72 Facts About Marie Dressler

Marie Dressler won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1931.

Marie Dressler made several shorts, but mostly worked in New York City on stage.

Marie Dressler's career declined in the 1920s, and Dressler was reduced to living on her savings while sharing an apartment with a friend.

Marie Dressler was one of the two daughters of Anna, a musician, and Alexander Rudolph Koerber, a German-born former officer in the Crimean War.

Marie Dressler's father was a music teacher in Cobourg and the organist at St Peter's Anglican Church, where as a child Marie would sing and assist in operating the organ.

Marie Dressler's first known acting appearance, when she was five, was as Cupid in a church theatrical performance in Lindsay, Ontario.

Residents of the towns where the Koerbers lived recalled Marie Dressler acting in many amateur productions, and Leila often irritated her parents with those performances.

Marie Dressler left home at the age of 14 to begin her acting career with the Nevada Stock Company, telling the company she was actually 18.

The pay was either $6 or $8 per week, and Marie Dressler sent half to her mother.

The identity of the aunt was never confirmed, although Marie Dressler denied that she adopted the name from a store awning.

Marie Dressler made her professional debut as a chorus girl named Cigarette in the play Under Two Flags, a dramatization of life in the Foreign Legion.

Marie Dressler remained with the troupe for three years, while her sister left to marry playwright Richard Ganthony.

Marie Dressler eventually ended up in a small Michigan town without money or a booking.

Marie Dressler joined the Robert Grau Opera Company, which toured the Midwest, and she received an improvement in pay to $8 per week, although she claimed she never received any wages.

Marie Dressler ended up in Philadelphia, where she joined the Starr Opera Company as a member of the chorus.

Marie Dressler was known to have played the role of Princess Flametta in an 1887 production in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Marie Dressler left the Starr company to return home to her parents in Saginaw.

Marie Dressler remained with the company for three years, again on the road, playing roles of light opera.

Marie Dressler remained with the company until 1891, gradually increasing in popularity.

Marie Dressler moved to Chicago and was cast in productions of Little Robinson Crusoe and The Tar and the Tartar.

In 1892, Marie Dressler made her debut on Broadway at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in Waldemar, the Robber of the Rhine, which only lasted five weeks.

Marie Dressler had hoped to become an operatic diva or tragedienne, but the writer of Waldemar, Maurice Barrymore, convinced her to accept that her best success was in comedy roles.

Marie Dressler now made $50 per week, with which she supported her parents.

Marie Dressler moved on into roles in 1492 Up to Date, Girofle-Girofla, and A Stag Party, or A Hero in Spite of Himself After A Stag Party flopped, she joined the touring Camille D'Arville Company on a tour of the Midwest in Madeleine, or The Magic Kiss, as Mary Doodle, a role giving her a chance to clown.

In 1896, Marie Dressler landed her first starring role as Flo in George Lederer's production of The Lady Slavey at the Casino Theatre on Broadway, co-starring British dancer Dan Daly.

Marie Dressler became known for her hilarious facial expressions, seriocomic reactions, and double takes.

Marie Dressler's success enabled her to purchase a home for her parents on Long Island.

Marie Dressler returned to Broadway in Hotel Topsy Turvy and The Man in the Moon.

Marie Dressler formed her own theatre troupe in 1900, which performed George V Hobart's Miss Prinnt in cities of the northeastern US The production was a failure, and Dressler was forced to declare bankruptcy.

Marie Dressler lost $40,000 on the production, a debt she eventually repaid in 1930.

Marie Dressler returned to the Broadway stage in a show called The Boy and the Girl, but it lasted only a few weeks.

Marie Dressler moved on to perform vaudeville at Young's Pier in Atlantic City for the summer.

Marie Dressler helped to revise the show, without the authors' permission, and in order to keep the changes she had to threaten to quit before the play opened on Broadway.

Marie Dressler's revisions helped make it a big success there.

Marie 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.

Marie Dressler owned the rights to the play Tillie's Nightmare, the play upon which her 1914 movie Tillie's Punctured Romance was based.

