Irving Thalberg as co-producers. The cinematography was by William H... |
Marthy Owens | |
| 1930 | Derelict | ||
| 1930 | Let Us Be Gay | Mrs. 'Bouccy' Bouccicault | |
| 1930 | Caught Short | Marie Jones | |
| 1930 | One Romantic Night One Romantic Night One Romantic Night is the title given to the first sound film version of Ferenc Molnár's play The Swan, and was silent screen star Lillian Gish's talking film debut. She starred as Princess Alexandra, with Conrad Nagel as the tutor who falls in love with her, and Rod La Rocque as Crown Prince Albert... |
Princess Beatrice | |
| 1930 | Hettie Brown | ||
| 1930 | Chasing Rainbows Chasing Rainbows Chasing Rainbows is a 1930 American romantic musical film directed by Charles Reisner, starring Bessie Love and Charles King, and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.- Film preservation :... |
Bonnie | |
| 1930 | Min and Bill Min and Bill Min and Bill is a 1930 American comedy-drama film starring Marie Dressler and Wallace Beery and based on Lorna Moon's novel Dark Star, adapted by Frances Marion and Marion Jackson.... |
Min Divot, Innkeeper | Academy Award for Best Actress Academy Award for Best Actress Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry... |
| 1931 | Jackie Cooper's Birthday Party | Herself | |
| 1931 | Politics | Hattie Burns | |
| 1931 | Reducing | Marie Truffle | |
| 1932 | Prosperity Prosperity (film) Prosperity is a 1932 American comedy-drama film starring Marie Dressler and Polly Moran. The two leading actresses play longtime matriarchal ladies comically sparring off each other, and trying to control their intertwined lives.-Plot:... |
Maggie Warren | |
| 1932 | Emma Emma (1932 film) Emma 1932 is a feature film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer starring Marie Dressler and directed by Clarence Brown.Inventor Frederick Smith's wife dies during the birth of their fourth baby, Ronnie, leaving the family in the care of their faithful housekeeper Emma... |
Emma Thatcher Smith | Nominated—Academy Award for Best Actress Academy Award for Best Actress Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry... |
| 1933 | Going Hollywood Going Hollywood Going Hollywood is an American black-and-white musical film directed by Raoul Walsh, starring Marion Davies and Bing Crosby, written by Donald Ogden Stewart, and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film tells the story of Sylvia , a French teacher at an all-girl school, who wants to find love... |
Herself, Premiere Clip | Uncredited |
| 1933 | Dinner at Eight | Carlotta Vance | |
| 1933 | Tugboat Annie Tugboat Annie For the 1957 syndicated television series, see The Adventures of Tugboat Annie.Tugboat Annie is a 1933 movie starring Marie Dressler and Wallace Beery as a comically quarrelsome middle-aged couple who operate a tugboat... |
Annie Brennan | |
| 1933 | Christopher Bean | Abby | |
Quotes
- "If ants are such busy workers, how come they find time to go to all the picnics?"
- "You're only as good as your last picture"
See also
- List of oldest and youngest Academy Award winners and nominees
- Other Canadian pioneers in early HollywoodCanadian pioneers in early HollywoodMotion pictures have been a part of the culture of Canada since the beginning.-History:Around 1910, the East Coast filmmakers began to take advantage of California winters and after Nestor Studios, run by Canadian Al Christie, built the first permanent movie studio in Hollywood a number of the...
Further reading
- Sturtevant, Victoria. A Great Big Girl Like Me: The Films of Marie Dressler (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009) 194 pp. isbn 978-0-252-07622-0
External links
- Marie Dressler cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization ProjectCylinder Preservation and Digitization ProjectThe Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project is a free digital collection maintained by the University of California, Santa Barbara Libraries with streaming and downloadable versions of over 10,000 phonograph cylinders manufactured between 1893 and the mid 1920s.- History :The project began...
at the University of California, Santa BarbaraUniversity of California, Santa BarbaraThe University of California, Santa Barbara, commonly known as UCSB or UC Santa Barbara, is a public research university and one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system. The main campus is located on a site in Goleta, California, from Santa Barbara and northwest of Los...
Library - Web site dedicated to Marie Dressler
- Marie Dressler Web site
- Photographs and literature
- Collected Works of Marie Dressler at the Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
- Marie Dressler dressed in Edwardian style and fashion, 1908 (Univ. of Washington, Sayre collection)
- Marie Dressler reading newspaper in 1911 play Tillie's Nightmare (Univ. of Washington, Sayre collection)
- Marie Dressler in a still of scene from Tillie the Scrub Lady 1917 (Univ. of Washington, Sayre collection)
- 1922 passport photo; Marie Dressler