Fay Marbe

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Fay Marbe 1928 on a photograph by Alexander Binder

Fay Marbe , also Fay Marbé , (born February 4, 1899 in Manhattan , New York City , † June 2, 1986 in Fairfield , Connecticut ) was an American dancer, singer and actress.

Life

Marbe came from a wealthy family and grew up in New York . As a teenager, she danced and sang in a show with Nora Bayes and, according to her own statement, was part of the charity event Allied Pageant in Manhattan , where she was discovered by theater director William Elliott . He hired her in 1917 to play the leading role in the musical Oh Boy! at the Princes Theater. This was followed by engagements in the successful pieces The Velvet Lady (1919) at New Amsterdam and The Magic Melody (1920) at Shubert.

Marbe went to Hollywood in 1920 and appeared as a dancer in Lawrence C. Windom's silent film The Very Idea that same year . This was followed by engagements in vaudeville pieces, of which Topics of 1923 in the Winter Garden was very successful. Marbe went to Europe, where she was hired in 1926 for the weekly fee of 100 pounds by George Edwardes for the play Yvonne at Daly's Theater in London . When the contract did not materialize, she sued Edwards for breach of contract ("Marbe v. George Edwardes" case) and was given justice in court. Edwardes was sentenced to pay £ 6,300 in compensation, but later reached a settlement with Marbe that guaranteed her appearances at Daly's, among other things.

In 1928 she was seen in Fritz Freisler's silent film Dorine and Chance at the side of Ernö Verebes and Igo Sym . "Fay Marbé shines in beautiful toilets (otherwise she's pretty unbearable)," said Siegfried Kracauer after a visit to the cinema in 1928. During her time in Germany she also made eight silent films for Ufa. Contemporary critics called her "a harmless average talent, the conventional roles done with conventional skill ”.

Back in the United States, she was marketed as "The Magnetic International Star" and performed as a solo dancer on her show A Continental Revue , in which she sang various European songs and performed dances. In Hollywood, Marbe shot her only sound film in 1929: In Mark Sandrich's The Talk of Hollywood , she was the Parisian singer Adore Renée with a French accent. Her brother Gilbert Marbe also starred in the film. The Talk of Hollywood became a failure and Marbe retired from public life in 1932 after several failed attempts to gain a foothold as a cabaret artist.

Filmography (selection)

literature

  • Fay Marbe. In: Frank Cullen, Florence Hackman, Donald McNeilly (Eds.): Vaudeville, old and new . Volume 1. Routledge, London 2007, ISBN 978-0-415-93853-2 , pp. 718-719.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Huntly Carter: The new spirit in the cinema . Arno Press, New York 1970, p. 140.
  2. ^ Siegfried Kracauer, Mirjam Wenzel (ed.): Works , Volume 6: Small writings on film. Volume 3: 1928-1931 . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 100.
  3. ^ Anthony Slide: The vaudevillians: a dictionary of vaudeville performers . Arlington House, New Rochelle 1981, p. 99.
  4. ↑ Quotation from Anton Kaes: Manifests and documents on German literature 1918–1933 . Volume 5. Metzler, Stuttgart 1983, p. 282.
  5. ^ Burton William Peretti: Nightclub city: politics and amusement in Manhattan . University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 2007, p. 110.
personal data
SURNAME Marbe, Fay
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Marbé, Fay
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American dancer, singer and actress
DATE OF BIRTH February 4, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Manhattan , New York City
DATE OF DEATH June 2, 1986
Place of death Fairfield , Connecticut