Marie Dressler

Acting

Marie Dressler

Born 1868-11-09 · Cobourg, Ontario, Canada

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Marie Dressler (born Leila Marie Koerber, November 9, 1868 – July 28, 1934) was a Canadian-American stage and screen actress, comedian, and early silent film and Depression-era film star. Successful on stage in vaudeville and comic operas, she was also successful in film. Leaving home at the age of 14, Dressler built a career on stage in traveling theatre troupes, where she learned to appreciate her talent in making people laugh. In 1892 she started a career on Broadway that lasted into the 1920s, performing comedic roles that allowed her to improvise to get laughs. From one of her successful Broadway roles, she played the titular role in the first full-length screen comedy, Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914), opposite Charlie Chaplin and Mabel Normand. She made several shorts, but mostly worked in New York City on stage. Her career declined in the 1920s. In 1927, Dressler returned to films at the age of 59 and experienced a remarkable string of successes. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1930–31 for Min and Bill and was named the top film star for 1932 and 1933. Marie Dressler died of cancer in 1934.

Acting credits

Dinner at Eight poster
6.8

An ambitious New York socialite plans an extravagant dinner party as her businessman husband, Oliver, contends with financial woes, causing a lot of tension between the couple. Meanwhile, their high-society friends and associates, including the gruff Dan Packard and his sultry spouse, Kitty, contend with their own entanglements, leading to revelations at the much-anticipated dinner.

Dinner at Eight

1933

The Callahans and the Murphys poster
8.0

The story of two feuding Irish immigrant families living in a tenement.

The Callahans and the Murphys

1927

Cavalcade of the Academy Awards poster
6.3

This 1940 presentation features highlights of earlier (1928 onward) Oscar ceremonies including Shirley Temple and Walt Disney, plus acceptance speeches for films released in 1939 with recipients and presenters including Vivien Leigh, Judy Garland, Hattie McDaniel and more, with host Bob Hope.

Cavalcade of the Academy Awards

1940

Hollywood: The Dream Factory poster
7.2

A documentary about the glorious history of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and its decline leading to the sale of its back lot and props. By extension this provides a general history of Hollywood's Golden Age and the legendary studio system.

Hollywood: The Dream Factory

1972

That's Entertainment! III poster
7.1

Some of MGM's musical stars review the studio's history of musicals. From The Hollywood Revue of 1929 to Brigadoon, from the first musical talkies to Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain.

That's Entertainment! III

1994

Tillie's Punctured Romance poster
6.2

A womanizing city man meets Tillie in the country. When he sees that her father has a very large bankroll for his workers, he persuades her to elope with him.

Tillie's Punctured Romance

1914

No artwork available
NR

Bob's favorite memories and funniest moments on TV The biggest Stars! ... The biggest laughs! On DVD for the first time, this special 90 minute collection proves that laughter is the universal language with a sidesplitting salute to slapstick, satire, sketch comedy and zingers. Featuring Bob's funniest moments on television, this tribute includes a virtual who's who of legendary entertainers like Bing Crosby, Jackie Gleason, Roy Rogers, Ingrid Bergman, Bob Newhart, Lucille Ball, Ann-Margret, Jack Benny, Angie Dickinson, Steve Allen, Johnny Carson, Danny Thomas, Don Rickles, Milton Berle, Redd Foxx, Dorothy Lamour, Frank Sinatra, John Wayne, Dyan Cannon, Debbie Reynolds, Lassie and more.

Bob Hope's World of Comedy

1976

Let Us Be Gay poster
4.1

A housewife divorces her self-centered husband. Years later, she attends a party where her ex is pursuing another woman. Unbeknownst to him, she is the same ex-wife he'd neglected, now transformed into a fashionable socialite.

Let Us Be Gay

1930

That's Entertainment, Part II poster
7.0

Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire present more golden moments from the MGM film library, this time including comedy and drama as well as classic musical numbers.

That's Entertainment, Part II

1976

The Hollywood Revue of 1929 poster
5.7

An all-star revue featuring MGM contract players.

The Hollywood Revue of 1929

1929

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? poster
6.3

Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression.

