Marjorie Beebe

Biography

Marjorie Beebe grew up in Missouri before coming to California as a teenager with her mother. By 1924 she had been hired by Universal but it was only when she joined Fox that her career took off. Her talent for comedy became apparent. She played support in a number of Fox features before being given the title role in "The Farmer's Daughter" (1928). She got excellent reviews for her performance and was hailed as the best comedienne to emerge for many years. Mack Sennett, The King of Comedy, was also impressed and within a year she had joined him. Marjorie Beebe's career changed in two ways. Instead of appearing in feature length movies she now starred in Sennett's two reel shorts. Instead of silent movies henceforth she appeared in talkies. She appeared in around forty shorts for Sennett many of which he had specially written for her. The titles were often named for her and she played a character called Marge. One of them "Cowcatcher's Daughter" (1931) was clearly a nod to her earlier Fox triumph. She was also leased out to other studios including Paramount and Vitaphone. Sennett declared that Beebe had the potential to be the greatest comedienne the screen had ever seen. Sennett went bust in 1933 and Marjorie Beebe's career never recovered. She reverted to features and to support roles where her comic talents were frankly wasted. In 1940 she retired permanently from the movie business. She dabbled in property and lived in reasonable contentment with her last husband (there had been brief marriages in the 1930s) Andy Andersen.