“When my father died, he left mother some money for me. About $11,000. I’d always been movie-crazy and I wanted to come to Hollywood. Mother – oh, mother’s sort of naive – said yes, and we came. We rented this house, and we bought furniture – yes, the same we have now – and bought a big car, and had my teeth fixed, and mother’s, and stocked the pantry with canned goods, and I even paid a doctor – in advance – for taking care of us. We had a house for a year and the rent was paid; we had food; and dental and medical care; and a car and – oh, yes, a new mink coat. I nearly wore myself out spending all that money in two weeks, but there was just one thing I forgot…
“Gasoline. I forgot you need it to run a car.
“Yes, and that was how I got started in pictures. I was stalled, gas-less, out front and Doug Churchill (of the New York Times), who lives nearby, pushed me into my garage. He introduced me at a studio and I got my first extra work…” – Marie Wilson (1916-1972)
Source: Robbin Coons (1939)
Photographer: Elmer Fryer
“Hollywood’s full of blue-eyed blondes – and dumb ones at that. But by being 10 times dumber than any of the others I’ve kept the casting directors beating a path to the Wilson door.” — Marie Wilson
Source: Virginia MacPherson (1946)
Photo: Jane Wyman, Shirley Lloyd, Ann Nagel, Marie Wilson, Linda Perry, Jane Bryan, Rosalind Marquis and Carol Hughes
“If a girl has a well-developed…ah…personality, she should be allowed to show it.” — Marie Wilson
Source: Virginia MacPherson (1946)
Photographer: Wallace Seawell
“If you have a line of goods that brings in the customers, it doesn’t help business any to keep your stock hidden away on a back shelf. Now does it?” — Marie Wilson
Source: Virginia MacPherson (1946)
“My only objection to the movies is they don’t allow my talents full sway.” — Marie Wilson
Source: Virginia MacPherson (1946)
Photographer: Wallace Seawell (1940)
