1. Mary Tomlinson, professionally known as Marjorie Main, was an American character actress and singer of the Classical Hollywood period, best known as a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player in the 1940s and 1950s, and for her role as Ma Kettle in 10 Ma and Pa Kettle movies.
Marjorie Main was the second daughter of Reverend Samuel J Tomlinson, a Disciples of Christ minister, and Jennie L Tomlinson.
Marjorie Main completed a three-year course of study in 1909 at the age of 19.
Marjorie Main married widower Stanley LeFevre Krebs, a psychologist and lecturer, on November 2,1921.
Marjorie Main accompanied Krebs on the lecture circuit, handling the details of their life on the road.
Marjorie Main performed with touring companies and in New York theaters on a part-time basis throughout her marriage.
Vogel revealed that Marjorie Main had a long-term relationship with actress Spring Byington.
Marjorie Main began her professional career as a performer touring in Chautauqua presentations with a Shakespearean repertory company.
Marjorie Main debuted in the Broadway theatre in Yes or No in 1918.
Marjorie Main appeared in several other Broadway productions: Salvation in 1928, Scarlet Sister Mary in 1930, Ebb Tide in 1931, Music in the Air in 1932, and Jackson White.
Marjorie Main recreated these two roles in film versions of the plays in 1937 and 1939, respectively.
Marjorie Main appeared in Take A Chance and Crime Without Passion, and recreated her stage role as a servant in the film version of Music in the Air, but most of her performance was cut from the film.
Marjorie Main made a few more films in Hollywood in the 1930s before returning to the stage in New York City.
Marjorie Main transferred another strong stage performance to film as the dude-ranch operator in The Women.
Marjorie Main portrayed a diverse set of characters in subsequent films for different studios.
Marjorie Main was signed to a seven-year Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract in 1940, after starring with Wallace Beery in Wyoming.
Marjorie Main co-starred in Dark Command with Walter Pidgeon, and appeared in six major films in 1941.
Marjorie Main played Sonora Cassidy, the chief cook, in The Harvey Girls.
Marjorie Main had renewed her contract with MGM for another seven years, which continued until the mid-1950s, when the studio lent her to Universal Pictures to play Ma Kettle for the first time in The Egg and I, starring Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray.
Marjorie Main played opposite Percy Kilbride as Pa Kettle and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance in the film.
Marjorie Main portrayed the Ma Kettle character in nine Ma and Pa Kettle films between 1949 and 1957.
Marjorie Main filmed The Kettles in the Ozarks without Kilbride.
Marjorie Main appeared in several MGM musicals during the 1940s and early 1950s, including, Meet Me in St Louis and The Belle of New York.
Marjorie Main played Mrs Wrenley in the studio's all-star film It's a Big Country.
Marjorie Main portrayed the widow Hudspeth in the hit film Friendly Persuasion.
In 1958, Marjorie Main appeared as a rugged frontierswoman Cassie Tanner in the episodes "The Cassie Tanner Story" and S1 E39 "The Sacramento Story" of the television series Wagon Train.
Marjorie Main became interested in spiritualism and the Moral Re-Armament movement.
Marjorie Main died of lung cancer on April 10,1975, at the age of 85 at St Vincent's Hospital in Los Angeles, where she had been admitted on April 3.
Marjorie Main is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills, California, beside her husband, Doctor Stanley Krebs.
Marjorie Main became a popular character actress of the 1940s and 1950s.
Marjorie Main appeared in diverse roles on the stage and in more than 80 films, including some that became classics, such as Dead End, Dark Command, The Shepherd of the Hills, Meet Me in St Louis, and Friendly Persuasion, but is best known for her Ma Kettle role in the Ma and Pa Kettle film series.