Marie Dressler accepted a role in Cinderella on Broadway in October 1920, but the play failed after only a few weeks.

Marie Dressler signed on for a role in The Passing Show of 1921, but left the cast after only a few weeks.

Marie Dressler returned to the vaudeville stage with the Schubert Organization, traveling through the Midwest.

Marie Dressler stayed in Chicago while she traveled on to St Louis and Milwaukee.

Marie Dressler died while Marie was in StLouis, and Marie then left the tour.

Marie Dressler's body was claimed by his ex-wife, and he was buried in the Dalton plot.

In 1923, Marie Dressler received a small part in a revue at the Winter Garden Theatre, titled The Dancing Girl, but was not offered any work after the show closed.

Early in 1930, Marie Dressler joined Edward Everett Horton's theater troupe in Los Angeles to play a princess in Ferenc Molnar's The Swan, but after one week, she quit the troupe.

Marie Dressler had appeared in two shorts as herself, but her first role in a feature film came in 1914 at the age of 44.

Tillie's Punctured Romance was a hit with audiences, and Marie Dressler appeared in two Tillie sequels and other comedies until 1918, when she returned to vaudeville.

In 1925, Marie Dressler filmed a pair of two-reel short movies in Europe for producer Harry Reichenbach.

In early 1927, Marie Dressler received a lifeline from director Allan Dwan.

The film, The Joy Girl, an early color production, only provided a small part as her scenes were finished in two days, but Marie Dressler returned to New York upbeat after her experience with the production.

Marie 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 Marie Dressler to the screen.

Marie Dressler's next appearance was a minor part in the First National film Breakfast at Sunrise.

Marie Dressler appeared again with Moran in Bringing Up Father, another film written by Marion.

Marie Dressler returned to MGM in 1928's The Patsy as the mother of the characters played by stars Marion Davies and Jane Winton.

Hollywood was converting from silent films, but "talkies" presented no problems for Marie Dressler, whose rumbling voice could handle both sympathetic scenes and snappy comebacks.

Garbo and the critics were impressed by Marie Dressler's acting ability, and so was MGM, which quickly signed her to a $500-per-week contract.

Marie Dressler went on to act in comedic films which were popular with movie-goers and a lucrative investment for MGM.

Marie Dressler became Hollywood's number-one box-office attraction, and stayed on top until her death in 1934.

Marie Dressler was nominated again for Best Actress for her 1932 starring role in Emma, but lost to Helen Hayes.

Marie 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.

Marie Dressler had a memorable bit with Jean Harlow in the film:.

Marie Dressler's newly regenerated career came to an abrupt end when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer in the early 1930s.

Marie Dressler only learned about her condition six months later.

Marie Dressler appeared in more than 40 films, and achieved her greatest successes in talking pictures made during the last years of her life.

Some sources indicate Marie Dressler had a daughter who died as a small child, but this has not been confirmed.

Ever since her start in the theatre, Marie Dressler had sent a portion of her salary to her parents.

Marie Dressler made several attempts to set up theatre companies or theatre productions of her own using her Broadway proceeds, but these failed and she had to declare bankruptcy several times.

Marie Dressler moved to her final home at 801 North Alpine in Beverly Hills in 1932, a home which she bought from the estate of King C Gillette.

On Saturday, July 28,1934, Marie Dressler died of cancer, aged 65, in Santa Barbara, California.

Marie Dressler left an estate worth $310,000, the bulk left to her sister Bonita.

Marie Dressler bestowed her 1933 Duesenberg Model J automobile and $35,000 to her maid of 20 years, Mamie Steele Cox, and $15,000 to Cox's husband, Jerry R Cox, who had served as Dressler's butler for four years.

Marie Dressler intended that the funds should be used to provide a place of comfort for black travelers, and the Coxes used the funds to open the Coconut Grove night club and adjacent tourist cabins in Savannah, Georgia, in 1936, named after the night club in Los Angeles.

Marie Dressler played in two films based on historical Seattle characters.