Marion Byron - Overview

Marion Byron (born Miriam Bilenkin; March 16, 1911, Dayton, Ohio – July 5, 1985, Santa Monica, California) was an American movie comedian. After following her sister into a short stage career as a singer/dancer, 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).