Marie Prevost

The Actress Who Was Eaten By Her Dog

Not really a scandal per se, but certainly a strange end to a life and career

Marie Prevost started out in life as Mary Bickford Dunn in Sarnia, Ontario. When still a child she moved with her parents first to Denver, Colorado and then later to Los Angeles, California. It was a fateful decision. Had the family stayed in Sarnia, or Denver, chances are Mary Bickford Dunn would have remained unknown. But then we would have been robbed of one of the great beauties from the silent era.

Marie worked as a stenographer, but prompted by comments about her stunning good looks, knocked on a few doors and was hired at Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios. While Sennett is usually credited with creating a frenetic kind of film comedy exemplified by the Keystone Kops, it is usually forgotten that he tried to inject some glamour into the movie biz with his Bathing Beauties. Mary, or Marie, would start out as one of those beauties. She was just 18 and working for one of the most famous companies in Hollywood. But Marie wasn't destined to remain part of the crowd. Her looks, often described as "perky" could not be overlooked. By time she was 21 she had played lead in a number of Keystone shorts and, like many of the people who worked for Sennett, was hired by another studio.

At Universal, Marie almost immediately became a huge star of the silent screen. An embodiment of the so-called Jazz Age in films like 1921's Moonlight Follies and The Married Flapper, released in 1922. But her stay at Universal would be short and she soon signed a contract to work for Warner Brothers starting in 1922. While she would only stay with that studio for four years, she would make some of her best movies and would ignite the screen with her overt sexuality. At Warner, she began to make the first of what would turn out to be a 10-film liaison with leading man Monte Blue. Three of her best films would be directed by one of the greatest directors of the era, Germany's Ernst Lubitsch. Lubitsch was a master of the Hollywood sex farce, and Prevost was one of the stars of his breakthrough film The Marriage Circle in 1924. Prevost plays a very flirtatious Mizzi, who attempts to seduce a happily married doctor, played by Monte Blue, away from his wife. The highjinks between them are terrific and the film didn't need sound to have people rolling in the aisles, as they used to say.

Marie worked again with Lubitsch in 1924's Three Women, and a year later in Kiss Me Again. The balance of that decade saw Marie turn out one good film after another even after she left Warner to sign with the now-unknown Producers Distributing Corporation. Much like the way she had been teamed with Monty Blue, here she would make 6 films with Harrison Ford. But as the decade drew to a close, the first talking pictures were being released. Many actors could not tame their exuberant physical gestures to perform in a more subtle manner now that sound would carry so much of the message. Some, simply didn't have a good voice now that they could be heard. Neither of this things applied to Marie. It was a combination of unforeseen events not touched on in Nick Lowe's song, and largely forgotten in the details of her tragic death.

The first event in Marie's downturn began when her mother was killed in car accident. Virtually inconsolable, Marie began to drink heavily to ease her pain. Also, the Depression had started and just when it mattered, Marie found herself without a contract at a major studio. Added to that was the fact her 1929 film, The Godless Girl, directed by Cecil B. DeMille by the way, was a flop at the box office. And, if all that wasn't enough, her drinking had caused her to put on weight and now in her early 30s, Marie's career was in trouble.

That said, Marie continued to turn out strong performances in most of her films through 1930. Of particular note was her role as Joan Crawford's prison pal in Paid, as well as her superb work as a wisecracking crony of Barbara Stanwyck in Ladies of Leisure. But two years later things had changed. Marie made only four films in 1932 and the last of these had seen her marquee billing slip from star to a supporting role in Three Wise Girls. In the next three years Marie would appear in only 9 films, many of them made for small studios on small budgets. Marie was by now extremely heavy and in an attempt to regain her former status she began to diet. In truth, she stopped eating.

And that's how Marie died. She basically starved herself to death.

Trapped in the home without food or water, the dog ended up by eating her, little by little. Instead of being remembered as one of the brightest stars in the early days of Hollywood, Marie Prevost is usually remembered, when she is remembered at all, because of her tragic death and gruesome end.

