19 Facts About Olive Byrne

Mary Olive Byrne, known professionally as Olive Richard, was the live-in life partner of William Moulton Marston and Elizabeth Holloway Marston.

Olive Byrne has been credited as an inspiration for the comic book character Wonder Woman.

Olive Byrne was delivered into an Irish American family by her aunt Margaret Sanger to the Olive Byrne family in Corning, New York, 1904.

Two years later her mother Ethel Olive Byrne left a two-year-old Olive Byrne and her three-year-old brother Jack at their paternal grandparents' home to protect them from their abusive father.

Olive Byrne was then raised by her grandparents until they died in 1914, when she was sent off to a Catholic orphanage.

Olive Byrne met her mother for the first time in ten years when she was 16, after which she began occasionally living with Ethel and her lover Rob Parker.

Olive Byrne entered her freshman year at Tufts University studying medicine at her mother's bidding.

Olive Byrne had a distinctively androgynous appearance with a short Eton crop and was known around campus for her connection to Sanger.

Olive Byrne worked at Sanger's Clinical Research Bureau over Christmas vacation.

Olive Byrne met William and Elizabeth Marston in 1925 while she was a senior attending Tufts University.

Olive Byrne was instrumental in introducing him to the world of sorority baby parties, at which he performed some of his experiments on human reactions to power.

Olive Byrne began working as a staff writer for Family Circle that same year writing under her Richard name.

Olive Byrne helped type many of Marston's Wonder Woman scripts.

Olive Byrne died in 1990 in Tampa, Florida at the age of 86.

Olive Byrne lived with William and Elizabeth Marston for a number of years, but kept the details of their intimate relationship a secret.

Olive Byrne largely raised the children and Elizabeth held the most stable career until William established himself with Wonder Woman.

Marston himself only remarked that a pair of bracelets that Olive Byrne frequently wore inspired the ones that became an important feature of the comic book heroine.

Olive Byrne's life is depicted in Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, a 2017 biographical drama which tells the director's fictionalised view of her life and that of her family, especially of the relationship she had with her intimate life partners William Moulton Marston and his wife Elizabeth Holloway Marston.

Olive Byrne is portrayed in the film by Australian actress Bella Heathcote.