Marie Dressler: The Unlikeliest Star (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "It is Thursday, the ninth of November, 1933, and the evening is still and soft in Los Angeles..." (more)
Key Phrases: theatrical press, actress herself, theatrical community, New York, Miss Dressler, Marie Dressler (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Marie Dressler was overweight and older than 60 when she made the most spectacular comeback of her roller-coaster career, outshining Greta Garbo in the 1930 film Anna Christie. Marie Dressler (1869-1934) was no beauty, but her perfect comic timing and Everywoman appeal to theater- and movie-goers ensured a popularity that began in vaudeville and climaxed with Min and Bill, Tugboat Annie, and her legendary delivery of the classic closing line in Dinner at Eight. Toronto journalist Betty Lee's meticulously researched biography gives a thorough account of Dressler's life and appreciative evocation of her art.

From Library Journal

Toronto Globe feature writer/reporter Lee's biography of actress Dressler gives the reader a vivid view of the life of her subject and a social history of theater and film in the early 20th century. Canadian-born Dressler began a life on the stage at age 14, playing bit parts for paltry sums. Her inauspicious beginning led to Broadway, failures, comebacks, and then an Academy AwardR for her leading role in the 1931 film Min and Bill. In a time of glamorous stars such as Greta Garbo, her costar in Anna Christie, Dressler, a large, homely woman, stole the spotlight as an everywoman, giving hope to moviegoers in the Great Depression. Lee uses personal anecdotes from Dressler's two autobiographies and the unpublished manuscript of Claire Dunphy, an actress who was Dressler's closest companion at the end of her life, to illustrate the story of an actress and the history of American theater and film from 1880 until 1934, when Dressler died of cancer. Recommended for theater and film collections.?Lisa N. Johnston, Sweet Briar Coll. Lib., Va.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky; First Edition ~1st Printing edition (August 28, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813120365
• ISBN-13: 978-0813120362
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #116,251 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Insufficient research mars commendable effort, August 19, 1999

By A Customer

The problem with this book becomes regrettably clear if one also reads Matthew Kennedy's biography of the wonderful Marie Dressler. Lee, despite her obvious effort, is not as assiduous a researcher as one would desire. Films she has not seen in fact exist for viewing; aspects of Dressler's personal life Lee implies are lost to history are in fact recoverable; Lee cannot ascertain what became of Dressler's faithful maid while Kennedy tracks her neatly to the end of her life; etc. Furthermore, Lee makes a welcome attempt to situate Dressler within theatrical history -- which was most of her career -- but appears to have essentially boned up on the subject before writing the book. Bringing turn-of-the-century theatre to life is challenging given that virtually all we have left are photographs, reviews, and sketchy comments, but people immersed in the subject by nature have accomplished this in varous books in a way that Lee cannot quite match. The main value of Lee's book is her access to the diary of Dressler's longtime companion and her thorough coverage of Dressler's battle with cancer. Otherwise, however, Kennedy's book is much more thorough and gives more of a sense of what made Dressler such a phenomenon.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable and Informative, June 16, 2005

By	Lisa Burks (Burbank, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I'm unable to compare "Marie Dressler: The Unlikeliest Star" to the other biography in print because frankly Matthew Kennedy's book is too expensive for my fun-money budget (a problem I have with most books published by McFarland in general, and has no reflection on the author.) So as far as this is the only book I've ever read about Marie Dressler, I can tell you that I found it to be completely enjoyable and informative. I read it cover to cover in one evening, and it was time well spent. Betty Lee's warmhearted storytelling skills gave me what I was looking for: a better understanding of Miss Dressler's life, career and personality.