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Robert Ames, Mary Brian, and John Loder in Black Waters (1929)

Mary Brian and George Meeker in Ever Since Eve (1934)

Mary Brian and James Kirkwood in Someone to Love (1928)

Mary Brian and Virginia Bruce in Only the Brave (1930)

Mary Brian and June Collyer in The River of Romance (1929)

Mary Brian in The Little French Girl (1925)

Mary Brian and Neil Hamilton in The Little French Girl (1925)

Mary Brian and Raymond Hatton in Partners in Crime (1928)

Mary Brian and Roger Pryor in Moonlight and Pretzels (1933)

Mary Brian and Armand Kaliz in The Marriage Playground (1929)

Mary Brian and Glenda Farrell in Girl Missing (1933)

Mary Brian and Guy Kibbee in Girl Missing (1933)

Mary Brian, Glenda Farrell, and Guy Kibbee in Girl Missing (1933)

Mary Brian and Fredric March in The Royal Family of Broadway (1930)

Mary Brian, Ina Claire, Henrietta Crosman, and Fredric March in The Royal Family of Broadway (1930)

Mary Brian, Ina Claire, and Henrietta Crosman in The Royal Family of Broadway (1930)

Mary Brian and Fredric March in The Marriage Playground (1929)

Mary Brian and Bruce Cabot in Shadows of Sing Sing (1933)

Pat O'Brien, Mary Brian, and Adolphe Menjou in The Front Page (1931)

Mary Brian and William Haines in Brown of Harvard (1926)

James Cagney and Mary Brian in Hard to Handle (1933)

Mary Brian and Betty Bronson in Peter Pan (1924)

Mary Brian and Charles Starrett in The Royal Family of Broadway (1930)

Mary Brian and George O'Brien in Ever Since Eve (1934)

Mary Brian, Anthony Jowitt, and Alice Joyce in The Little French Girl (1925)

Richard Arlen and Mary Brian in Only Saps Work (1930)

Richard Arlen and Mary Brian in Burning Up (1930)

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Mary Brian in It's Tough to Be Famous (1932)

Mary Brian and Phillips Holmes in Private Scandal (1934)

Mary Brian, Harry Green, Neil Hamilton, and David Newell in The Kibitzer (1930)

Mary Brian and Phillips Holmes in Varsity (1928)

Dubbed "The Sweetest Girl in Pictures", Mary Brian started life as Louise Byrdie Datzler. She was born in Corsicana, Texas, and went to high school in Dallas. Her widowed mother had big plans for young Louise and took her to California in 1923, with the intention of getting her into the film business. After several unsuccessful attempts, a bathing beauty competition in Long Beach resulted in a second-prize letter of introduction to Herbert Brenon at Paramount and the girl with the dark brown curls and blue/gray eyes wound up being screen-tested for the role of Wendy in Peter Pan (1924), co-starring Betty Bronson and Esther Ralston (with whom she would form lifelong friendships). She not only got the part but a five-year contract with Paramount (1925-30) and a new name.

In 1926 she became one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars, which further enhanced her popularity. During the next few years she played ornamental leads and second leads as adolescent heroines, co-eds and ingénues. Many of those early silent features no longer exist today (Paris at Midnight (1926), among others), though surviving reels of some, like The Air Mail (1925), can still be accessed at the Library of Congress. Mary effortlessly made the transition from silents to talkies, co-starring with Gary Cooper as a feisty schoolmarm on the frontier in The Virginian (1929). One of her biggest hits was as Gwen Cavendish in the urbane comedy The Royal Family of Broadway (1930), with Ina Claire and Fredric March. A thinly disguised caricature of the private lives of the Barrymore dynasty, it hit the mark to the extent that Ethel Barrymore even threatened to sue Paramount. Mary acted three times opposite W.C. Fields, first as his daughter in Running Wild (1927), later reprising her role for The Man on the Flying Trapeze (1934) (the third was Two Flaming Youths (1927), another lost film).

Signing up for another four-year contract, Mary was one of the all-star cast in the musical Paramount on Parade (1930) and then was given another good part in the first talkie version of The Front Page (1931). However, she was dropped from her contract (alongside her more illustrious colleagues Fay Wray and Jean Arthur) when Paramount began to forsake innocence and charm in favor of glamour and sophistication. From 1932 Mary freelanced and also performed occasionally in vaudeville at the Palace Theater. Arguably her last good picture was the romantic comedy Hard to Handle (1933), with James Cagney as a grifter (hilariously promoting grapefruit diets, spoofing his infamous scene with Mae Clarke in The Public Enemy (1931)). In 1936 Mary went to England, where she co-starred opposite Cary Grant in The Amazing Adventure (1936). She then made several pictures for Poverty Row companies such as Majestic and Monogram, including the low-budget potboiler I Escaped from the Gestapo (1943).

Mary's motion picture career faded after 1937 and she turned towards the stage. In 1940 she went on tour with "Three after Three" , alongside Simone Simon and Mitzi Green and later entertained American troops in the South Pacific as part of the USO. In the 1950's, she enjoyed a brief resurgence on television as the mother of a "Gidget"-type teen in the syndicated sitcom Meet Corliss Archer (1954). After the death of her second husband, the film editor George Tomasini, Mary spent her retirement fulfilling a lifelong passion for portrait painting.

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Mary Brian

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