Mary Brian


Mary Brian was an American actress who made the transition from silent films to sound films.

Early life

Brian was born in Corsicana, Texas, the daughter of Taurrence J. Dantzler and Louise B. Her brother was Taurrence J. Dantzler, Jr.
Her father died when she was one month old and the family later moved to Dallas, Texas. In the early 1920s, they moved to Long Beach, California. She had intended to become 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 actress Esther Ralston.
She did not win the $25 prize in the contest, but Ralston said, "you've got to give the little girl something". So, her prize was to be interviewed by director Herbert Brenon for a role in Peter Pan. Brenon was recovering from eye surgery, and she spoke with him in a dimly lit room. "He asked me a few questions, Is that your hair? Out of the blue, he said, 'I would like to make a test.' Even to this day, I will never know why I was that lucky. They had made tests of every ingénue in the business for Wendy. He had decided he would go with an unknown. It would seem more like a fairy tale. It wouldn't seem right if the roles were to be taken by someone they knew or was divorced. I got the part. They put me under contract." The studio renamed her Mary Brian.

Discovery

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. 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".
The movie studio, which 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 contract. Brian played Fancy Vanhern, daughter of Percy Marmont, in Brenon's The Street of Forgotten Men, which had newcomer Louise Brooks in an uncredited role as a moll.

Career rise

Brian was dubbed "The Sweetest Girl in Pictures." On loan-out to MGM, she played a college belle, Mary Abbott, opposite William Haines and Jack Pickford in Brown of Harvard. She was named one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1926, along with Mary Astor, Dolores Costello, Joan Crawford, Dolores del Río, Janet Gaynor, and Fay Wray.
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. The 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.

Successful transition to sound films

Her first sound film was Varsity, 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 The Virginian, her first all-sound movie. In it, she played a spirited frontier heroine, schoolmarm Molly Stark Wood, who was the Virginian's love interest.
Brian co-starred in several hits during the 1930s, including her role as Gwen Cavendish in George Cukor’s comedy The Royal Family of Broadway with Ina Claire and Fredric March, as herself in Paramount's all-star revue Paramount on Parade, and as Peggy Grant in Lewis Milestone’s comedy The Front Page with Adolphe Menjou and Pat O'Brien.
After her contract with Paramount ended in 1932, Brian decided to freelance, which was unusual in a period when multiyear contracts with one studio were common. The same year, she appeared on the vaudeville stage at New York City's Palace Theatre. Also in the same year, she starred in Manhattan Tower.
Her other movie roles include Murial Ross in Shadows of Sing Sing, in which she received top billing; Gloria Van Dayham in College Rhythm ; Yvette Lamartine in Charlie Chan in Paris ; Hope Wolfinger, W.C. Fields’s daughter, in Man on the Flying Trapeze ; Sally Barnaby in Spendthrift ; and Doris in Navy Blues, in which she received top billing.
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 for a time.
Her final film of the 1930s was Affairs of Cappy Ricks, although she auditioned for the part that ultimately went to Janet Gaynor in A Star is Born.

Later career

When World War II began in 1941, Brian began traveling to entertain the troops, spending most of the war years traveling the world with the U.S.O., and entertaining servicemen from the South Pacific to Europe, from Italy to North Africa. Commenting on those events, she said in 1996,
I was with Charlie Ruggles in Okinawa. And I was on the island of Tinian when they dropped the atomic bomb. Colonel Paul Tibbets, who was the pilot and the officer in charge took Charlie and me on the plane the next day, and nobody had been allowed in that encampment. So, I was on the Enola Gay.

Flying to England on a troop shoot, Brian was caught in the Battle of the Bulge and spent the Christmas of 1944 with the soldiers engaged in that battle.
File:MeetCorlissArcher-Corliss-Janet.jpg|right|thumb|Mary Brian with Ann Baker in Meet Corliss Archer
She appeared in only a handful of films thereafter. Her last performance in movies was in Dragnet. Over the course of 22 years, Brian had appeared in more than 79 movies.
She played in the stage comedy Mary Had a Little... in 1951 in Melbourne, Australia, co-starring with John Hubbard.
Like many "older" actresses, during the 1950s, Brian created a career in television. Perhaps her most notable role was playing the title character's mother in Meet Corliss Archer in 1954.
She also dedicated much time to portrait painting after her acting years.

