Marjorie Main was one of Hollywood’s most beloved character actresses. Usually cast in comedies as a salty, raspy-voiced, no-nonsense country woman, she was a contract player in MGM movies of the 1940s and ’50s. Meanwhile, on loan-out to Universal Pictures, she had a 10-year, 10-picture run as one of the stars of the Ma and Pa Kettle movies (1947-57).
Born Mary Tomlinson on February 24, 1890, in Acton, IN, she was educated at Franklin College in Franklin, IN, and the Hamilton School of Dramatic Expression in Lexington, KY. Later, she continued her studies in drama in Chicago and New York. Her father was a minister, and when she became a performer, she changed her name to Marjorie Main to avoid embarrassing the family. She began in vaudeville and made her debut on Broadway in 1918.
Main’s feature film debut came in an uncredited bit in William Wyler’s A House Divided (1931) at Universal. She played two memorable “mother” roles in 1937 – Barbara Stanwyck’s in Stella Dallas (1937) and Humphrey Bogart’s in Dead End (in a part she had originated on Broadway). At MGM Main drew attention for another role she had played on Broadway – the dude-ranch operator in The Women (1939). In 1940, she signed a seven-year contract with that studio, where she would appear with Wallace Beery in seven films. Other roles at MGM included those in the Judy Garland musicals Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), The Harvey Girls (1946) and Summer Stock (1950).
Main was first cast in her famous “Ma Kettle” role in The Egg and I (1947), an adaptation of the Betty MacDonald book starring Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray, with Percy Kilbride as Pa Kettle. For her role, Main earned an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress. She was nominated for a Golden Globe in the same category for her performance in Allied Artists’ Friendly Persuasion (1956). Her final feature film was The Kettles on Old MacDonald’s Farm (1957), in which Parker Fennelly replaced Kilbride as Pa Kettle.
Main was married to psychologist Stanley LeFevre Krebs from 1921 until his death in 1935. She passed away from lung cancer on April 10, 1975. The films in our birthday salute are taken from her tenure at MGM.
The Affairs of Martha (1942) is a domestic comedy directed by Jules Dassin and starring Marsha Hunt and Richard Carlson as a couple whose marriage is threatened by a tell-all book about shenanigans in their exclusive neighborhood. Main plays the couple’s plain-spoken cook.
Rationing (1943) was the fifth of the seven comedy teamings of Main and Wallace Beery, playing onetime sweethearts who are now enemies and clash over gas coupons from the rationing board.
Gentle Annie (1944), a Western based on a story by MacKinley Kantor, stars James Craig and Donna Reed, with Main in the title role as the matriarch of a family suspected of robbery.
Bad Bascomb (1946), the sixth of the Main-Beery teamings, is a Western costarring Margaret O’Brien as a little Mormon girl who befriends Beery as the irascible outlaw of the title. Main plays O’Brien’s grandmother, who has romantic designs on Bascomb.
Mrs. O’Malley and Mr. Malone (1950) is a comedy-mystery in which Main gets top billing as a Montana housewife who becomes involved in a double murder after boarding a train for New York. James Whitmore costars as Malone, an attorney for one of the victims.
