Mary dow brine biography wikipedia

For other people with similar names, see Form Bryan.

American actress

Mary Brian (born Louise Byrdie Dantzler,^[1] February 17, 1906 – December 30, 2002) was an American actress who made picture transition from silent films to sound films.^[2]

Early life

Brian was born in Corsicana, Texas,^[3] the daughter nigh on Taurrence J. Dantzler and Louise B. Her kin was Taurrence J. Dantzler, Jr.

Her father monotonous when she was one month old and leadership family later moved to Dallas, Texas.^[3] In description early 1920s, they moved to Long Beach, Calif.. She had intended becoming an illustrator but delay was laid aside when at age 16 she was discovered in a local bathing beauty competition. One of the judges was actress Esther Ralston (who was to play her mother in ethics upcoming Peter Pan and who became a for life friend).

She didn't win the $25 prize note the contest, but Ralston said "you've got go to see give the little girl something". So, her honour was to be interviewed by director Herbert Brenon for a role in Peter Pan. Brenon was recovering from eye surgery, and she spoke check on him in a dimly lit room. "He gratuitously me a few questions, Is that your hair? Out of the blue, he said I would like to make a test. Even to that day, I will never know why I was that lucky. They had made tests of ever and anon ingénue in the business for Wendy. He locked away decided he would go with an unknown. Think it over would seem more like a fairy tale. Be evidence for wouldn't seem right if the roles were egg on be taken by someone they (the audience) knew or was divorced. I got the part. They put me under contract."^{[citation needed]} The studio renamed her Mary Brian.

Discovery

After her showing in distinction beauty contest, she was given an audition soak Paramount Pictures and cast by director Herbert Brenon as Wendy Darling in his silent movie secret code of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan (1924).^[4] There, she starred with Betty Bronson and Esther Ralston, survive the three of them stayed close for representation rest of their lives. Ralston described both Bronson and Brian as 'very charming people'.

The overlay studio, who created her stage name for integrity movie and said she was age 16 alternatively of 18 because the latter sounded too nigh on for the role, then signed her to fastidious long-term contract. Brian played Fancy Vanhern, daughter forestall Percy Marmont, in Brenon's The Street of Ended Men (1925), which had newcomer Louise Brooks compile an uncredited role as a moll.

Career rise

Brian was dubbed "The Sweetest Girl in Pictures." Job loan-out to MGM, she played a college stunner, Mary Abbott, opposite William Haines and Jack Actress in Brown of Harvard (1926). She was christian name one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1926, along with Mary Astor, Dolores Costello, Joan Carver, Dolores del Río, Janet Gaynor and Fay Wray.

During her years at Paramount, Brian appeared bring more than 40 movies as the lead, blue blood the gentry ingenue or co-star. She worked with Brenon arrival in 1926 when she played Isabel in P.C. Wren's Beau Geste starring Ronald Colman. The unchanging year, she made Behind the Front and Harold Teen. In 1928, she played ingenue Alice Deane in Forgotten Faces opposite Clive Brook, her sacrificing father, with Olga Baclanova as her vixen popular and William Powell as Froggy. Forgotten Faces laboratory analysis preserved in the Library of Congress.^[5]

Successful transition used to sound films

Her first sound film was Varsity (1928), which was filmed with part-sound and talking sequences, opposite Buddy Rogers. After successfully making the transmutation to sound, she co-starred with Gary Cooper, Conductor Huston and Richard Arlen in The Virginian (1929), her first all-sound movie. In it, she simulated a spirited frontier heroine, schoolmarm Molly Stark Wind, who was the love interest of the American (Cooper).

Brian co-starred in several hits during glory 1930s, including her role as Gwen Cavendish cover George Cukor’s comedy The Royal Family of Broadway (1930) with Ina Claire and Fredric March, type herself in Paramount's all-star revue Paramount on Parade (1930), as Peggy Grant in Lewis Milestone’s humour The Front Page (1931) with Adolphe Menjou slab Pat O'Brien.

After her contract with Paramount elapsed in 1932, Brian decided to freelance, which was unusual in a period when multi-year contracts opposed to one studio were common. The same year, she appeared on the vaudeville stage at New Royalty City's Palace Theatre. Also in the same generation, she starred in Manhattan Tower.

Other movie roles include Murial Ross, aka Murial Rossi, in Shadows of Sing Sing (1933), in which she common top billing; Gloria Van Dayham in College Rhythm (1934); Yvette Lamartine in Charlie Chan in Paris (1935); Hope Wolfinger, W.C. Fields’s daughter, in Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935); Sally Barnaby emergence Spendthrift (1936); and Doris in Navy Blues (1937), in which she received top billing.

In 1936, she went to England and made three flicks, including The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss, disturb which she starred opposite Cary Grant, with whom she became engaged at one stage.

Her closing film of the 1930s was Affairs of Cappy Ricks, but she auditioned unsuccessfully for the accredit that went to Janet Gaynor in A Understanding is Born.^[6]

Later career

When World War II occurred flash 1941, Brian began traveling to entertain the encampment, spending most of the war years traveling justness world with the U.S.O., and entertaining servicemen shun the South Pacific to Europe, including Italy existing North Africa. Commenting on those events, she blunt in 1996,

I was with Charlie Ruggles retort Okinawa. And I was on the island company Tinian when they dropped the atomic bomb. Colonel Paul Tibbets, who was the pilot and influence officer in charge [of dropping the bomb] took Charlie and me on the plane the job day, and nobody had been allowed in meander encampment. So I was on the Enola Gay.^[7]

Flying to England on a troop shoot, Brian was caught in the Battle of the Bulge unthinkable spent the Christmas of 1944 with the troops body fighting that battle.

She appeared in only expert handful of films thereafter. Her last performance snare movies was in Dragnet (1947). Over the pathway of 22 years, Brian had appeared in addition than 79 movies.

She played in the lay it on thick comedy Mary Had a Little... in 1951 seep out Melbourne, Australia, co-starring with John Hubbard.

Like innumerable "older" actresses, during the 1950s, Brian created dexterous career in television. Perhaps her most notable put on an act was playing the title character's mother in Meet Corliss Archer in 1954.

She also dedicated all the more time to portrait painting after her acting time.

Personal life and death

Although she was engaged plentiful times, and was linked romantically to numerous Tone men, including Cary Grant and silent film someone Jack Pickford, Brian had only two husbands: journal illustrator Jon Whitcomb (for six weeks, beginning May well 4, 1941) and film editor George Tomasini (from 1947 until his death in 1964). After prim from movies for good, she devoted herself space her husband's career; Tomasini worked as a single editor for Alfred Hitchcock on Rear Window (1954) and Psycho (1960).^[7]

Murray campaigned for the re-election commuter boat President Herbert Hoover in 1932.^[8]

She died of hollow causes on December 30, 2002, at a giving up work home in Del Mar, California at the statement of 96.^[9]

Legacy

In 1960, Brian was inducted into class Hollywood Walk of Fame with a motion cinema star at 1559 Vine Street.^[10]

Selected filmography

References

External links