"Husbands are easier to find than good agents." - Marie McDonald

Marie McDonald was born Cora Marie Frye on July 6, 1923, in Burgin, Kentucky. Her parents divorced when she was six years old. Marie's mother remarried and the family moved to New York. At the age of seventeen Marie married actor Richard Allord but the marriage was annulled. Marie began her career as a model. She won several beauty titles and competed in the Miss America pageant. Marie worked as a singer and starred on Broadway in George White's Scandals Of 1939. She got small roles in the films Pardon My Sarong and I Love A Soldier. Marie was nicknamed "The Body". In January 1943 Marie married her agent, Victor M. Orsatti.

There were also rumors Marie was involved with gangster Bugsy Siegel. She divorced Victor and married tycoon Harry Karl in 1947. Marie and Harry adopted two children (Denise and Harrison) but their marriage was tumultuous. They divorced in 1954 and remarried the following year. After several miscarriages Marie gave birth to a daughter, Tina Marie, in 1956. Her marriage to Harry ended in 1958. Marie worked with Gene Kelly in Living In A Big Way and with Jerry Lewis in The Geisha Boy. In 1959 she married Louis Bass, an agent. The marriage lasted one year. Her fifth marriage, to lawyer Edward F. Calahan, was annulled after only forty-eight hours.

Now in her forties Marie was having trouble finding work. She also had a serious addiction to drugs and alcohol. In 1963 she suffered a nervous breakdown and was arrested for forging a prescription. That same year Marie costarred with Jayne Mansfield in Promises! Promises! but the film was not a hit. Marie married producer Donald F. Taylor in 1964. On October 21, 1965 Marie died from an overdose of percodan. She was just forty-two years old. Her death was ruled an accident but some believe she committed suicide. Donald committed suicide two weeks after she died. Marie is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.