Marion Byron

Marion Byron (born Miriam Bilenkin; 1911 – 1985)[1] was an American movie comedian.

Marion Byron
Byron in 1929
Born
Miriam Bilenkin

1911
Dayton, Ohio, U.S.
Died1985
Santa Monica, California, U.S.
Resting placeHillside Memorial Park
Other namesPeanuts
OccupationFilm actress, comedian
Years active1928–1938
Spouse(s)
​
(m. 1932⁠–⁠1985)​
Children2

Early years

Born in Dayton, Ohio,[2] Byron was one of five daughters of Louis and Bertha Bilenkin.[3]

Career

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[4] 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 5'9" Garvin for a brief three-film series as a "female Laurel & Hardy" in 1928–1929.

She left the Roach studio before it made talking comedies, then worked 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 movies like Meet the Baron (1933), starring Jack Pearl and Hips Hips Hooray (1934) with Wheeler & Woolsey; she returned to the Hal Roach studio for a bit part in the Charley Chase short It Happened One Day (1934). Her final screen appearance was as a baby nurse to the Dionne Quintuplets in Five of a Kind (1938).

Family

She married screenwriter Lou Breslow in 1932, and they had two sons, Lawrence Samuel Breslow (born 1939) and Daniel Robert Breslow (1944–1998). Marion Byron Breslow is buried at Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City, California.

Selected filmography

References
  1. Dictionary of Pseudonyms: 13,000 Assumed Names and Their Origins,, fifth edition, by Adrian Richard West Room (born 1933), McFarland & Company (2010) OCLC 663110495
  2. "'Peanuts' From Ohio". Detroit Free Press. December 3, 1929. p. 25. Retrieved April 7, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. "Louis Bilenkin, Former Resident, Dies in West". The Dayton Herald. Ohio, Dayton. April 9, 1937. p. 12. Retrieved April 7, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. "Beauties race for baby stardom". Los Angeles Record. November 13, 1919. p. 1. Retrieved April 7, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.


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