Personal life and death

Although she was engaged numerous times, and was linked romantically to numerous Hollywood men, including Cary Grant and silent film actor Jack Pickford, Brian had only two husbands: magazine illustrator Jon Whitcomb and film editor George Tomasini. After retiring from movies for good, she devoted herself to her husband's career; Tomasini worked as a film editor for Alfred Hitchcock on Rear Window and Psycho.
She died of natural causes on December 30, 2002, at a retirement home in Del Mar, California at the age of 96.

Legacy

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

Selected filmography

  • Peter Pan as Wendy Moira Angela Darling
  • The Little French Girl as Alix Vervier
  • The Air Mail as Minnie Wade
  • The Street of Forgotten Men as Mary Vanhern
  • A Regular Fellow as Girl
  • The Enchanted Hill as Hallie Purdy
  • Behind the Front as Betty Bartlett-Cooper
  • Paris at Midnight as Victorine Tallefer
  • Brown of Harvard as Mary Abbott
  • More Pay - Less Work as Betty Ricks
  • Beau Geste as Isabel Rivers
  • Prince of Tempters as Mary
  • Battling Butler
  • Stepping Along as Molly Taylor
  • Her Father Said No as Charlotte Hamilton
  • High Hat as Millie
  • Knockout Reilly as Mary Malone
  • Running Wild as Elizabeth Finch
  • Man Power as Alice Stoddard
  • Shanghai Bound as Sheila
  • Two Flaming Youths as Mary Gilfoil
  • Under the Tonto Rim as Lucy Watson
  • Partners in Crime as Marie Burke, The Cigarette Girl
  • Harold Teen as Lillums Lovewell
  • The Big Killing as Mary Beagle - Old Man Beagle's Daughter
  • Forgotten Faces as Alice Deane
  • Varsity as Fay
  • Someone to Love as Joan Kendricks
  • Black Waters as Eunice
  • The Man I Love as Celia Fields
  • River of Romance as Lucy Jeffers
  • The Virginian as Molly Stark Wood
  • The Marriage Playground as Judith Wheater
  • The Kibitzer as Josie Lazarus
  • Burning Up as Ruth Morgan
  • Only the Brave as Barbara Calhoun
  • The Light of Western Stars as Ruth Hammond
  • Galas de la Paramount as Sweetheart - Episode 'Dream Girl'
  • The Social Lion as Cynthia Brown
  • Only Saps Work as Barbara Tanner
  • The Royal Family of Broadway as Gwen Cavendish
  • Captain Applejack as Poppy Faire
  • The Front Page as Peggy Grant
  • Gun Smoke as Sue Vancey
  • The Homicide Squad as Millie
  • The Runaround as Evelyn
  • "Hollywood Halfbacks"
  • It's Tough to Be Famous as Janet Porter McClenahan
  • Blessed Event as Gladys Price
  • The Unwritten Law as Ruth Evans
  • Manhattan Tower as Mary Harper
  • Hard to Handle as Ruth Waters
  • Girl Missing as June Dale
  • The World Gone Mad as Diane Cromwell
  • Song of the Eagle as Elsa Kranzmeyer
  • Moonlight and Pretzels as Sally Upton
  • One Year Later as Molly Collins
  • Fog as Mary Fulton
  • Shadows of Sing Sing as Muriel Ross aka Muriel Rossi
  • Ever Since Eve as Elizabeth Vandergrift
  • Private Scandal as Fran Somers
  • Monte Carlo Nights as Mary Vernon
  • College Rhythm as Gloria Van Dayham
  • Charlie Chan in Paris as Yvette Lamartine
  • Man on the Flying Trapeze as Hope Wolfinger
  • Once in a Million as Suzanne
  • Two's Company as Julia Madison
  • Spendthrift as Sally Barnaby
  • The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss as Frances Clayton
  • Three Married Men as Jennie Mullins
  • Killer at Large as Linda Allen
  • Navy Blues as Doris Kimbell
  • Affairs of Cappy Ricks as Frances 'Frankie' Ricks
  • Calaboose as Doris Lane
  • I Escaped from the Gestapo as Helen
  • Danger! Women at Work as Pert
  • The Captain from Köpenick as Frau Obermueller, the Mayor's Wife
  • Dragnet as Anne Hogan