Mary Tomlinson (February 24, 1890 – April 10, 1975), professionally known as Marjorie Main, was an American character actress and singer of the Classical Hollywood period, notable as a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player in the 1940s and 1950s, and for her role as Ma Kettle in 10 Ma and Pa Kettle movies. Main started her career in vaudeville and theatre, and appeared in film classics, such as Dead End (1937), The Women (1939), Dark Command (1940), The Shepherd of the Hills (1941), Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), and Friendly Persuasion (1956). Main, known for playing "raucous, rough, and cantankerous women" on-screen, was characterized as "soft-spoken, shy," and "dignified" off-screen.
At the age of three, Tomlinson moved with her family to Indianapolis, Indiana, where her father was pastor of Hillside Christian Church. Four years later, they moved to Goshen and then Elkhart, Indiana. In the early 1900s, the Tomlinson family settled on a farm near Fairland, Indiana.
After attending public schools in Fairland and Shelbyville, Tomlinson spent a year (1905–06) at Franklin College in Franklin, Indiana, where she was a charter member of what became the present-day Delta Delta Delta sorority, before transferring to the Hamilton School of Dramatic Expression in Lexington, Kentucky. She completed a three-year course of study in 1909 at the age of 19. After graduation, Tomlinson took a job as a dramatics instructor at Bourbon College in Paris, Kentucky, but stayed only a year. Tomlinson later claimed that she was fired from the position after asking for a salary increase.
After Tomlinson left Kentucky, she spent the next several years studying dramatic arts in Chicago and New York City, despite her father's disapproval of her career choice. Tomlinson adopted the stage name of Marjorie Main during her early acting career to avoid embarrassing her family.
Marriage
Main married widower Stanley LeFevre Krebs, a psychologist and lecturer, on November 2, 1921.
Main performed with touring companies and in New York theaters on a part-time basis throughout her marriage. She also began her Hollywood film career in 1931. Main considered this period "the happiest years of her life."
Vogel also revealed that Main had a long-term relationship with actress Spring Byington.
Career
Early years
Main began her professional career as a performer touring in Chautauqua presentations with a Shakespearean repertory company. After performing for five months in a stock company in Fargo, North Dakota, she began working in vaudeville.
Film career
One of Main's first feature-film appearances was as an extra in A House Divided (1931). She also appeared in Take A Chance (1933) and Crime Without Passion (1934), and recreated her stage role as a servant in the film version of Music in the Air (also 1934), but most of her performance was cut from the film. Main also made a few more films in Hollywood in the 1930s before returning to the stage in New York City.
Main portrayed a diverse set of characters in subsequent films for different studios. These included roles as a mother, prison matron, landlady, aunt, secretary, and rental agent, among others.
During World War II, Main used her stage and film notoriety to help promote the sale of war bonds for the U.S. War Department. In December 1942, she returned for a visit to central Indiana, where she helped in the sale of more than $500,000 in war bonds.
thumb|right|[[Ma and Pa Kettle on Vacation (1953)]]
Main's most notable role was Ma Kettle in the Ma and Pa Kettle film series. Main filmed The Kettles in the Ozarks (1956) without Kilbride. Parker Fennelly played Pa Kettle in the final film, The Kettles on Old MacDonald's Farm (1957). Each film grossed Universal about $3 million, which helped save the studio from a financial collapse. In addition to acting, Main wrote some of her dialogue and created her own costumes and makeup. She also performed in The Goldbergs.
In 1958, Main appeared as a rugged frontierswoman Cassie Tanner in the episodes "The Cassie Tanner Story" and season one, episode 39 "The Sacramento Story" of the television series Wagon Train.
Later years and death
After her retirement from acting, Main lived a quiet, secluded life in Los Angeles. She became interested in spiritualism and the Moral Re-Armament movement. Main is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills, California, beside her husband, Doctor Stanley Krebs.
Theatre performances
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Year
! Play
! Character
! class="unsortable" | Notes
|-
| 1916
| Cheating Cheaters
| Sonora Cassidy
|
|-
| 1946
| Bad Bascomb
| Abbey Hanks
|
|-
| 1946
| Undercurrent
| Lucy
|
|-
| 1946
| The Show-Off
| Mrs. Fisher
|
|-
| 1947
| The Egg and I