Mae Marsh was born Mary Wayne Marsh in Madrid, New Mexico Territory, on November 9, 1894.[3] She was one of five children of Charles Marsh and Mary Wayne Marsh, and she attended Convent of the Sacred Heart School in Hollywood as well as public school.[1]
A frequently told story of Marsh's childhood is "Her father, a railroad auditor, died when she was four. Her family moved to San Francisco, California, where her stepfather was killed in the great earthquake of 1906. Her great-aunt then took Mae and [her older sister] Marguerite to Los Angeles, hoping her show business background would open doors for jobs at various movie studios needing extras."[3]:113 However, her father, S. Charles Marsh, was a bartender, not a railroad auditor, and he was alive at least as late as June 1900, when Marsh was nearly six.[2] Her stepfather, oil-field inspector William Hall, could not have been killed in the 1906 earthquake, as he was alive, listed in the 1910 census, living with her mother and sisters.[4]
Marsh worked as a salesgirl and loitered around the sets and locations while her older sister worked on a film, observing the progress of her sister’s performance. She first started as an extra in various movies, and played her first substantial role in the film Ramona (1910) at the age of 15.
“I tagged my way into motion pictures,” Marsh recalled in The Silent Picture. “I used to follow my sister Marguerite to the old Biograph studio and then, one great day, Mr. Griffith noticed me, put me in a picture and I had my chance. I love my work and though new and very wonderful interests have entered my life, I still love it and couldn’t think of giving it up.”[3]:114
Career rise
Mae Marsh in The Birth of a Nation, 1915Mae Marsh in Intolerance, 1916Mae Marsh as a Belgian girl and A.C. Gibbons as a German soldier in Goldwyn's all-star Liberty Loan picture Stake Uncle Sam to Play Your Hand (1918)
Marsh worked with D. W. Griffith in small roles at Biograph when they were filming in California and in New York. Her big break came when Mary Pickford, resident star of the Biograph lot and a married woman at that time, refused to play the bare-legged, grass-skirted role of Lily-White in Man's Genesis. Griffith announced that if Pickford would not play that part in Man’s Genesis, she would not play the coveted title role in his next film, The Sands of Dee. The other actresses stood behind Pickford, each refusing in turn to play the part, citing the same objection.
Years later, Marsh recalled in an interview in The Silent Picture: “...and he called rehearsal, and we were all there and he said, ‘Well now, Miss Marsh, you can rehearse this.’ And Mary Pickford said ‘What!’ and Mr. Griffith said ‘Yes, Mary Pickford, if you don’t do what I tell you I want you to do, I’m going to have someone else do The Sands of Dee. Mary Pickford didn’t play Man’s Genesis so Mae can play The Sands of Dee.’ Of course, I was thrilled, and she was very much hurt. And I thought, ‘Well it's all right with me. That is something.’ I was, you know, just a lamebrain.” [3]:117
Working with Mack Sennett and D. W. Griffith, she was a prolific actress, sometimes appearing in eight movies per year and often paired with fellow Sennett protégé Robert Harron in romantic roles. In The Birth of a Nation (1915) she played the innocent sister who waits for her brothers to come home from war and who, in one of the film's most racially charged scenes, leaps to her death rather than submit to the lustful advances of Gus, the so-called "renegade Negro" who later is killed by the Ku Klux Klan. In Intolerance (1916) she plays the wife who has her baby taken away after her husband is imprisoned unjustly.
She signed a lucrative contract with Samuel Goldwyn worth $2,500 per week after Intolerance, but none of the films she made with him were particularly successful. After her marriage to Lee Arms, a publicity agent for Goldwyn, in 1918, her film output decreased to about one per year.
She starred in the 1918 film Fields of Honor. Marsh's last notable starring role was as a flapper for Griffith in The White Rose (1923) with Ivor Novello and Carol Dempster. She re-teamed with Novello for the film version of his hit stage play The Rat (1925).
In 1955, Marsh was awarded the George Eastman Award,[5] given by George Eastman House for distinguished contribution to the art of film.
She married Sam Goldwyn's publicity agent Louis Lee Arms, in 1918; they had three children together. They were married until her death in 1968. Louis Arms died in June 1989 at age 101. They are buried together in Section 5 at Pacific Crest Cemetery in Redondo Beach, California.
Donovan's Reef (1963) as Family Council Member (uncredited)
Cheyenne Autumn (1964) as Woman (uncredited) (final film role)
Related Research Articles
Florence Lawrence was a Canadian-American stage performer and film actress. She is often referred to as the "first movie star", and was thought to be the first film actor to be named publicly until evidence published in 2019 indicated that the first named film star was French actor Max Linder. At the height of her fame in the 1910s, she was known as the "Biograph Girl" for work as one of the leading ladies in silent films from the Biograph Company. She appeared in almost 300 films for various motion picture companies throughout her career.
Florence Turner was an American actress who became known as the "Vitagraph Girl" in early silent films.
Anna Quirentia Nilsson was a Swedish-American actress who achieved success in American silent movies.
Charles G. Rosher, A.S.C. was an English-born cinematographer who worked from the early days of silent films through the 1950s.
Clara Kimball Young was an American film actress, who was highly regarded and publicly popular in the early silent film era.
Leah Baird was an American actress and screenwriter.
Marin Sais was an American actress whose career was most prolific during the silent film era of the 1910s and 1920s. Sais' acting career spanned over four decades and she is possibly best recalled for appearing in Western themed films.
The New York Hat is a silent short film which was released in 1912, directed by D. W. Griffith from a screenplay by Anita Loos, and starring Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, and Lillian Gish.
James Cornelius Kirkwood Sr. was an American actor and director.
Mary Maguire Alden was an American motion picture and stage actress. She was one of the first Broadway actresses to work in Hollywood.
Eugenie Besserer was an American actress who starred in silent films and features of the early sound motion-picture era, beginning in 1910. Her most prominent role is that of the title character's mother in the first talkie film, The Jazz Singer.
Fritzi Brunette was an American actress.
Araminta Estelle "Minta" Durfee was an American silent film actress from Los Angeles, California, possibly best known for her role in Mickey (1918).
Louise Carver was an American actress who performed in grand opera, stage, nickelodeon, and motion pictures.
Fay Holderness was an American vaudeville performer and film actress.
Belle Mitchell was an American film actress. She appeared in more than 100 films between 1915 and 1978. She was born in Croswell, Michigan and died in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles.
Dorothea "Dot" Farley was an American film actress who appeared in 280 motion pictures between 1910 and 1950. She was also known as Dorothy Farley.
Claire McDowell was an American actress of the silent era. She appeared in 350 films between 1908 and 1945.
Vera Lewis was an American film and stage actress, beginning in the silent film era. She appeared in more than 180 films between 1915 and 1947. She was married to actor Ralph Lewis.
Sarah Edwards was a Welsh-born American film and stage actress. She often played dowagers or spinsters in numerous Hollywood movies of the 1930s and 1940s, mostly in minor roles.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
