Marie Dressler III: Wallace Beery, Polly Moran Comedies

Wallace Beery, Marie Dressler in Min and Bill

Marie Dressler II: Silent Films, Movie Stardom
How did Marie Dressler react to her newfound stardom?
Marie basked in her success. She had been through enough trials in life — points when she couldn’t get a job — and so she was more than ready for fame and adoration. I think audiences loved that they could give that to her, too. It made them feel good to shower her with love, because she took it so gratefully and graciously. She was the loving grandmother that her fans wanted to protect and comfort, while she comforted, amused, and moved them in return.
Her stardom also points to something missing from modern movies. In the 1930s and into [...]

by Andre Soares | February 23, 2008   
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Marie Dressler

Marie Dressler in Dinner at 8

It’s Oscar time. What better way to celebrate the 2008 Academy Awards than by having a q&a about the best actress Oscar winner … of 1931?
(Or rather, for the period 1930-31, as the Oscars in those days covered films released in the Los Angeles area from August 1 to July 31.)
And who was the best actress winner that year?
Well, none other than — according to US film exhibitors’ polls — the biggest box-office attraction in the United States of the early 1930s.
That’s Joan Crawford, right?
Wrong.
Norma Shearer? Greta Garbo? Barbara Stanwyck? Jean Harlow?
Nope.
Betty Grable!
Go get yourself a film history book. Grable was the biggest female box-office attraction of the 1940s.
Who then?
Marie Dressler.
Who??
Marie [...]

by Andre Soares | February 23, 2008   
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