Marin Sais

Biography

The blood of Alta California ran thick in Marin Sais: her forebears stepped off a Spanish galleon long enough to have a county christened in their honor. Gifted with a soprano that could make the missions shake off their dust, she traded San Rafael for Manhattan, intent on grand opera. But Broadway’s marquees lost the argument to a camera lens; within months she was flinging custard pies in Vitagraph two-reelers and discovering she liked the taste. Feature-length pictures beckoned, then cliff-hanger serials, then the long train ride west. In Hollywood she saddled up opposite Hoot Gibson, learned to hit a moving gallop with a six-gun, and became the girl who could untie herself before the fuse hit the powder. Romance rode in on a white-stockinged horse: 1920 saw her marry fellow saddle-hand Jack Hoxie; together they chased stagecoaches on-screen until 1925, when the credits rolled on their marriage. Talkies arrived and leading-lady offers evaporated; Marin simply pulled on a calico dress, added twenty years, and kept working—now as the rancher’s widow, the sheriff’s spinster sister, the barroom seeress. Poverty-row outfits loved her reliability; horse operas loved her authenticity. From 1930 to the spring of 1953 she barely dismounted, riding out of frame only when the last B-western sunset faded to black.