At Warner Brothers, tiny, five feet tall Marion Byron was nicknamed
(and occasionally billed as) "Peanuts". She was a cute and vivacious
soubrette who featured in early, long forgotten musicals, with titles
like The Show of Shows (1929),
Broadway Babies (1929) and
Playing Around (1930). Marion
began her performing career as a teenage showgirl in Los Angeles and
got her first break in films as leading lady to
Buster Keaton in
Wasser hat Balken (1928).
In a biographical form, she was required to submit at First National,
she answered the question of how she got her first screen opportunity
with: "By mistake".
In the early 30's, Marion's regular screen assignments included the
usual assortment of feisty maids, college girls, friends of the
heroine, flappers and chorines, which were reserved for those deemed
'second leads'. Though stardom eluded her, she was briefly popular in lightweight comedies, notable examples being the Michael Curtiz-directed
The Matrimonial Bed (1930)
and Mervyn LeRoy's quirky Jewish farce
The Heart of New York (1932)
(which sported comic duo Smith & Dale as eccentric matchmakers
'Schnapps and Strudel'). Already by 1933, Marion's roles had diminished
to uncredited bits and walk-ons. Her last film was as a nurse in
Five of a Kind (1938), the story
of the Dionne Quintuplets, scripted by her husband, the screenwriter
Lou Breslow.
