gone but not forgotten - marie prevost

marie prevost, the dog's dinner:

canadian born mary bickford dunn was rechristened marie prevost by the infamous mack sennett when he added her to his collection of bathing beauties as the exotic "french girl".

born in 1898 she came to hollywood with her mother & sister where she found work as a stenographer. she would play the ingenue & bathing beauty in sennett comedies until 1921.

in 1919 she married socialite sonny gerke who left her after 6 months of marriage. fearful of his mother and bad publicity, they hid the marriage and would stay secretly married until 1923.

in 1921 she signed with universal studios where she would play a string of flappers in light comedies. around 1922 she left for warner brothers where she would star with her then boyfriend, kenneth harlan, in the beautiful and the damned in 1923. to publicize the film, jack warner arranged for them to be married on the set. when the los angeles mirror ran the headline "marie prevost will be a bigamist if she marries kenneth harlan" warner was outraged. he arranged an annulment and the two were later quietly married.

she went on to work with some of the greatest directors of her time, including, ernst lubitsch, frank capra, cecil b. demille, mervyn leroy & malcolm st. clair.

in 1926 her mother was killed in a car accident in florida. devastated by the loss of her mother, along with her failing marriage & depression she took to the bottle. she was hired by howard hughes to star in his film the racket. during filming, the two began a brief affair but hughes broke it off rather quickly leaving her heartbroken and further in depression. this was to be her last starring role.

she continued to work into the 30s but she had begun to put on weight from the alcohol so it was harder to find roles. by 1934 she was no longer able to find work and was broke. she started crash dieting in an attempt to gain bit roles.

in 1936 the new york times ran an article called "sometimes they do come back" and she was included for her un-billed role in the bengal tiger. in her mid 30s she was considered an "old-timer" and has-been who was killing herself.

on january 23, 1937, police were called to her rundown apartment due to neighbors complaining of a dog barking. she was found dead on her bed of heart failure - a combination of alcoholism & malnutrition - she had basically starved herself to death. her pet dachshund, maxie, had "chewed up her arms and legs in a futile attempt to awaken her". (poor little guy) she had apparently been dead for 2 days. she died with $300 to her name.

she was remembered in the 1980s (misspelled) song from nick lowe: "marie provost"...

"she was a winner that became a doggie's dinner. she never meant that much to me. oh poor marie."