Mary Brian

About Mary Brian

Who is it?: Actress, Soundtrack
Birth Day: February 17, 1906
Birth Place:  Corsicana, Texas, United States
Died On: December 30, 2002(2002-12-30) (aged 96)\nDel Mar, California, U.S.
Birth Sign: Pisces
Occupation: Actress
Years active: 1924–1954
Spouse(s): Jon Whitcomb (m. 1941–1941) (divorced) George Tomasini (m. 1947–1964) (his death)

Mary Brian Net Worth

Mary Brian was born on February 17, 1906 in  Corsicana, Texas, United States, is Actress, Soundtrack. Dubbed "The Sweetest Girl in Pictures", Mary Brian started life as Louise Byrdie Datzler. She was born in Corsicana, Texas, and went to high school in Dallas. Her widowed mother had big plans for young Louise and took her to California in 1923, with the intention of getting her into the film business. After several unsuccessful attempts, a bathing beauty competition in Long Beach resulted in a second-prize letter of introduction to Herbert Brenon at Paramount and the girl with the dark brown curls and blue/gray eyes wound up being screen-tested for the role of Wendy in Peter Pan (1924), co-starring Betty Bronson and Esther Ralston (with whom she would form lifelong friendships). She not only got the part but a five-year contract with Paramount (1925-30) and a new name.In 1926 she became one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars, which further enhanced her popularity. During the next few years she played ornamental leads and second leads as adolescent heroines, co-eds and ingénues. Many of those early silent features no longer exist today (Paris at Midnight (1926), among others), though surviving reels of some, like The Air Mail (1925), can still be accessed at the Library of Congress. Mary effortlessly made the transition from silents to talkies, co-starring with Gary Cooper as a feisty schoolmarm on the frontier in The Virginian (1929). One of her biggest hits was as Gwen Cavendish in the urbane comedy The Royal Family of Broadway (1930), with Ina Claire and Fredric March. A thinly disguised caricature of the private lives of the Barrymore dynasty, it hit the mark to the extent that Ethel Barrymore even threatened to sue Paramount. Mary acted three times opposite W.C. Fields, first as his daughter in Running Wild (1927), later reprising her role for The Man on the Flying Trapeze (1934) (the third was Two Flaming Youths (1927), another lost film).Signing up for another four-year contract, Mary was one of the all-star cast in the musical Paramount on Parade (1930) and then was given another good part in the first talkie version of The Front Page (1931). However, she was dropped from her contract (alongside her more illustrious colleagues Fay Wray and Jean Arthur) when Paramount began to forsake innocence and charm in favor of glamour and sophistication. From 1932 Mary freelanced and also performed occasionally in vaudeville at the Palace Theater. Arguably her last good picture was the romantic comedy Hard to Handle (1933), with James Cagney as a grifter (hilariously promoting grapefruit diets, spoofing his infamous scene with Mae Clarke in The Public Enemy (1931)). In 1936 Mary went to England, where she co-starred opposite Cary Grant in The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss (1936). She then made several pictures for Poverty Row companies such as Majestic and Monogram, including the low-budget potboiler I Escaped from the Gestapo (1943).Mary's motion picture career faded after 1937 and she turned towards the stage. In 1940 she went on tour with "Three after Three" , alongside Simone Simon and Mitzi Green and later entertained American troops in the South Pacific as part of the USO. In the 1950's, she enjoyed a brief resurgence on television as the mother of a "Gidget"-type teen in the syndicated sitcom Meet Corliss Archer (1954). After the death of her second husband, the film editor George Tomasini, Mary spent her retirement fulfilling a lifelong passion for portrait painting.
Mary Brian is a member of Actress

💰Mary Brian Net worth: $700,000

Some Mary Brian images

Biography/Timeline

1906

She was born Louise Byrdie Dantzler in Corsicana, Texas, the daughter of Taurrence J. Dantzler (December 1869 – March 18, 1906) and Louise B. (August 12, 1876 – April 3, 1973). Her brother was Taurrence J. Dantzler, Jr. (August 9, 1903 – April 6, 1973).

1920

Her father died when she was one month old and the family later moved to Dallas. In the early 1920s, they moved to Long Beach, California. She had intended becoming an Illustrator but that was laid aside when at age 16 she was discovered in a local bathing beauty contest. One of the judges was famous motion picture star Esther Ralston (who was to play her mother in the upcoming Peter Pan and who became a lifelong friend).

1924

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

1925

The studio, who created her stage name for the movie and said she was age 16 instead of 18, because the latter sounded too old for the role, then signed her to a long-term motion picture contract. Brian played Fancy Vanhern, daughter of Percy Marmont, in Brenon's The Street of Forgotten Men (1925), which had newcomer Louise Brooks in an uncredited debut role as a moll.

1926

During her years at Paramount, Brian appeared in more than 40 movies as the lead, the ingenue or co-star. She worked with Brenon again in 1926 when she played Isabel in P. C. Wren's Beau Geste starring Ronald Colman. That same 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 mother and william Powell as Froggy. Forgotten Faces is preserved in the Library of Congress.

1928

Her first talkie was Varsity (1928), which was filmed with part-sound and talking sequences, opposite Buddy Rogers. After successfully making the transition to sound, she co-starred with Gary Cooper, Walter Huston and Richard Arlen in one of the earliest Western talkies, The Virginian (1929), her first all-talkie feature. In it, she played a spirited frontier heroine, schoolmarm Molly Stark Wood, who was the love interest of the Virginian (Cooper).

1930

Her final film of the 1930s was Affairs of Cappy Ricks although she auditioned unsuccessfully for the part that would go to Janet Gaynor in A Star is Born.

1932

After her contract with Paramount ended in 1932, Brian freelanced. That same year, she appeared on the vaudeville stage at New York's Palace Theatre. Also in the same year, she starred in Manhattan Tower.

1933

Other movie roles include Murial Ross, aka Murial Rossi, in Shadows of Sing Sing (1933), in which she received 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 in Spendthrift (1936) opposite Henry Fonda, and Doris in Navy Blues (1937), in which she received top billing.

1936

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

1937

Brian was absent from the screen from 1937 to 1943. During World War II, she entertained servicemen in the South Pacific and in Europe. She spent Christmas of 1944 with the Soldiers fighting the Battle of the Bulge.

1941

Though she was engaged numerous times and was linked romantically to numerous Hollywood men, including Cary Grant and notorious womaniser Jack Pickford, Brian had only two husbands: magazine Illustrator Jon Whitcomb (for six weeks, beginning May 4, 1941) and film Editor George Tomasini (from 1947 until his death in 1964). After retiring from the screen for good, she devoted herself to her husband's career; Tomasini worked as film Editor for Hitchcock on the classics Rear Window (1954) and Psycho (1960).

1947

She appeared in only a handful of films thereafter. Her last performance on the silver screen was in Dragnet (1947), a B-movie in which she played Anne Hogan opposite Henry Wilcoxon. Over the course of 22 years, Brian had appeared in more than 79 movies.

1950

During the 1950s, Brian had something of a career in television, most notably playing the title character's mother in Meet Corliss Archer (1954).

1951

She played in the stage comedy Mary Had a Little... in the 1951 in Melbourne, Australia, co-starring with John Hubbard.

1960

In 1960, Brian was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame with a motion pictures star located at 1559 Vine Street.

2002

She died of natural causes on December 30, 2002 at a retirement home in Del Mar, California at the age of 96. She is interred in the Eternal Love Section, Lot 4134, Space 2, Forest Lawn – Hollywood Hills Cemetery, Los Angeles, overlooking Burbank.