Marie Dressler

Leila Marie Koerber was born in Cobourg, Ontario. Leaving home as a teenager to join traveling opera and vaudeville troupes, she rose to stardom on Broadway and in Mack Sennett silent slapsticks alongside Charlie Chaplin in Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914).

After years of financial ruin and obscurity, Dressler staged an unprecedented comeback in sound cinema during the Great Depression. In 1931, at age sixty-two, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Min and Bill. In 1932 and 1933, theater owners voted Dressler the number-one box-office attraction in the world, beloved for her earthiness, dignity, and comedic genius.