BEST ACTRESS 1930/31: Were there no Americans kicking ass in American movies in the thirties? The fourth Best Actress winner was the third to be from Canada, born in 1868 in the town of Cobourg, which still proudly boasts of its being the home town of the great MARIE DRESSLER. Running away to perform in vaudeville as a teenager, Dressler eventually starred in what is considered by some to be the first feature film, Tillie's Punctured Romance. Many ups and downs followed and she was broke by the time writer Frances Marion and producer Irving G. Thalberg decided to make a late-life movie star out of her in the early thirties, beginning with her scene-stealing performance in Anna Christie and earning an Oscar for her performance as the salty-mouthed, no-nonsense wharf matron in MIN AND BILL and following it with a second nomination in 1931/1932 for Emma; today she's probably best known for Dinner At Eight and her devastating closing line to Jean Harlow, partly because it's the film of hers that is easiest to find. Despite an appearance not at all in line with the kinds of starlets that the movies celebrated, she possessed neither youth nor beauty, she did have charisma and vitality and to watch her in this now-forgotten, slim but enjoyable experience in which her brawling with Wallace Beery is pitted against an early Stella Dallas template of sacrificial motherhood, is to understand why she was the top box office draw for three years in a row. Sadly, her success was short lived and she succumbed to cancer in July of 1934 at the age of 65. Her fierce competition in this category included Marlene Dietrich's sole career nomination, for her Hollywood debut Morocco, Irene Dunne's first for the Best Picture-winner Cimarron, Ann Harding for the now-forgotten Holiday, and returning champ Norma Shearer in A Free Soul. MyOldAddiction.com #MarieDressler #Oscars #academyawards #bestactress
