Mini Biography
Mae Busch can certainly claim career versatility, having successfully played Erich Von Stroheim's mistress, Lon Chaney's girlfriend, Charley Chase's sister, James Finlayson's ex-wife and Oliver Hardy's wife! Born in Melbourne, Australia in 1891, her parents were in the theater and when she was 9 years old the family moved to the United States. Mae's home was a convent in New Jersey until she was 21 when in 1912 she left to move back to New York with her parents. She soon tried her hand at acting and in the same year appeared in her first film, The Agitator (1912). One of her co-workers in New York, a young and not-yet-famous Mabel Normand, was heading to California to work with Mack Sennett and Keystone, so Mae went along.
In Hollywood things didn't begin so well for Mae. Clearly to get work, Mae falsely claimed to have lived in Tahiti and to be able to swim and dive. A high dive she took while filming The Water Nymph (1912) resulted in an injury and her returning to her parents in New York. It was only then when working in the theater again that she developed into leading lady status.
She returned to Hollywood, and Keystone, in 1915. However her friendship with Mabel Normand ended abruptly when Mae was caught with Mack Sennett, Mabel's fianc? Mae was forced to leave Keystone. Over the years she was well billed in many films, including being directed by Erich Von Stoeheim in The Devil's Passkey and Foolish Wives (1922). Although 1927 was the year of her first movie with Laurel and Hardy, it wasn't until Unaccustomed As We Are that she first played Mrs. Hardy, the role that she will always be remembered for. She was Mrs. Hardy again in Their First Mistake (1932), Sons of the Desert (1933), The Private Life of Oliver the Eighth and The Bohemian Girl. She also appeared in other Laurel and Hardy pictures but not as Mrs. Hardy, such as Charlie Hall's wife in Them Thar Hills (1934) and she only flirted with Hardy in Tit for Tat (1935).
Mae's Hollywood career lasted 30 years, however she worked with many of the leading directors, actors and actresses of the time. After a long illness, she died in 1946, aged 54. She was cremated and her ashes remained in a cardboard box at the Motion Picture Country Home Hospital for over 20 years until a proper internment and plaque was provided.
Mini Biography By:
christopherbkk
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