Marjorie Main

MARJORIE MAIN

INFORMATION FROM IMDb

Date of birth
24 February 1890
Acton, Indiana, USA

Date of death
10 April 1975
Los Angeles, California, USA. (lung cancer)

Birth name
Mary Tomlinson

Height
5' 7" (1.70 m)

Spouse
Stanley LeFevre Krebs (2 December 1921 - 1935) (his death)

Trivia
She attended Franklin College, in Franklin, Indiana.

Had been known to wear white gloves and a surgical mask for fear of germ contamination.

Mini Biography
Her father was a minister, and when she joined a local stock company as a youngster she changed her name to avoid embarrassing her family. She worked in vaudeville and debuted on Broadway in 1916. Her film debut was in "A House Divided" (1931). She repeated her stage role in "Dead End" (1937) as Baby Face Martin (Humphrey Bogart)'s mother, which led to a number of slum mother parts. She played very strong role of Lucy, the dude ranch operator in "The Women" (1939). She achieved popularity as a comedienne in six 1940s movies made with Wallace Beery e.g., "Barnacle Bill" (1941). The character which would dominate her remaining career was established when she played Ma Kettle in "The Egg and I" (1947), for which she received an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress. She began her co-starring series with Percy Kilbride the following year in "Feudin', Fussin' and A-Fightin'" and continued through seven more. Her last movie was a "Kettles", though without Kilbride: "The Kettles on Old MacDonald's Farm" (1957).
Ed Stephan

Mini Biography-2
from Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia:
Probably best known as feisty Ma Kettle, this versatile actress also sparked a number of other, bigger films with her boisterous manner and memorably scratchy voice. She logged nearly 100 film appearances in all during a 20-year screen career. Her breakthrough role was that of the weary, sad, and impoverished mother of gangster Humphrey Bogart in Dead End (1937); it was a characterization she repeated, with little variation but astonishing consistency, in at least a halfdozen other movies, including Boy of the Streets (1937) and The Angels Wash Their Faces (1939). She appeared in more than 20 movies-including The Women (1939), Honky Tonk (1941), Johnny Come Lately (1943, as Gas House Mary), Meet Me in St. Louis (1944, as the housekeeper), Murder, He Says (1945), and The Harvey Girls (1946)-before her tyro appearance as Ma Kettle in The Egg and I (1947), which earned her an Oscar nomination and led to the popular 1950s series costarring Percy Kilbride. She was well matched with Wallace Beery in Barnacle Bill (1941), Jackass Mail (1942), Bad Bascomb (1946), and Big Jack (1949), and was cast opposite James Whitmore in Mrs. O'Malley and Mr. Malone (1950), in an attempt to launch a series that never came to be. She even sang with Bert Lahr in Rose Marie (1954). Main retired in 1957, shortly after completing the ninth and final Kettle film, The Kettles on Old Macdonald's Farm
Copyright © 1994 Leonard Maltin, used by arrangement with Signet, a division of Penguin Putnam, Inc.

