Wednesday - November 17, 2010

an American silent film star, long forgotten, passes away at 99. RIP, ‘Baby’ Marie Osborne

I’ve long had an interest in old movies, the people who made them and the stars of a bygone era.
I find it quite hard to watch too many of the old silents however.  They’re almost embarrassing to view. Not all of course. Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton were my favorites, Charlie Chase wasn’t bad either.  But I could never watch Chaplin.  I can’t understand why folks thought he was funny, but hey. That’s why we have choices and there’s choc. and vanilla.

Well, in today’s paper I caught the obit for this former child star and a major one she was. And forgotten by all, sadly.  People of course remember Shirley Temple, and then there was the fabulous Baby Rose Marie who in later years stared in the Dick Van Dyke show. By that time of course she was Rose Marie. Anyway ... this is ‘Baby’ Marie Osborne and she predates the other two I mentioned here. An interesting life and story. And sad as well.

For all I’ve read on the subject, I never once came across this name. I’d be willing to bet not many Americans have either. But leave it to the Brits to run her obit and remind us.

‘Baby’ Marie Osborne (RIP)

‘Baby’ Marie Osborne, who died on November 11 aged 99, was an early child star of silent films and a favourite with First World War audiences; she made her film debut aged three, and soon appeared as the lead in almost 30 pictures, including her most memorable title, Little Mary Sunshine.

Her fame was, however, short-lived. By the time of her 10th birthday her career was almost over and her fortune dissipated. “I set the trend for virtually every other child star that followed,” she said almost 90 years later.

Helen Alice Myres was born in Denver, Colorado, on November 5 1911, and at the age of three months became the foster daughter of Leon and Edith Osborn (the “e” was a later addition). At the suggestion of her foster mother, her name was changed to Marie.

The Osborns left Denver for Long Beach, California, in 1914, and soon found jobs acting with the Balboa Amusement Company. Unable to afford a babysitter, Leon and Edith took Marie with them to the studio, where she came to the attention of the director Henry King.

King had wanted to cast a male toddler in Maid of the Wild (1915), but liked Marie’s bob hairstyle, and guessed that, with the right wardrobe, she could easily pass for a boy. Soon recognising that he had a potential star on his hands, King urged Balboa to put her under contract.

Later, under his supervision, King had Little Mary Sunshine (1916) especially written for her. The film, which King directed, tells the story of an infant who is suddenly orphaned and taken in by the parents of a man who has been ditched by his fiancée. The scenes starring Baby Marie, as she was billed, remain the film’s most engaging, and made her a star.

Together King and Marie produced a series of successful films, including Joy and the Dragon and Shadows and Sunshine (both 1916), Told at Twilight (1917) and The Locked Heart (1918). The child was well paid for her efforts. “I couldn’t quite understand all the attention being paid me,” she recalled. “I was earning $300 a week when the average American was making less than $1,000 per year.”

Such was her success that, in 1917, Leon and Edith Osborn formed their own production company, Lasalida, and released a string of Baby Marie pictures. In 1918-19, at the height of her popularity, a merchandising deal with a New York toy manufacturer saw Baby Marie Osborne dolls on Christmas wish lists for little girls across the globe.

By 1920 she owned three vast properties in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles, and was driven about town by a dapper chauffeur in a 1907 Hudson.

But her star then began to wane in the face of competition from younger, cuter girls. Baby Marie travelled America to re-engage with her once loyal audience, but the tour did little to reactivate her flagging career. By the time she entered her teens, she had retired.

What happened to the money remained a mystery to Marie Osborne. “I was the first of Hollywood’s washed-up child stars. There was a trust fund, but I never seemed to have received anything from it,” she recalled. “My foster parents lived a gilded life.”

THE REST IS HERE

Posted by peiper     on 11/17/2010 at 01:22 PM   
Filed Under: • OBITITUARIES • USA •  
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