Marion Martin

Dubbed "The World's Most Beautiful Showgirl" on Broadway and "Hollywood's blonde menace" on film, brassy "B" singer-actress Marion Martin was a minor predecessor to Marilyn Monroe's peroxide bombshell, yet her brazen persona was closer to the seductive leanings of Mae West. Born Marion Suplee on June 7, 1909, she was the daughter of a well-to-do Philadelphia executive of Bethlehem Steel and reared in Main Line society. She attended exclusive schools, including a finishing school in Switzerland, and once intended on becoming a physician. She instead went an entirely different direction. With her knockout looks, a career in entertainment seemed logical. She made her Broadway debut in 1927 with a part in the play "Lombardi, Ltd.," Marion earned a part in the musical revue "George White Scandals" a year later before scoring another bit part in the Kern/Hammerstein musical "Sweet Adeline" starring Helen Morgan. Following the Wall Street crash of 1929, she was forced to find more work, finding employment as a chorine in one of Earl Carroll's New York stage revues. Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. got a gander at the dazzling beauty and signed her to replace Gypsy Rose Lee in his Follies of 1931 wearing little but "a feather and some beads." She would once be dubbed "the most beautiful blond on Broadway." Marion broke insignificantly but tantalizingly into short films in 1934, appearing in such outings as She's My Lilly, I'm Her Willie (1934), Moon Over Manhattan (1935) and as a sexy foil to Bert Lahr in Boy, Oh Boy (1936). Adopting the stage name of Marion (or sometimes Marian) Martin, she was signed by Universal in 1938 and quickly received a break in Sinners in Paradise (1938), a downed-plane-on-a-desert-island adventure which truly emphasized her physical attributes. Quickly pigeonholed as a blowzy, burlesque queen, chorus girl, gun moll or brazen, gold-digger type in light-hearted fare or crime dramas, her foxy feline roles actually belied her off-camera personality as a shy, intelligent and chic lady. Although many of her parts were too often small, sexy, atmospheric bits, she got to play more substantial characters as time went on. She played "Gypsy McCoy" in His Exciting Night (1938), "Kitty" in Pirates of the Skies (1939) and "Lola Snow" in Invitation to Happiness (1939). Other dame roles had similar well-heeled names such as "Rose Allure," "Bubbles," "Pepper," "Daisy Davenport" and "Alice Angel." She played Mmlle. de la Valliere in the opulent period adventure The Man in the Iron Mask (1939). Marion kept busy throughout the 1940's with flashy major and minor parts in Ellery Queen, Master Detective (1940), Boom Town (1940), Tall, Dark and Handsome (1941), Lady Scarface (1941), The Mexican Spitfire's Baby (1941), Mexican Spitfire at Sea (1942), Mexican Spitfire's Elephant (1942), The Big Street (1942), They Got Me Covered (1943), The Woman of the Town (1943), the serial Mystery of the River Boat (1944), The Great Mike (1944), Eadie Was a Lady (1945), Gangs of the Waterfront (1945), Deadline for Murder (1946), Queen of Burlesque (1946), Angel on My Shoulder (1946), Lighthouse (1947), Key to the City (1950) and Journey Into Light (1951). Marion also played sexy foils to the likes of The Marx Brothers in The Big Store (1941) and The Three Stooges in the short feature Merry Mavericks (1951). She received her best billing (second) as the primary bombshell opposite Harold Peary in the comedy adventure Gildersleeve's Ghost (1944). Marion ended her career with the unbilled part of "La Belle La Tour" in the cornball Judy Canova comedy western Oklahoma Annie (1952). She found great stability in her marriage to a Singer sewing machine repairman, and donated much of her time to charitable causes and committed to hospital volunteer work. Awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Marion died at age 77 of cardiac arrest on August 13, 1985, in Santa Monica, California. She was survived by her husband (they had no children) and was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Los Angeles.