Kentucky-born Marie McDonald, born Cora Marie Frye in 1923, was a leggy, voluptuous blonde starlet who pursued her career with a vengeance but found little reward in the end. Her mother was a former Ziegfeld girl and her grandmother an operatic singer. Her father, on the other hand, was not so artistically inclined, earning a living as a warden at Leavenworth Prison. Her parents divorced when Marie was just 6 years old. Marie's mother remarried and the new family moved to Yonkers, New York, where she attended Roosevelt High School and excelled in piano and wrote for the school newspaper. Although Marie was offered a college scholarship by Columbia University in journalism, Marie's impressive beauty and physical assets propelled her to try a show business career. A Powers model at 15 where she gamely played a snippy movie star at the mercy of the comedian's outrageous slapstick. In 1965, at age 42, the never-say-die gal finally decided enough was enough and she ended it all with an overdose of pills.
Interred at Forest Lawn, Glendale, California, in the Freedom Mausoleum, Sanctuary of Heritage.
Singer.
Married seven times, twice to Harry Karl , the shoe tycoon who went on to marry Debbie Reynolds and lose both his and her fortunes.
In one of her many publicity stunts, police reports state that Marie was found on a desert road in her pajamas ranting and raving that she had been kidnapped from her home by two men.
Killed herself with an overdose of Percodan. Her seventh husband, Donald F. Taylor , committed suicide shortly after.
Her two older children are adopted.
When she was still a child her parents divorced and she and her mother moved to Yonkers, NY, where her mother married a man whose last name was McDonald and who ran a hardware store. Marie worked as a journalist on her high school newspaper, but dropped out of school at 15 and began working for a modeling agency. She competed in beauty pageants, including the Miss New York competition, several of which she won.
She replaced sexpot Mamie Van Doren in the movie Promises..... Promises! but had numerous fights on the set with the other bombshell star Jayne Mansfield. She married the producer of that movie, Donald F. Taylor , who would be her last husband.
After several miscarriages, she adopted two children, Denise "Dede" and Harrison "Bo", between 1951-54. A daughter, Tina Marie, was born later in 1956.
Her 1962 marriage to Los Angeles lawyer and banker Edward F. Callahan was annulled after 48 hours. They officially divorced in 1963.
Was the model used by illustrator Alex Raymond for the Dale Arden and Princess Aura creations for the Flash Gordon comic strip.
Some of the beauty titles Marie held were Miss Yonkers, Miss Loews Paradise, Queen of Coney Island and Miss New York.
She died of a drug overdose because there was air in the needle that was injected into her. Her husband was charged with murder, but he killed himself two days after she died.
Harry Karl , the father of her three children, did not want them after Marie died. His wife at the time, Debbie Reynolds , insisted they move in with him anyway.
Her daughter, Tina, was born with drugs in her system. She had severe problems related to this while growing up.
Her marriages to Harry Karl were the inspiration for the film The Marrying Man .
Was the favorite actress of Bugsy Siegel.
Husbands are easier to find than good agents.
