travsd

Marjorie Beebe: Fox, Sennett and B Pictures

Annex - Beebe, Marjorie_01

Today is the birthday of Marjorie Beebe (1908-1983). Originally from Kansas City, the 18 year old began acting in shorts and features for Fox in 1927, starring in at least one feature The Farmer’s Daughter in 1928. In 1929, she began regularly starring in sound comedy shorts (along with the feature Hypnotized) for Mack Sennett. When Sennett went belly up in 1933, Beebe was left high and dry, despite her earlier success at Fox. She had a few small roles in B movies and serials in 1937 and called it quits after 1939. This was a loss to the world of comedy: over the years she had co-starred with Leon Errol, Clark and McCullough, Moran and Mack, Andy Clyde, Harry Gribbon, Daphne Pollard, Franklin Pangborn, etc etc.

For more on silent and slapstick comedy please see my new book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, just released by Bear Manor Media, also available from amazon.com etc etc etc

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To find out more about show business past and present, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold.

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Published by travsd

Writer and performer Trav S.D. (www.travsd.com) is best known for his books "No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous" (2005) and "Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube" (2013). He has written for the NY Times, the Village Voice, American Theatre, Time Out NY, Reason, the Villager and numerous other publications. Trav has been in the vanguard of New York’s vaudeville and burlesque scenes since 1995 when he launched his company Mountebanks, presenting hundreds of acts ranging from Todd Robbins to Dirty Martini to Tammy Faye Starlite to the Flying Karamazov Brothers. He has directed his own plays, revues and solo pieces at such venues as Joe’s Pub, La Mama, HERE, Dixon Place, Theater for the New City, the Ohio Theatre, the Brick, and 6 separate shows in the NY International Fringe Festival. In 2014 he produced and directed the smash-hit "I’ll Say She Is", the first ever revival of the Marx Brothers hit 1924 Broadway show in the NY International Fringe Festival.

5 comments

  2. Hey, Trav. Been a long time since I did the Ella Harper blog. Oddly enough I am posting one on Marjorie in the next week or two. For the rest of them feel fee to visit my home page for all of them. Lost2History.Wordpress.Com

    -Ray

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  3. I was delighted to see you’d acknowledged Marjorie Beebe on your wonderfully encyclopedic site. I’ve been researching her for some years, and you’ve chosen my favorite picture of her. I’ve tried all I can to find a copy of “The Farmer’s Daughter” but it seems irretrievably lost. Does she get a namecheck in your book I wonder? I’d love to hear from you if you’ve got a minute in your busy schedule.

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