Marie Dressler: The Unlikeliest Star

" She was homely, overweight, and over the hill, but there was a time when Marie Dressler outdrew such cinema sex symbols as Garbo, Dietrich, and Harlow. To movie audiences suffering the hardships of the Great Depression, she was Everywoman, and in the early 1930s her charming mixture of pathos and comedy packed movie theaters everywhere. In the early days of the century, Dressler was constantly in the headlines. She took up the cause of the "ponies" in the chorus lines, earning them better pay and benefits. She played in productions organized to raise money for the women's suffrage movement. And during World War I she claimed she sold more liberty bonds than any other individual in the United States. Dressler was an astute observer of public mood and taste. When she was lucky enough to find work in the newly minted Hollywood talkies, she grabbed the brass ring with fierce enthusiasm, even making three films in the year before her death, when she was so sick she had to rest between scenes on a sofa just out of camera range. The two-hundred-pound actress's remarkable stage presence captivated audiences even though her roles were not Hollywood beauties. She played tough, practical characters such as the old wharf rat in Anna Christie (1930), the waterfront innkeeper in Min and Bill (1931)―for which she won the Academy Award for best actress―the aging housekeeper in Emma (1932), and the title role in Tugboat Annie (1933). She spoke honestly to her audiences, and troubled people in the comforting darkness of the Depression-era movie theaters embraced her as one of themselves.

Biographies & Memoirs

LEE, BETTY

Arts & Literature

University Press of Kentucky

The University Press of Kentucky

For one memorable year, nurse Dorothy Knight traded her conventional urban existence for a life of isolation in the Arctic. This is the story of her courage and humour while she faced the enormous responsibility of caring for the health of scattered villages; of journeys by dog-sled; of loneliness; and of the friendship and interdependence of the few companions who spoke her language. This dramatic, true story glows with human warmth and compassion as Dorothy struggles to carry on her job amid blizzards and epidemics, and as the white woman and the Eskimo community gradually achieve understanding, respect, and friendship. Dorothy Knight learned a lot that year; the conditions and courage of Eskimo life, the lack of facilities, the tragedies that are sometimes caused by the white man's interference in a long-established way of life. She left having earned the name Lutiapik -- the little one who cares for us. If Lutiapik is a life-affirming story of humour and strength, it is also a shocking book that reveals the ravages of disease brought by the white man to the Eskimo world. It reveals too the pathetic shortcomings of measures only half taken to correct the situation, as official apathy and bureaucratic indifference persists.

Lutiapik: The Little One Who Cares For Us

Community & Culture

Dundurn

Increases understanding of Jesus' doctrine. Intertwines the scriptures of the Gospel books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as if the authors had collaborated to write one book. Speaks the King James Version of the scriptures in today's American English. Arranges scriptures primarily according to subject matter with what Jesus says taking priority. Repeats some scriptures wherever the repetition improves comprehension. Censures forged scriptures. Restores the prophets' Grecianized proper names to their Old Testament Hebrew names, e.g. Esaias is reinstated as Isaiah, Elias as Elijah, etc.

Armageddon Is A Dom Garden Revised

Religion & Spirituality

Christian Books & Bibles

Independently published

Gospel Americanized

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Books by LEE, BETTY