Marjorie Main

Marjorie Main
as Ma Kettle in Ma and Pa Kettle On Vacation (1953)
Born	Mary Tomlinson (1890-02-24)February 24, 1890 Acton, Indiana, U.S.
Died	April 10, 1975(1975-04-10) (aged 85) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Resting place	Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills)
Occupation	Actress, Singer
Years active	1916–1959
Spouse(s)	Stanley LeFevre Krebs (1921–1935; his death)

Marjorie Main (February 24, 1890 – April 10, 1975) was an American character actress, best known as a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player and for her role as Ma Kettle in a series of ten Ma and Pa Kettle movies.

Born Mary Tomlinson in Acton, Indiana, Main attended Franklin College in Franklin, Indiana, and adopted a stage name to avoid embarrassing her father, Samuel J. Tomlinson (married to Jennie L. McGaughey), who was a church minister.

Main worked in vaudeville on the Chautauqua and Orpheum circuits, and debuted on Broadway in 1916. Her first film was A House Divided in 1931.

Main began playing upper class dowagers, but was ultimately typecast in abrasive, domineering, salty roles, for which her distinctive voice was well suited. She repeated her stage role in Dead End in the 1937 film version, and was subsequently cast repeatedly as the mother of gangsters. She again transferred a strong stage performance, as a dude-ranch operator in The Women, to film in 1939. At this time, she guest-starred on radio programs such as Columbia Presents Corwin and The Goldbergs.

Main was signed to a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract in 1940 and stayed with the studio until the mid-1950s. She made six films with Wallace Beery in the 1940s, including Barnacle Bill (1941), Jackass Mail (1942), and Bad Bascomb (1946). She played Sonora Cassidy, the chief cook, in The Harvey Girls (1946). The director, George Sidney, remarked in the commentary for the film that Miss Main was a "great lady" as well as a great actress who donated most of her paychecks over the years to the support of a school.