Marion Leonard
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Marion Leonard (June 9, 1881 - January 9, 1956) was a stage and silent film actress.
[edit] Early career
Born in Ohio, Marion Leonard began working in live theatre until 1908 when at the age of twenty-seven she was signed by American Mutoscope and Biograph Company. She made her screen debut in the short film "At the Crossroads of Life" directed by Wallace McCutcheon, Jr. from a screenplay by D.W. Griffith.
Within a year, she had leading roles, frequently directed by Griffith. At a time when screen credits were not given to actors, she and Florence Auer were the first star actresses to be billed by the studio as a "Biograph Girl". Of her films made at Biograph, thirty-two were with an up-and-coming young actress named Mary Pickford.
[edit] Marriage and Switch to Universal Pictures
While working for Biograph, Leonard met screenwriter/director Stanner E.V. Taylor and a personal relationship developed that led to marriage. The two would eventually leave Biograph to make films together for Universal Pictures and other studios and sometimes through their own production company.
In 1915, after appearing in more than one hundred and fifty films, Marion Leonard retired from film but did return eleven years later at age forty-five for one final appearance in a 1926 Mack Sennett comedy.
Marion Leonard died in 1956 at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California.
