Louise Dresser

Louise Dresser, born Louise Josephine Kerlin on October 5, 1878, in Evansville, Indiana, was an American actress whose career spanned vaudeville, Broadway, and film. Her father, William S. Kerlin, worked as a railroad engineer and died when she was fifteen years old. She had a younger brother, William Lambert Kerlin. Dresser adopted her professional surname from Paul Dresser, a friend of her father who, upon learning of her parentage, promoted her as his younger sister. The two were so widely believed to be siblings that when Paul Dresser died, Louise was listed among his surviving relatives in his obituary.

Before reaching Broadway, Dresser built her performing foundation in burlesque dancing and singing at the Boston dime museum, then made her vaudeville debut in 1900. She assembled a singing act called "Louise Dresser and Her Picks," which featured a chorus of African-American children as its backing performers. By 1906 she had moved onto New York vaudeville stages, and that same year she appeared in the musical About Town alongside Lew Fields. The following year she performed in The Girl Behind the Counter, a production that ran for 260 performances.

Dresser's Broadway career extended from 1906 to 1918 and included a range of musicals and revues. She starred in The Girls of Gottenberg and The Girl Behind the Counter, and also appeared in The Candy Shop, Hello, Broadway!, and Rock-a-Bye Baby. She starred opposite De Wolf Hopper in Matinee Idol, which ran from 1910 to 1912, and subsequently appeared in Broadway to Paris in 1912 and Potash and Perlmutter in 1913. Her final Broadway production was Have a Heart in 1917, which received favorable reviews.

Dresser transitioned to film with her debut in The Glory of Clementina in 1922, and her first starring role followed in The City That Never Sleeps in 1924. In 1925 she took on two notable parts: she played Catherine the Great in The Eagle opposite Rudolph Valentino and Vilma Bánky, and she portrayed the title character in The Goose Woman alongside Jack Pickford. At the first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929, she received a nomination for Best Actress for her performance in A Ship Comes In. She later played Al Jolson's mother in Mammy in 1930 and portrayed Empress Elizabeth in The Scarlet Empress in 1934. Her final film appearance was in Maid of Salem in 1937. She is particularly associated with her repeated portrayals of Will Rogers's wife in films including State Fair and David Harum. On television, she appeared in an episode of Ralph Edwards's program This Is Your Life centered on Buster Keaton, whom she had known since his childhood in vaudeville.

Dresser was married twice. Her first husband was singer and songwriter Jack Norworth, whom she married in 1898. She married Jack Gardner in 1910, and the two remained together until his death in 1950. Neither marriage produced children. After retiring from performing in 1937, Dresser volunteered at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital. In 1950 she attempted to resume her screen career but was unable to secure roles, an outcome she attributed to rumors that she had lost her hearing. She lost a significant portion of her fortune in an effort to establish a racing stable. Dresser died in Woodland Hills, California, following surgery for an intestinal ailment, and is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. She was eighty-six years old at the time of her death on April 24, 1965.