Marie Dressler: The Unlikeliest Star

by Betty Lee

" She was homely, overweight, and over the hill, but there was a time when Marie Dressler outdrew such cinema sex symbols as Garbo, Dietrich, and Harlow. To movie audiences suffering the hardships of the Great Depression, she was Everywoman, and in the early 1930s her charming mixture of pathos and comedy packed movie theaters everywhere. In the early days of the century, Dressler was constantly in the headlines. She took up the cause of the "ponies" in the chorus lines, earning them better pay and benefits. She played in productions organized to raise money for the women's suffrage movement. And during World War I she claimed she sold more liberty bonds than any other individual in the United States. Dressler was an astute observer of public mood and taste. When she was lucky enough to find work in the newly minted Hollywood talkies, she grabbed the brass ring with fierce enthusiasm, even making three films in the year before her death, when she was so sick she had to rest between scenes on a sofa just out of camera range. The two-hundred-pound actress's remarkable stage presence captivated audiences even though her roles were not Hollywood beauties. She played tough, practical characters such as the old wharf rat in Anna Christie (1930), the waterfront innkeeper in Min and Bill (1931)―for which she won the Academy Award for best actress―the aging housekeeper in Emma (1932), and the title role in Tugboat Annie (1933). She spoke honestly to her audiences, and troubled people in the comforting darkness of the Depression-era movie theaters embraced her as one of themselves.

Genres: Biography

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1

Reviews

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

My ancestor was an actress/ chorus girl who sang light opera, vaudeville and musical comedy during Broadway's Golden Age from the late 19th to early 20th Century. As children we heard names like the Barrymores, the Shuberts, Belasco, William Farnum, Tyrone Power, Sr., and, above all Ouida and Basil Rathbone. Along with those intriguing Hollywood names came curiosity, coupled with embarrassment and sadness from the stigma of having a child left behind to be raised by others.

While dad's grandma, Gladys Earlcott, was growing up, attending school, studying music, training and doing a bit in Yiddish Theater in lower Manhattan, Marie Dressler had already been working her way to the U.S. with a touring opera company from Canada. Gladys met Marie Dressler back in the gaslight theater days downtown on lower Broadway. She performed in theaters all over Manhattan, indeed all over the country.

Marie's career blossomed on Broadway. She got a home on the beach in Bayside, N.Y. so she could relax when she wasn't working. She had a house in Chappaqua for a time and a farm in Vermont.

When the First World War broke out ticket sales were slow on Broadway so Marie worked for 7 years selling war bonds. She became a friend of FDR's.

Like my great grandmother, Marie was active in Actors Equity. Marie was proud of getting better pay for chorus girls.

Socialites Anne Morgan and Anne Vanderbilt supported Marie's work. She enjoyed holding court with the 400 in New York and. Newport, Rhode Island. One of her friend's mansion is a condominium that overlooks Bailey's Beach to this day.

A young reporter who had interviewed Marie decades earlier, named Frances Marion, became Irving Thalbergs' go-to script doctor and one of the most successful writers in Hollywood. When she moved west, Marie's Broadway show TILLIE'S NIGHTMARE was made into a film called TILLIE'S PUNCTURED ROMANCE co-starring Charlie Chaplin, Mabel Normand and the Keystone Cops. To continue to help her friend, Marion wrote MIN AND BILL for which Marie and won the Oscar for Best Actress. Her star grew and she became top box office in the early 1930's.

Marie became ill and underwent controversial serum transfusion therapy to fight her cancer, paid for by Louis B. Mayer. As Marie's illness progressed, she was to have a couch nearby on set and not work more than three hours a day. The studio threw a huge birthday party for Marie and all of Hollywood showed up.

Given the desperation of the depression, Marie's later dramatic films touched the hearts of millions. Marie made her last films knowing that she has dying. Treatments were not successful. She put her affairs in order and passed at her dream home over looking the Pacific.

I read Marie's biography to get to know my great grandmother. It was recommended by a friend who's a very well-read student of Hollywood History. She said that this was better than both of Marie's ghost written autobiographies. Gladys Earlcott was approximately nine years younger than Marie. Earlcott's death notice states that she had small parts in all of Marie's films. She was her double. Late in Marie's life, this book names a different double. Marie traveled a lot so it would be interesting to know how much Gladys did. She had other work in legitimate theater in Los Angeles and on tour so Marie was not her sole employer.

Marie and Gladys' friend, Broadway director and choreographer George Marion, played Greta Garbo's father in ANNA CHRISTIE. It's widely believed that Dressler stole the picture.

An acquaintance who has worked 60 years in Hollywood asked director George Cukor about Marie and he said that he let her, "do her thing," she was marvelous.

Marie's performance in DINNER AT EIGHT shows how naturally funny she was. She had a marvelous life memorizing lines, making and wearing costumes, dancing, traveling and entertaining others. I like to think that like Marie, Gladys had a fun life, too. She also became sick with cancer and died five years after Marie in 1939.

[Debra Pawlak · Rating 3 out of 5]

For those of us who are familiar with early Hollywood, actress Marie Dressler was one of their finest performers and her box office receipts reflected her popularity. She was an old gal who was far from glamorous, but let's take a quick step back. Dressler was a huge theatrical star long before the flickers came about. Her stage contemporaries included John Drew, Maurice Barrymore and Maude Adams--just to name a few. No one worked harder than Marie Dressler, and her work seems to be the focus of this book--not so much her personality. I was hoping to find our more about what made Marie tick, but other than detailing some points of her private life, we never met the real Marie as far as I am concerned. I did learn some things, I didn't know--for example, her husband, 'Sunny Jim' Dalton never divorced his first wife. Even though he stayed with Dressler until his death in 1921, the couple were not legally wed. Then there was Dressler, the activist who worked tirelessly for the chorus girls and boys that were often mistreated and underpaid. Overall, t was an interesting read, but lacked some depth. If you are at all interested, try to catch Dressler's Oscar-winning performance in 'Min and Bill' (1930) and you will understand why she was a Hollywood great!