Busch, Mae (1894–1946)

Australian-born actress. Born in Melbourne, Australia, on January 20, 1894; died in 1946; educated in a New Jersey convent; married Francis McDonald (an actor).

Selected filmography:

The Agitator (1912); A One Night Stand (1915); A Favorite Fool (1915); A Bath House Blunder (1916); The Fair Barbarian (1917); Her Husband's Friend (1920); A Parisian Scandal (1921); The Love Charm (1921); Foolish Wives (1922); Only a Shop Girl (1922); Souls for Sale (1923); Name the Man (1924); The Shooting of Dan McGrew (1924); The Unholy Three (1925); Camille of the Barbary Coast (1925); The Miracle of Life (1926); San Francisco Fights (1928); While the City Sleeps (1928); (played Oliver Hardy's wife in first Laurel & Hardy talking short) A Man's Man (1929); Young Desire (1930); (Laurel & Hardy short) Chickens Come Home (1931); Wicked (1931); (Laurel & Hardy short) Their First Mistake (1932); Scarlet Dawn (1932); Blondie Johnson (1933); Dance Girl Dance (1933); (played Oliver Hardy's wife) Sons of the Desert (1933); (L&H short) Oliver the Eighth (1934); (L&H short) Going Bye-Bye (1934); (L&H short) Them Thar Hills (1934); (L&H short) The Live Ghost (1934); (L&H short) Tit for Tat (1935); Stranded (1935); (L&H feature) The Bohemian Girl (1936); Daughter of Shanghai (1937); Prison Farm (1938); Nancy Drew—Detective (1938); Women without Names (1940); The Mad Monster (1942); (bit part) The Blue Dahlia (1946).

Mae Busch was born in Melbourne, Australia, on January 20, 1894. Her father was conductor of the Australian Symphony Orchestra; her mother was a grand-opera singer. Mae spent much of her childhood in Tahiti, where the Buschs owned property, until the family immigrated to the United States. Making her stage debut at age 17, Busch became a popular headliner in vaudeville. Her film debut was in a Mack Sennett Keystone comedy in 1912, and her first major movie success was her star turn in Erich von Stroheim's Foolish Wives in 1922. Throughout the 1930s, she appeared in Laurel and Hardy two-reel comedies, sometimes playing Hardy's wife, other times as a foil for their routines. She became a foil once again when Jackie Gleason began to use her name in a running gag on his popular television program with the phrase "and the ever-popular Mae Busch."