Marjorie Weaver

Biography

This saucy and engaging Tennessee born-and-bred brunette beauty came into the world on March 2, 1913, the daughter of John Thomas Weaver and Ellen Martin, both non-professionals. She attended private and high schools while growing up and attended the University of Kentucky and the University of Indiana. Showing early signs of a musical talent, she instinctively made use of her beauty and singing capabilities as she strove to find a place for herself in the entertainment business. Paying her dues as a band singer, model, and stage performer (with the McCauley Stock Company and in Billy Rose's Shrine Minstrels), Marjorie made an inauspicious film debut in Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round (1934) in an uncredited bit part. 20th Century Fox saw something special in her, however, and signed her up in 1936. Her first few years were uneventful playing a round of alluring bit parts as chorus girls and secretary/receptionist types. Moving up the credits ladder she found lead and second lead femme roles coming her way, typically essaying the resourceful but wholesome daughter, paramour or "girl Friday" type opposite a number of virile and handsome leading men, including Ricardo Cortez in The Californian (1937); Tyrone Power in Second Honeymoon (1937); Warner Baxter in I'll Give a Million (1938); John Barrymore in Hold That Co-ed (1938); and Cesar Romero in The Cisco Kid and the Lady (1939). In the comedy Sally, Irene and Mary (1938), Alice Faye, Joan Davis and Marjorie made up the distaff trio of starry-eyed hopefuls (Marjorie played "Mary"), while providing lovely distraction in a couple of The Ritz Brothers vehicles -- Life Begins in College (1937) and Kentucky Moonshine (1938). One of her best parts came opposite Henry Fonda as Mary Todd to his Abe Lincoln in the quality bio-drama Young Mr. Lincoln (1939). She was also top-billed in such programmers as Murder Among Friends (1941) and Man at Large (1941). Most of her assignments, however, were relegated to "B" pictures and following co-star roles in two "Charlie Chan" and three "Michael Shayne" mysteries, Marjorie left Fox (in 1942) by choice and free-lanced. Her rating did not improve much, however, although she was seen to good advantage in the serial The Great Alaskan Mystery (1944). She made her last inconsequential movies with Fashion Model (1945) and Leave It to Blondie (1945). Marjorie decided to retire from the business in 1945 and, save for an unbilled part (by accident) in We're Not Married! (1952) over at Fox, that was all she wrote. Married to Don Briggs in 1943, she and her husband had a son and daughter, Joel and Leigh, and later owned and operated a classy liquor establishment in the Westwood area of Los Angeles. She died following a stroke in 1994.