MARY WARNE MARSH, BETWEEN SILENCE & SOUND FILMS

Today, The Grandma is watching some silent films. She adores these films. She has chosen some interpreted by Mae Marsh, the American film actress, who was born on a day like today in 1894.

Mae Marsh (born Mary Warne Marsh; November 9, 1894-February 13, 1968) was an American film actress whose career spanned over 50 years.

Mae Marsh was born Mary Warne Marsh in Madrid, New Mexico Territory, on November 9, 1894.

She was one of seven children of Mae T. (née Warne) and Stephen Charles Marsh. By 1900, the Marsh family had moved to El Paso, Texas, where Mary's father worked as a bartender. Mae's father died in 1901, and the following year, her mother married William Hall, a native of Virginia. The family later moved to California, where Mae attended Convent of the Sacred Heart School in Hollywood as well as public school.

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. 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. 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.

Marsh worked as a salesgirl and loitered around the Hollywood 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.

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.

Marsh 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).

Marsh returned from retirement to appear in sound films and played a role in Henry King's remake of Over the Hill (1931). She gravitated toward character roles, and worked in this manner for the next several decades. Marsh appeared in numerous popular films, such as Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1932) and Little Man, What Now? (1934). She was co-starred with Henry B. Walthall again in Bachelor of Arts (1934). She also became a favorite of director John Ford, appearing in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), How Green Was My Valley (1941), 3 Godfathers (1948), and The Searchers (1956).

In 1955, Marsh was awarded the George Eastman Award, given by George Eastman House for distinguished contribution to the art of film.

Marsh has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 1600 Vine Street.

Marsh died at Hermosa Beach, California on February 13, 1968. Louis died at the age of 101 on June 11, 1989. They are buried together in Section 5 at Pacific Crest Cemetery in Redondo Beach, California.

More information: Cinephiled

 I always loved silent movies. 
I was not a specialist, but I loved them. 
And when I started directing, 
I became really fascinated by the format 
-how it works, the device of the silent movie. 
The silent movie is an emotional cinema: 
it's sensory; the fact that you don't go through 
a text brings you back to a basic way of telling 
a story predicated on the feelings you have created.

Michel Hazanavicius