Largely forgotten, Marie Prevost was a popular silent screen star and flapper beauty who specialized in light and romantic comedies, usually paired with Monte Blue, Harrison Ford (the original), and real-life beau Kenneth Harlan. The latter pairing led studio boss Jack Warner to announce that his star couple would officially marry on their next picture, "The Beautiful and the Damned." The problem was, Marie was already married, secretly, albeit estranged from her absent husband. When word got out, a humiliated Warner was livid. Rather than fire the adulterous pair, Warner kept them on (Marie was making the studio too much money to let go), but punished Prevost by assigning her lousy pictures and loaning her out to other studios for what he thought were sure-fire failures. When those pictures turned out successful, an irate Warner dropped her contract.
Marie would continue to work, successfully transitioning into talkies, but after the death of her beloved mother in a car accident, the breakup of her marriage with Harlan, who blamed her for his stalled career, and a failed relationship with Howard Hughes, Marie fell into a deep depression and took to the bottle and binge eating. Marie would gain a considerable amount weight, pushing her out of the running for leading lady roles, and into supporting roles as blowsy dames or best friend of the leading lady (Crawford, Stanwyck, Harlow, etc.).
Desperate to shed pounds and regain her leading lady status, Marie crash dieted, subsisting on alcohol and not much else. On January 23, 1937, she was found dead in her bedroom (she had died a couple of days prior), surrounded by empty bottles of liquor. At her side was her loyal dachshund, who, according to the police report, had chewed up her wrists and ankles trying to rouse her awake. A promissory note to Joan Crawford for $113 was also found in the room. Marie had died of heart failure brought on by acute alcoholism and malnutrition. She was 38.
In attendence at her funeral, which was paid for by Joan Crawford, were such Hollywood luminaries as Crawford, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Clark Gable, Barbara Stanwyck, and Mack Sennett, who gave Marie her start as a Bathing Beauty.
