Louise Dresser Biography

Louise Dresser ran away from her Indiana home at age 16 to join a travelling stock company. Graduating from stock to vaudeville and from vaudeville to Broadway, the stately, matronly Louise gained her widest audience in motion pictures. Her finest silent-film characterizations include the title character in The Goose Woman (1925) (a character based on the "Pig Woman" who testified at the Hall-Mills murder trial) and Catherine the Great--military uniform and all--in Rudolph Valentino's The Eagle (1925). Her favorite co-star was Will Rogers, with whom she appeared in State Fair (1933), Doctor Bull (1933), David Harum (1934) and The County Chairman (1935). The winner of a citation of merit at the first Academy Awards ceremony, Louise retired from films in 1937, thereafter devoting herself to raising money for the establishment of the Motion Picture Country Home and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California. One of Louise Dresser's two husbands was composer Jack Norworth, of "Shine on Harvest Moon" fame. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi