Marie Eline

Marie Eline was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on February 27, 1902. She got her start in the film business at an early age--7, to be exact--with the Thanhouser Co. in New York with A 29-Cent Robbery (1910), which came out the year after she signed the contract. She was one of the few actresses who played the lead role in her very first film (her sister, Grace Eline, also had a part in the film). Marie proved to be an incredibly versatile player for such a young child, easily shifting between playing female and male children and, in one film--The Judge's Story (1911)--she even played a black boy. She was so popular with critics and audiences alike that, unlike most actors at Thanhouser, she was mentioned by name by the company and even given a nickname: "The Thanhouser Kid". Critics praised her "naturalness" and audiences flocked to her pictures, which played no small part in Thanhouser's success as a major film production studio. In 1913, at the ripe old age of 11, she decided to broaden her horizons by conquering Broadway, appearing in at least one play. That same year Thanhouser took her out of "kid" roles and put her in its prestigious "Princess Films" division. Unfortunately, her popularity waned and she made fewer and fewer pictures. She finally left Thanhouser in 1914 and went back to the stage. She later signed with World Films, for whom she made Uncle Tom's Cabin (1914). She remained in the theater for several years, then in 1919 she signed with the low-budget National Film Corp. in Los Angeles. She and her sister toured extensively in stock and vaudeville into the 1920s. She married in 1922 and had one child, a girl. She died in Longview, Washington, on January 3, 1981, while visiting her daughter.