Marie Dressler (1869 - 1934)

• actress
• born Leila Marie Koerber on November 9, 1869, in Cobourg, Ontario
• daughter of a music teacher
• joined a stock company at 14 and by the time she was 20 had become a seasoned veteran in light opera and on the legitimate stage
• made it to Broadway in 1892 and became a vaudeville headliner shortly after 1900
• made her screen debut as Charlie Chaplin's co-star in Tillies's Punctured Romance (1914), an adaptation of one of her stage vehicles
• appeared in several other film comedies of the time but remained essentially a vaudeville and musical comedy star
• stage career suffered a severe setback in the 20s, largely because of her activity in a labor dispute
• in 1927 MGM screenwriter Frances Marion got her back into films
• quickly developed into a popular star, especially in comedies co-starring Polly Moran
• her popularity increased after the advent of sound, and her screen career received a boost from her casting in a serious character part, as Marthy, the waterfront hag, in Anna Christie (1930)
• won the best actress Academy Award for her performance that same year in Min and Bill (1930), opposite Wallace Beery
• a homely over-weight woman, she was unlikely star material, but in the early 30s she was among Hollywood's most popular personalities and for four years was the number one box-office attraction in the country
• autobiographies: The Life Story of an Ugly Duckling (1924), My Own Story (1934)
• quotes:
  • I'm too homely for a prima donna and too ugly for a soubrette.
  • You're only as good as your last picture.
  • I have been known to grande dame it, at times.
• filmography
• Dressler's birthplace in Cobourg has been restored

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