She was born
Marion Joan Martin on June 7, 1909 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her father, Alfred Martin, was a wealthy steel executive and her mother, Rosalie Martin, was a former model. When she was a child the family moved to Pittsfield, Massachusetts and her parents divorced. Marion was educated at a private school in Switzerland. At the age of eighteen she made her Broadway debut in Lombardi Ltd. The brassy blonde appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies and in Earl Carroll's Vanities. She earned $500 a week was called "The World's Most Beautiful Showgirl". During this time she often posed semi-nude for photographers. Marion landed small roles in the films Crime Without Passion and Moon Over Manhattan. In 1938 she was signed by Universal and cast in the drama Sinners In Paradise. Then she had supporting roles in His Exciting Night and The Man In The Iron Mask. With her voluptuous figure and babydoll voice she found herself typecast as a sexy bombshell. Marion bought a ranch fifteen miles outside of Hollywood and spent her free time gardening. Despite her sex symbol image she was actually deeply religious.
During the early 1940s she made dozens of films including The Big Street, Angel On My Shoulder, and Tales Of Manhattan. She worked with Barbara Stanwyck in Lady Of Burlesque and with The Marx Brothers in The Big Store. Marion had a brief romance with Warner Brothers studio mogul Bud Stevens. While filming Gildersleeve's Ghost in 1943 she started dating her costar Harold Peary. One evening Bud Stevens and Harold Peary got into a fistfight over her at the Mocambo nightclub! Although she appeared in more than ninety movies she never became an A-list star. By the end of the 1940s she was mainly getting bit parts in films like State Of The Union and My Dream Is Yours. In 1950 she married Jimmy Krzykowski, a sewing machine repairman. Soon after she decided to retire from acting. Her final film was the 1952 western Oklahoma Annie. She and her husband never had children and enjoyed a quiet life in California. Marion spent much of her time doing charity work and volunteering at a hospital. On August 13, 1985 she died from cardiac arrest at the age of seventy-six. She was buried at Holy Cross cemetery in Culver City, California.
Marion often posed semi-nude