Filmography
Actress
1. "Wagon Train"
... aka Major Adams, Trail Master
- The Sacramento Story (1958) TV Episode .... Cassie Turner
- The Cassie Tanner Story (1958) TV Episode .... Cassie Tanner
2. The Kettles on Old MacDonald's Farm (1957) .... Ma Kettle
3. Friendly Persuasion (1956) .... The Widow Hudspeth
4. The Kettles in the Ozarks (1956) .... Ma Kettle
5. Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki (1955) .... Phoebe ('Ma') Kettle
6. Ricochet Romance (1954) .... Pansy Jones
7. Rose Marie (1954) .... Lady Jane Dunstock
8. Ma and Pa Kettle at Home (1954) .... Ma Kettle
9. The Long, Long Trailer (1954) .... Mrs. Hittaway
10. Fast Company (1953) .... Ma Parkson
11. Ma and Pa Kettle on Vacation (1953) .... Ma Kettle
... aka Ma and Pa Kettle Go to Paris (UK)
... aka Ma and Pa Kettle Hit the Road
12. Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair (1952) .... Ma Kettle
... aka Ma and Pa Kettle at the County Fair (USA)
13. The Belle of New York (1952) .... Mrs. Phineas Hill
14. It's a Big Country (1951) .... Mrs. Wrenley
15. The Law and the Lady (1951) .... Julia Wortin
16. Ma and Pa Kettle Back on the Farm (1951) .... Ma Kettle
17. Mr. Imperium (1951) .... Mrs. Cabot
... aka You Belong to My Heart (UK)
18. A Letter from a Soldier (1951) .... Mrs. Wrenley
19. Mrs. O'Malley and Mr. Malone (1950) .... Harriet 'Hattie' O'Malley
20. Summer Stock (1950) .... Esme
... aka If You Feel Like Singing (UK)
21. Ma and Pa Kettle Go to Town (1950) .... Ma Kettle
... aka Going to Town (UK)
22. Big Jack (1949) .... Flapjack Kate
23. Ma and Pa Kettle (1949) .... Ma Kettle
... aka The Further Adventures of Ma and Pa Kettle
24. Feudin', Fussin' and A-Fightin' (1948) .... Maribel Mathews
25. The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap (1947) .... Widow Hawkins
... aka The Wistful Widow (UK)
26. The Egg and I (1947) .... Ma Kettle
27. The Show-Off (1946) .... Mrs. Fisher
28. Undercurrent (1946) .... Lucy
29. Bad Bascomb (1946) .... Abbey Hanks
30. The Harvey Girls (1946) .... Sonora Cassidy
31. Murder, He Says (1945) .... Mamie Johnson
32. Gentle Annie (1944) .... Annie Goss
33. Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) .... Katie (the maid)
34. Rationing (1944) .... Iris Tuttle
35. Johnny Come Lately (1943) .... 'Gashouse' Mary McGovern
... aka Johnny Vagabond (UK)
36. Heaven Can Wait (1943) .... Mrs. Strabel
37. Tennessee Johnson (1942) .... Mrs. Maude Fisher
... aka The Man on America's Conscience (UK)
38. Tish (1942) .... Miss Letitia 'Tish' Carberry
39. Jackass Mail (1942) .... Clementine 'Tina' Tucker
40. The Affairs of Martha (1942) .... Mrs. McKessic
... aka Once Upon a Thursday (UK)
41. We Were Dancing (1942) .... Judge Sidney Hawkes
42. The Bugle Sounds (1942) .... Susie 'Suz'
43. Honky Tonk (1941) .... Mrs. Varner
44. The Shepherd of the Hills (1941) .... Granny Becky
45. A Woman's Face (1941) .... Emma Kristiansdotter
46. Barnacle Bill (1941) .... Marge Cavendish
47. The Trial of Mary Dugan (1941) .... Mrs. Collins
48. The Wild Man of Borneo (1941) .... Irma, the Cook
49. Wyoming (1940) .... Mehitabel
... aka Bad Man of Wyoming (UK)
50. The Captain Is a Lady (1940) .... Sarah May Willett
51. Susan and God (1940) .... Mary Maloney
... aka The Gay Mrs. Trexel (UK)
52. Turnabout (1940) .... Nora
53. Dark Command (1940) .... Mrs. Cantrell, aka Mrs. Adams
54. Women Without Names (1940) .... Mrs. Lowery
55. I Take This Woman (1940) .... Gertie
56. Two Thoroughbreds (1939) .... Hildegarde Carey
57. Another Thin Man (1939) .... Mrs. Dolley, Landlord Chesterfield Apartments
... aka Return of the Thin Man (USA: promotional title)
58. The Women (1939) .... Lucy
59. The Angels Wash Their Faces (1939) .... Mrs. Arkelian
... aka Angels Wash Their Faces (USA)
60. They Shall Have Music (1939) .... Mrs. Miller
... aka Melody of Youth (UK)
... aka Ragged Angels (USA: reissue title)
61. Lucky Night (1939) .... Mrs. Briggs, the Landlady
62. There Goes My Heart (1938) .... Irate customer
63. Girls' School (1938) .... Miss Armstrong
64. Too Hot to Handle (1938) .... Miss Kitty Wayne
65. Under the Big Top (1938) .... Sara
66. Little Tough Guy (1938) .... Mrs. Boylan
67. Prison Farm (1938) .... Chief Matron Brand
68. Romance of the Limberlost (1938) .... Nora
69. Three Comrades (1938) (uncredited) .... Old Woman by Phone
70. Test Pilot (1938) .... Landlady
71. King of the Newsboys (1938) (uncredited) .... Mrs. Stephens
72. Penitentiary (1938/I) (uncredited) .... Katie
73. Boy of the Streets (1938) .... Mrs. Mary Brennan
74. City Girl (1938) (uncredited) .... Mrs. Ward
75. The Shadow (1937) .... Hannah Gillespie
... aka The Circus Shadow (UK)
76. The Wrong Road (1937) .... Martha Foster
77. The Man Who Cried Wolf (1937) .... Amelia Bradley
78. Dead End (1937) .... Mrs. Martin
... aka Dead End: Cradle of Crime (USA: reissue title)
79. Stella Dallas (1937) .... Mrs. Martin
80. Love in a Bungalow (1937) .... Miss Emma Bisbee
81. Naughty Marietta (1935) (uncredited) .... Casquette Girl
82. Music in the Air (1934) .... Anna
83. Crime Without Passion (1934) (unconfirmed)
84. Art Trouble (1934) (uncredited) .... Woman Who Sits on Painting
85. Take a Chance (1933) .... Woman
86. Hot Saturday (1932) .... A gossip
87. A House Divided (1931) .... Townswoman at Wedding

Herself
1. "December Bride"
- The Marjorie Main Show (1956) TV Episode .... Hersel
2. New Deal Rhythm (1933) .... Delegate from Arizona

Archive Footage
1. The World of Abbott and Costello (1965) .... (in clips from The Wistful Widow of ]Wagon Gap)

Hi,

Just like Beulah Bondi, I thought Marjorie Main played brooding,
moody, almost cult like characters, and in the 2 films she made with Duke, it showed!
She seemed a dark, character actor, but one that I am fascinated to watch.

The Shepherd of the Hills (1941) .... Granny Becky
Dark Command(1940) .... Mrs. Cantrell, aka Mrs. Adams

As Granny Becky said, enjoy this Biog, or

Quote

I'll put the hecks on you.

Hi Sue,

Thanks for the links, it all helps!

Just to re-introduce a great character actor

who said

Quote

I'll put the hecks on you.

Quote

Stumpy.
I also liked old Marjorie Main (who played Walter Pidgeon's mother) in this film. My favorite role for Ms. Main, though, was in "Friendly Persuasion" with Gary Cooper.

Jim this one's for you.