| Picture, if you will, the profile of the Academy Award
Leading Lady. Slim figure, slightly upturned nose and raised in a
musical family somewhere in the American mid-west. Got it?
 Leila Marie
Koerber was born in 1868 in Cobourg, Ontario. There wasn't much
music in her family, just hard working rural folk. In 1883, Leila,
having been bit by the "acting bug", joined a touring stock
theatre company and began to hone her craft.
She joined the bright lights on Broadway in a series of plays
including Tillie's Nightmare but in 1914 the broad boulevards of
Hollywood beckoned to her. Her first big break was starring
opposite Charlie Chaplin in Tillie's Punctured Romance.
Her greatest role came in 1930 when she played with Greta Garbo in Anna
Christie. For this she received the Academy Award in 1931.
Leila died in 1934 and was laid to rest in Santa Barbara,
California. But don't go looking for the grave of Leila Marie Koerber
because you will not find it.
Shortly into her great acting career, Leila Marie Koerber changed her
name to... Marie Dressler, that big framed, square jawed comedienne
from Cobourg!
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