Marjorie Rambeau

Marjorie Burnet Rambeau (July 15, 1889 – July 6, 1970) was an American film and stage actress.[1] She began her stage career at age 12, and appeared in several silent films before debuting in her first sound film, Her Man (1930). She was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her roles in Primrose Path (1940) and Torch Song (1953), and received the 1955 National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress for her roles in A Man Called Peter and The View from Pompey's Head.[2]

Marjorie Rambeau
Rambeau circa 1915
Born	Marjorie Burnet Rambeau (1889-07-15)July 15, 1889 San Francisco, California, U.S.
Died	July 6, 1970(1970-07-06) (aged 80) Palm Springs, California, U.S.
Resting place	Desert Memorial Park, Cathedral City, California
Other names	Majorie Rambeau Florence Rambeau
Occupation	actress
Years active	1901–1957
Spouse(s)	Willard Mack (1913–17) Hugh Dillman (1919–23) Francis A. Gudger (1931–67)

Early life

Rambeau was born in San Francisco to Marcel and Lilian Garlinda (née Kindelberger) Rambeau.[3] Her parents separated when she was a child. She and her mother went to Nome, Alaska, where young Marjorie dressed as a boy, sang, and played the banjo in saloons and music halls. Her mother insisted she dress as a boy to thwart amorous attention from drunken grown men in such a wild and woolly outpost as Nome.[4] She began performing on the stage at the age of 12. She attained theatrical experience in a rambling early life as a strolling player. Finally she made her Broadway debut on March 10, 1913, in a tryout of Willard Mack's play, Kick In.[5]

Career

The Debt – 1917

In her youth she was a Broadway leading lady, starring in plays such as the 1915 comedy Sadie Love. In 1921, Dorothy Parker memorialized her in verse:

If all the tears you shed so lavishly / Were gathered, as they left each brimming eye. / And were collected in a crystal sea, / The envious ocean would curl up and dry— / So awful in its mightiness, that lake, / So fathomless, that clear and salty deep. / For, oh, it seems your gentle heart must break, / To see you weep. ...[6]

Her silent films with the Mutual company included Mary Moreland and The Greater Woman (1917). The films were not major successes but did expose Rambeau to film audiences. By the time talkies came along she was in her early forties and she began to take on character roles in films such as Min and Bill, The Secret Six, Laughing Sinners, Grand Canary, Joe Palooka, and Primrose Path, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

In 1940, Rambeau had the title role in Tugboat Annie Sails Again as well as second billing under Wallace Beery (the co-star of the original Tugboat Annie) in 20 Mule Team; she also played an Italian mother in East of the River. Other films included Tobacco Road, A Man Called Peter, and Broadway. In 1953, she was again nominated for an Oscar, this time for Torch Song. In 1957, she appeared in a supporting role in Man of a Thousand Faces, a biographical film about the life of Lon Chaney Sr. starring James Cagney as Chaney, although she never worked with the real Chaney in silent films.

Rambeau with George "Gabby" Hayes in In Old Oklahoma, 1943

Rambeau played a supporting role in Min and Bill with Marie Dressler. Tugboat Annie was a follow up to Min and Bill, even though it was not a sequel. Rambeau replaced Dressler after her death as Tugboat Annie in the sequel Tugboat Annie Sails Again.

For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Rambeau has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6336 Hollywood Blvd.

Legacy

Rambeau plays a role in one of the origin stories of the Reuben sandwich. According to author and theatre critic Bernard Sobel, the sandwich was invented for her upon a visit to Reuben's Restaurant and Delicatessen in New York City.[7]

Personal life

Rambeau was descended from colonial immigrant Peter Gunnarsson Rambo,[8] who immigrated in the 1600s from Sweden to New Sweden and served as a justice of the Governor's Council. He was the longest living of the original settlers and became known as the "Father of New Sweden".[9]

Rambeau was married three times, and had no children. She was first married in 1913 to Canadian writer, actor, and director Willard Mack. They divorced in 1917. She then married actor Hugh Dillman McGaughey in 1919, a marriage which also ended in divorce in 1923. Rambeau's last marriage was to Francis Asbury Gudger in 1931, with whom she remained until his death in 1967. Gudger was from Asheville, North Carolina. In the winters they often stayed there, and in the summer they lived in Sebring, Florida. His previous wife was killed in an automobile accident in Tampa two years before, but Rambeau and Gudger had been sweethearts years before when the former was the "toast of Broadway".[10]

Death

She died in 1970 at her home in Palm Springs, California and was buried at the Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California.[11][12][13]

Filmography

Silent

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1917	The Greater Woman	Auriole Praed	Lost film
	Motherhood	Louise	Lost film
	The Debt	Countess Ann	Lost film
	The Mirror	Blanche	Lost film
	The Dazzling Miss Davison	Rachel, The Dazzling Miss Davison	Lost film
	Mary Moreland	Mary Moreland	Lost film
	National Red Cross Pageant	America	Final episode Lost film
1919	The Common Cause	Columbia	Prologue Lost film
1920	The Fortune Teller	Renee Browning	Lost film
1922	On Her Honor[14]	Rachel Davison	Presumed lost
1926	Syncopating Sue	Herself	Lost film

