Vintage Film Festival
The Foundation produces the Vintage Film Festival every year on a weekend in September. Full details here. The Foundation also produces RearView Doc Fest on a weekend in April. More here.
Last 17 Bursaries
Marie Dressler House
The history of the Marie Dressler House is here. It is now the home of the Interactive Marie Dressler Museum. Dressler House is located at:
212 King street West (Hwy 2),
Cobourg, Ontario, Canada.
Hours
Because of the Covid-19 virus crisis, as a precaution the Museum will be closed until April 25. Any extension of these hours and future hours in 2020 will be indicated here.
Contact Us
To contact the Marie Dressler Foundation by mail, see our About Us page. By email, click here.
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Tell Us More
If you have some information about Marie or simply want to comment on her or the content of this site, please use our "Tell Us More" form available here.
The Marie Dressler Story
Born in Cobourg, Canada - one of Hollywood's greatest stars
The Dressler Story: to Dream, to Dare, to Persist, to Win
Cobourg is the birthplace of Marie Dressler - one of the greatest comediennes of her generation and one of Hollywood's best loved stars.
This is the official site of the Marie Dressler Foundation whose mission is to make sure that Marie Dressler is remembered.
The Foundation, a registered charity, was created to raise money to restore her house when it was burnt down in 1989 (More here). Our largest activity has been the Vintage Film Festival which is held on the last weekend in October every year. But in 2018 we had additional major events to celebrate Marie's 150th birthday.
Bursaries
Another major activity of the Foundation is to award scholarships/bursaries to students planning to pursue an education in the arts field. There is a list of previous scholarship winners here. The 2019 winners were presented with their awards at Dressler House on July 6 - see the story with photos here. For more information on how to apply, go here.
Also available on this site
Announcement - 2020 RearView DocFest has been cancelled for April
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The health and safety of our patrons and volunteers is of paramount importance to Marie Dressler Foundation.
In light of the current COVID-19 situation, we have considered the risks inherent for the community in moving ahead with RearView DocFest as planned.
Regrettably, we see no choice but to announce the cancellation of RearView DocFest.
Not only is this a disappointment for you, our patrons, but particularly disappointing for the many dedicated volunteers who have worked tirelessly over the past few months to prepare an engaging event.
Anyone who has already purchased tickets will be contacted within the next few days.
We will be monitoring the COVID-19 situation closely going forward, and assessing the possibility of rescheduling the event for later this year.
Please continue to check this website for news in the coming months.
Rick Miller
President and Chair
Marie Dressler Foundation
Progress on New Museum for Dressler House
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Marie Dressler Foundation is planning an expansion of the museum at Dressler House to include sections for the other two Canadian female Oscar winners: Mary Pickford and Norma Shearer and at the Council Meeting on 13 January 2020, the team working on this gave a progress report. Toronto University agreed to offer the project to students in their Master program for Museum Studies and 5 students accepted: Michelle Wright, Enya Barbeau, Karen Cheung, Natalie Heaton and Emma Myers. They presented a brief overview of what the museum will look like and talked about the great access they had to experts who are knowledgeable about the two stars plus thousands of artifacts – mostly photographs and film clips. It appears that this will be the first museum dedicated to these Oscar winners so the artifacts will have a home.
Birthday Celebration
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Saturday November 9, 2019 was Marie Dressler’s 151st birthday and we celebrated it. After an introduction by Town Crier Mandy Robinson, foundation chair Rick Miller presented the documentary Without Lying Down which is about women in early Hollywood who were very successful. The film focused particularly on screenwriter Frances Marion and her close friend Mary Pickford. Rick then briefly spoke about the Foundation’s plans to expand the existing Marie Dressler museum to include female Canadian stars Mary Pickford and Norma Shearer. He also called on Mayor John Henderson to draw the ticket for the winner of the first of three door prizes. After the event, the good-sized audience in the Citizen’s Forum in Victoria Hall were invited to enjoy the refreshments.
Below are some photos of the event. Click any photo to enlarge then scroll through all of them.