Marie Prevost Filmography

Bengal Tiger (1936) (uncredited) .... Saloon Girl
Cain and Mabel (1936) (uncredited) .... Sherman's Receptionist
Ten Laps to Go (1936) .... Elsie
Thirteen Hours by Air (1936) .... Waitress
Tango (1936) .... Betty Barlow, Treasure's Roomate
Keystone Hotel (1935) .... Mrs. Clarabelle Sterling
Hands Across the Table (1935) .... Nona
Only Yesterday (1933) (uncredited) .... Amy
Pick Me Up (1933)
Eleventh Commandment, The (1933) .... Tessie Florin
Parole Girl (1933) .... Jeanie
Rock-a-Bye Cowboy (1933) .... Marie
Hesitating Love (1932)
Slightly Married (1932) .... Nellie Gordon
Carnival Boat (1932) .... Babe
Three Wise Girls (1932) .... Dot
Hell Divers (1931) .... Mrs. Lulu Farnsworth
Sin of Madelon Claudet, The (1931) .... Rosalie Lebeau
Reckless Living (1931) .... Alice
Runaround, The (1931) .... Margy
Sporting Blood (1931) .... Angela Ludeking
West of the Rockies (1931)
Good Bad Girl, The (1931) .... Trixie
It's a Wise Child (1931) .... Annie Ostrom
Gentleman's Fate (1931) .... Mabel
Paid (1930) .... Agnes 'Aggie' Lynch
War Nurse (1930) .... Rosalie
Sweethearts on Parade (1930) .... Nita
Ladies of Leisure (1930) .... Dot Lamar
Party Girl (1930) .... Diana Hoster
Divorce Made Easy (1929) .... Mabel Deering
Flying Fool, The (1929) .... Pat
Godless Girl, The (1929) (as Mary Prevost) .... Mame
Rush Hour, The (1928) .... Margie Dolan
Sideshow, The (1928) .... Queenie Parker
Racket, The (1928) .... Helen Hayes)
Blonde for a Night, A (1928) .... Marie
On to Reno (1928) .... Vera
Girl in the Pullman, The (1927) .... Hazel Burton
Night Bride (1927) .... Cynthia Stockton
Getting Gertie's Garter (1927) .... Gertie Darling
Man Bait (1927) .... Madge Dreyer
For Wives Only (1926) .... Laura Rittenhaus
Almost a Lady (1926) .... Marcia Blake
Nana (1926) .... Gaga
Up in Mabel's Room (1926) .... Mabel Ainsworth
Other Women's Husbands (1926) .... Kay Lambert
Caveman, The (1926) .... Myra Gaylord
His Jazz Bride (1926) .... Gloria Gregory
Seven Sinners (1925) .... Molly Brian
Bobbed Hair (1925) .... Connemara Moore
Kiss Me Again (1925) .... LouLou Fleury
Recompense (1925) .... Julie Gmelyn
Dark Swan, The (1924) .... Eve Quinn
Lover of Camille, The (1924) .... Marie Duplessis
Three Women (1924) .... Harriet
Tarnish (1924) .... Nettie Dark
Cornered (1924) .... Mary Brennan/Margaret Waring
Being Respectable (1924) (as Mary Prevost) .... Valerie Winship
Daughters of Pleasure (1924) .... Marjory Hadley
How to Educate a Wife (1924) .... Mabel Todd
Marriage Circle, The (1924) .... Mizzi Stock
Wanters, The (1923) .... Myra Hastings
Red Lights (1923) .... Ruth Carson
Brass (1923) .... Marjorie Jones
Beautiful and the Damned, The (1922) .... Gloria
Heroes of the Street (1922)
Married Flapper, The (1922) .... Pamela Billings
Her Night of Nights (1922) .... Molly May Mahone
Kissed (1922) .... Constance Keener
Crossroads of New York, The (1922)
Dangerous Little Demon, The (1922) .... Teddy Harmon
Don't Get Personal (1922) .... Patricia Parker
Parisian Scandal, A (1921) .... Liane-Demarest
Nobody's Fool (1921) .... Polly Gordon
Moonlight Follies (1921) .... Nan Rutledge
Call a Cop (1921)
Small Town Idol, A (1921) .... Marcelle Mansfield
Dabbling in Art (1921)
Love, Honor and Behave (1920) .... Newlywed
Down on the Farm (1920/I) .... The Faithful Wife
East Lynne with Variations (1919)
Love's False Faces (1919)
Never Too Old (1919)
Reilly's Wash Day (1919)
Rip & Stitch: Tailors (1919)
Speakeasy, The (1919)
Up in Alf's Place (1919)
When Love Is Blind (1919)
Why Beaches Are Popular (1919)
Salome vs. Shenandoah (1919)
Uncle Tom Without a Cabin (1919) .... Eliza
Sleuths (1919)
Dentist, The (1919)
Yankee Doodle in Berlin (1919) .... A Belgian Girl
Hide and Seek Detectives (1918)
His Hidden Purpose (1918)
His Smothered Love (1918)
Village Chestnut, The (1918)
She Loved Him Plenty (1918)
Her Nature Dance (1917)
Two Crooks (1917)
Secrets of a Beauty Parlor (1917)
Unto Those Who Sin (1916) .... Celeste
Better Late Than Never (1916)