Mae Busch

Birth Name:

Annie May Busch

Birth Place:

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Profession

Actress, Soundtrack

Performed opera for a season, but received mixed reviews
Was educated in the United States at a convent in New Jersey, but decided not to take her vows
Started acting on the stage and later in vaudeville
Often played shrewish, gold-digging floozies in Laurel and Hardy comedies
Started her motion picture career in early Keystone comedies
Was one of the leading actresses on the screen in the 1920s, known as the versatile vamp
Jackie Gleason referred to her as "the ever-popular Mae Busch" on his television show
Her ashes remained unclaimed from her death in 1946 until 1970, at which point a chapter of the Laurel & Hardy Society, the Way out West Tent, paid or their interment
Her name appears as one of the leading characters in the script for "Block-Heads," but other studio commitments kept her from taking the role
Once claimed that she learned to swim and dive in Tahiti in order to get a part in a short, but her inexperience soon showed through

Fast Facts