Stage Name: Marie McDonald, nicknamed "The Body" AKA "The Body Perfect"
Birth Name: Cora Marie Frye
Occupation: Fashion Model, Beauty Queen / Screen, Stage, TV Actress / Singer, Big Band Lead Singer / Radio and Night Club Entertainer /Popular Hot Pinup Model
Years Active: 1938-1965
Notable Works: Said to be one of Bud Abbot’s and Lou Costello’s best movies 1942’s Pardon My Sarong made her famous and earned her the nickname “The Body” for which she is most famous and best remembered although she was truly a multifaceted person and multitalented celebrity.
Date/Place Birth: July 6, 1923 (1923-07-06), Burgin, Kentucky, U.S.A.
Date/Death/Cause: McDonald was found dead of a drug overdose October 21, 1965 in her Calabasas, California home at a young 42 years. She was laid to rest in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
Three months later her husband Donald F. Taylor committed suicide, January 2, 1966 Taylor killed himself with an overdose of barbituates in the same bedroom where Marie had died. McDonald's three surviving children were raised by Harry Karl and his wife, Debbie Reynolds.
Spouse(s) & Children: Marie McDonald was married seven times (to six men) and had three children; she had miscarriages and a stillborn, she adopted two children, Denise "Dede" and Harrison "Bo", between the years 1951-1954. A daughter, Tina Marie, was born in 1956. Marriage Summary: Richard Allord, actor (m. 1940–1940 annulled after 3 weeks); Victor M. Orsatti, Hollywood agent/actor (m. 1943–1947 divorced); Harry Karl, shoe tycoon (m. 1947–1954 divorced) 2 children; & again Harry Karl (remarried 1955–1958 divorced) 1 child; Louis Bass, agent/television executive (m. 1959–1960 divorced); Edward F. Callahan, lawyer/banker (m. 1962–1963 annulled after 48 hours then divorced 1963); Donald F. Taylor, producer (m. 1963–1965 her death)
Short Biography: Marie McDonald was born to-it as they say, her grandmother was an opera singer and she was the daughter of a Ziegfeld Follies Girl and was modeling and competing in beauty pageants at 15 (lied about her age at the time of course), in 1939 she was crowned "Miss New York. She was nicknamed “The Body Beautiful” but she was much more than the girl with the perfect hour-glass figure, she was a girl with a great voice, could also act ,and was a radio and night club entertainer as well. She appeared in about 24 Hollywood productions and sang with some of the periods greatest big bands and was a devoted mother as well. There is a so-so mini bio at this fansite: Biography page at www.mariemcdonald.org/...