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

1975

Anna Christie poster
6.0

Old sailor Chris Christofferson eagerly awaits the arrival of his grown daughter Anna, whom he sent at five years old to live with relatives in Minnesota. He has not seen her since, but believes her to be a decent and respectably employed young woman. When Anna arrives, however, it is clear that she has lived a hard life in the dregs of society, and that much of spirit has been extinguished. She falls in love with a young sailor rescued at sea by her father, but dreads to reveal to him the truth of her past. Both father and young man are deluded about her background, yet Anna cannot quite bring herself to allow them to remain deluded.

Anna Christie

1930

Caught Short poster
7.0

Landladies Polly Smith and Marie Jones, who operate boardinghouses on the same side of the street, are afflicted with numerous petty envies and jealousies but nevertheless are the best of friends. Polly invests in the stock market and begins to reap rewards, but she is unable to persuade Marie to use her life's savings to buy shares of American Cheese or Brazilian Bananas. Meanwhile, Marie's daughter, Genevieve, and Polly's son, William, just back from college, fall in love; but an argument between the ladies breaks up the romance; and smarting under Polly's patronizing manner, Marie plunges into the market herself and with the winnings is able to stage a society splurge at a fashionable resort.

Caught Short

1930

The Big Parade of Comedy poster
7.2

Film clips highlight the funniest scenes and brightest comic stars in MGM's history.

The Big Parade of Comedy

1964

Becoming Marilyn poster
7.3

The story of how Norma Jeane Mortenson became Marilyn Monroe (1926-62), a lucid path of self-discovery, from anonymity to stardom: the painful birth of a myth.

Becoming Marilyn

2022

Emma poster
6.6

After decades of raising the motherless Smith children, housekeeper Emma Thatcher is faced with resentment when she marries their father.

Emma

1932

Going Hollywood poster
5.5

Sylvia is a French teacher at an all-girls school who wants to find love. When she hears Bill Williams on the radio, she decides to go visit and thank him. However, difficult problems lie ahead when Lili gets in the way.

Going Hollywood

1933

Screen Snapshots (Series 22, No. 10) poster
NR

The edition of Screen Snapshots celebrates 25 years of production. It looks at the content of edition #1, then a tribute to movie people who have died in those 25 years. Finally there are tributes to the Screen Snapshots series by Cecil De Mille, Walt Disney, Louella Parsons and Rosalind Russell.

Screen Snapshots (Series 22, No. 10)

1942

No artwork available
9.0

Here you will see Marie Dressler, Mary Pickford, Norma Shearer, Walter Huston and a host of other Canadians who achieved world renown on the silver screen. Slapstick, romance, tragedy, comedy--it's all here in an entertaining sampling of what audiences have applauded down the years. You see the audiences too, and the theatres where early movies first drew in the fans. As guide you could hardly find a more knowledgeable or familiar figure than Walter Pidgeon, a Canadian with eighty or more films to his credit. He recalls the personalities of the great stars he has known and explains how the technology developed that shows the stars on the screen.

Anniversary

1963

Politics poster
6.9

A widow's decision to run for mayor kicks off a battle of the sexes in a small town.

Politics

1931

Bringing Up Father poster
5.0

The wealthy Jiggs is tired of being left out of the swanky parties thrown by his social-climbing wife Maggie and their daughter. He decides to teach them a "lesson" by faking his own suicide, but things don't quite turn out the way he planned.

Bringing Up Father

1928

Tugboat Annie poster
7.3

Tugboat, the Narcissus, is owned and captained by Annie Brennan, and among her crew are her alcoholic but good-natured husband, Terry, and her conscientious son, Alec. Annie continually loses business because of Terry's drunken mistakes. Alec wants to quit school to work on the tug full time, but Annie will not sacrifice her son's education. A grown Alec has followed in his mother's footsteps and becomes a mariner, but a more upscale one as the captain of a luxury liner. Alec returns home with his fiancée, Pat - the boss' daughter - with a grand plan to save Annie from the life that drunkard Terry has provided her. But ultimately, it's Annie and Terry that need to be Alec's savior, and by their move show him the meaning of true commitment.

Tugboat Annie

1933

Christopher Bean poster
8.0

When the painter Christopher Bean dies, some unscrupulous art dealers try to get several of his paintings cheaply from a family who have no idea of their value.

Christopher Bean

1933

No artwork available
9.0

It's more fun than a barrel of monkeys. Regular village "cut-ups" are those actor chaps and actresses.

Actors' Fund Field Day

1910