Marion Byron

Marion Byron, born Miriam Bilenkin (March 16, 1911 – July 5, 1985)

She was given her first movie role as Buster Keaton's leading lady in the film Steamboat Bill, Jr. in 1928. From there she was hired by Hal Roach to co-star in short subjects with Max Davidson, Edgar Kennedy, and Charley Chase, but most significantly with Anita Garvin, where tiny (4'11" in high heels) Marion was teamed with the 6' Anita for a brief three-film series as a "female Laurel & Hardy" in 1928–1929. She left Roach before they made talkies, but she went on working, now in musical features, like the Vitaphone film Broadway Babies (1929) with Alice White, and the early Technicolor feature, Golden Dawn (1930). Her parts slowly got smaller until they were unbilled walk-ons in films like Meet the Baron (1933), starring Jack Pearl and Hips Hips Hooray (1934) with Wheeler & Woolsey. Her final screen appearance was as a baby nurse to the Dionne Quintuplets in their film, Five of a Kind (1938). She married screenwriter Lou Breslow in 1932 and they had two sons, Lawrence Samuel Breslow (born 1939) and Daniel Robert Breslow (1944–1998). She died on July 5, 1985 at age 74, and is interred at Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City, CA.