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
Four Exceptional Students Win 2018 Bursaries
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On July 7, 2018, bursaries of $1500 each were presented to the four winning students. The photo below is of the four students and the video shows the presentation by Rick Miller (chair of the Foundation) and other board members. The first winner in the video is Graham Beer – many will note that he is generally on the other side of the camera. Witnessing the event were Foundation board members, parents of recipients, the media and a couple of guests visiting from Victoria. Originally residents of Cobourg, Pam Jackson and Pat Archer helped in the original collection of artifacts for the Museum.
The Marie Dressler Foundation Board believes that it’s fitting that Cobourg celebrates its heritage and in particular the Cobourg born star Marie Dressler, by awarding these bursaries.
Graham Beer - Cobourg Collegiate Institute - Presenter: Scott Fraser
Kieva Earle - St. Mary’s Catholic Secondary School - Presenter: Cathie Houston
Ben Hughes - East Northumberland Secondary School - Presenter: Terry Foord
Sydney Stewart - Cobourg Collegiate Institute - Presenter: Rick Miller
Note that the awards for the first three are based on merit and the fact that they are planning tertiary studies in the performing arts but Sydney’s award was also for exceptional community devotion. That award is called the Bill Patchett Devotion to Community Award to honour the community service by Bill Patchett.
Tournée des musées : le Musée Marie Dressler à Cobourg
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Isabelle Gobeil, Animatrice / Reporter, Radio-Canada, Toronto visited Marie Dressler Museum a couple of weeks ago and reported on Radio as well as on the Radio-Canada.ca web site. Click here to go to the web page which includes photos, text and the audio. Il est entièrement en français.
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Marie Dressler’s 150th Birthday Celebrations Announced
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The Hon. Daiene Vernile, Minister of Tourism, Culture & Sport came to Cobourg on February 5th and visited the Marie Dressler Museum. The occasion was the announcement of a program of events in 2018 celebrating Marie Dressler’s 150th birthday. Daiene was suitably impressed with the Museum and with the efforts made by Cobourg to preserve our Heritage and provide things for tourists and residents to do. Also at the event were MPP Lou Rinaldi, Town of Cobourg Director Dean Hustwick and the County’s Tourism manager Eileen Lum. Marie Dressler Foundation Chair, Rick Miller, showed the Minister the features of the Museum and finished with a video about how it came to be plus an announcement of upcoming events. Daiene remarked that we need to make our treasures work and Lou commented that it’s good to preserve our history.
Read more: Marie Dressler’s 150th Birthday Celebrations Announced