Marie Newton

Born in Toronto, Canada in 1899, Marie Newton was educated in Chicago, Illinois. Like Florence LaBadie, Newton was at one time a model for artist Penhryn Stanlaws. Her screen career began at an early age with Biograph. An article in the Fargo Daily Courier-News, November 13, 1915, printed an interview in which she told how she started: “[She] went into the picture world by chance. She went with another girl to see how films were made in the New York Biograph studio. ‘I liked the looks of things so much,’ she said, ‘that I went back by myself the next day and secured an interview with Producer D.W. Griffith, who was then there. I was given a chance to rehearse and then to play child parts. Later I had a better chance in such productions as The Ruling Passion, The Woman in Black, and The Ring and the Book. But I believe my best work is one of my last pictures, the Bridge Across, which has just been released.’ Just to show you that this lovely ‘movie girl’ is very human, it must be added that Miss Newton owns a little purry, furry cat which she has named ‘Buffill.’ But because she has a cat for a pet doesn’t signify that she will be an old maid.” For Biograph she appeared in various other films, including The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912), Old Coupons (1913), and The Ebbing Tide (1915).

Marie Newton was an actress with Thanhouser in 1915. It is believed that she worked on a temporary basis and was not a member of the stock company. In 1916 Miss Newton appeared in the Mirror Films for Mutual release of A Wall Street Tragedy. At the time the Motion Picture News Studio Directory noted she was 5’6” tall, weighed 113 pounds, and had a fair complexion, bronze hair and gray eyes. Her pastimes included tennis, riding, skating, and swimming. In 1916 the actress lived at 800 East 175 Street, New York City, an address she maintained for at least the next several years.