Sound

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1930	Her Man	Annie
	Min and Bill	Bella Pringle
	Great Day		film never completed or released
1931	Inspiration	Lulu
	Trader Horn	Edith Trent	(scenes deleted)
	The Easiest Way	Elfie St. Clair
	A Tailor Made Man	Kitty Dupuy
	Strangers May Kiss	Geneva
	The Secret Six	Peaches
	Laughing Sinners	Ruby
	Son of India	Mrs. Darsey
	Silence	Mollie Burke
	This Modern Age	Diane Winters	(scenes deleted)
	Leftover Ladies	The Duchess
	Hell Divers	Mame Kelsey
1933	Strictly Personal	Annie Gibson
	The Warrior's Husband	Hippolyta
	Man's Castle	Flossie
1934	Palooka	Mayme Palooka
	A Modern Hero	Madame Azais
	Grand Canary	Daisy Hemingway
	Ready for Love	Goldie Tate
1935	Under Pressure	Amelia 'Amy' Hardcastle
	Dizzy Dames	Lillian Bennett / Lillian Marlowe
1937	First Lady	Belle Hardwick
1938	Merrily We Live	Mrs. Harlan
	Woman Against Woman	Mrs. Kingsley
1939	Sudden Money	Elsie Patterson
	The Rains Came	Mrs. Simon
	Heaven with a Barbed Wire Fence	Mamie
	Laugh It Off	Sylvia Swan
1940	Santa Fe Marshal	Ma Burton
	Primrose Path	Mamie Adams	Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
	20 Mule Team	Josie Johnson
	Tugboat Annie Sails Again	Capt. Annie Brennan
	East of the River	Mama Teresa Lorenzo
1941	Tobacco Road	Sister Bessie Rice
	Three Sons o' Guns	Aunt Lottie
1942	Broadway	Lillian "Lil" Rice
1943	In Old Oklahoma	Bessie Baxter
1944	Oh, What a Night	Lil Vanderhoven
	Army Wives	Mrs. Shannahan
1945	Salome, Where She Danced	Madam Europe
	It's Murder, She Says	Anopheles Annie	Short, Voice, Uncredited
1948	The Walls of Jericho	Mrs. Dunham
1949	The Lucky Stiff	Hattie Hatfield
	Any Number Can Play	Sarah Calbern
	Abandoned	Mrs. Donner
1953	Torch Song	Mrs. Stewart	Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
	Forever Female	Older Actress at Bar
	Bad for Each Other	Mrs. Roger Nelson
1955	A Man Called Peter	Miss Laura Fowler
	The View from Pompey's Head	Lucy Devereaux Wales
1957	Slander	Mrs. Manley
	Man of a Thousand Faces	Gert	(final film role)

See also

• List of actors with Academy Award nominations

References

1. Marjorie Rambeau – North American Theatre Online
2. "Best Supporting Actress Archives – National Board of Review". National Board of Review. Retrieved February 2, 2015.
3. Marjorie Burnet Rambeau; Geni.com..Retrieved April 26, 2018
4. Great Stars of the American Stage by Daniel Blum Profile #62 c. 1952 (this second edition c. 1954)
5. Great Stars of the American Stage by Daniel C. Blum "Profile #62", c. 1952 (2nd edition c. 1954), no page numbers, pages are referred to as Profiles
6. Parker, Dorothy. "To Marjorie Rambeau." Life. December 8, 1921. p. 7; Silverstein, Stuart Y., ed. (1996). Not Much Fun: The Lost Poems of Dorothy Parker. New York: Scribner. p. 101. ISBN 0-7432-1148-0.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
7. Sobel, Bernard (1953). "Broadway Heartbeat: Memoirs of a Press Agent". New York City: Hermitage House: 233. OCLC 1514676. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
8. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on July 6, 2008. Retrieved July 6, 2016.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
9. "The Rambo Family Tree: Descendants of Peter Gunnarson Rambo 1611-1986", Beverly Nelson Rambo, p. 690
10. St. Petersburg Times, November 28, 1932
11. "Marjorie Rambeau, 'Grande Dame,' Dies". The Milwaukee Journal. AP. July 8, 1970. Retrieved September 30, 2012.
12. Brooks, Patricia; Brooks, Jonathan (2006). "Chapter 8: East L.A. and the Desert". Laid to Rest in California: a guide to the cemeteries and grave sites of the rich and famous. Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot Press. p. 238. ISBN 978-0762741014. OCLC 70284362.
13. Marjorie Rambeau at Find a Grave
14. Kelly, Mary (1922). "'On Her Honor'", review, The Moving Picture World, March 25, 1922, p. 402. Internet Archive. Retrieved December 6, 2019.

External links

• Marjorie Rambeau on IMDb
• Marjorie Rambeau at the Internet Broadway Database
• Marjorie Rambeau photo gallery at NYP Library (the man in the color photos with Marjorie is most likely her third husband Francis Gudger)
• Marjorie Rambeau in film "Mary Moreland" Calgary Herald 3 November 1917
• Marjorie Rambeau (Aveleyman)