A new museum featuring female Canadian film pioneers is coming to Cobourg, Ontario. According to an official press release, the Marie Dressler Foundation is partnering up with the Mary Pickford Foundation, Darin Barnes, curator of Normashearer.com, and TIFF’s Film Reference Library to showcase Mary Pickford, Norma Shearer, and Marie Dressler — Canadian actresses who made their way to and thrived in Hollywood’s Golden Age.
While Dressler was one of the most prominent comediennes during the silent film era, Shearer, dubbed the “First Lady of MGM,” was the first to receive five Oscar nods for acting. Alongside a fruitful acting career, Pickford went on to establish the Pickford-Fairbanks studio and United Artists.
The museum will be located in the Marie Dresslers house in Cobourg. Its program will feature various archival donations from the aforementioned organizations, as well as an interpretive design plan by the University of Toronto Master of Museum Studies program. The same program previously aided in designing the Marie Dressler Museum.
Canada’s Women Film Pioneers Museum will also feature online content “highlighting the presence of women in the film industry and research into other Canadian women’s contribution to the film industry,” according to the release.
“In the first four years of the Oscars, the Best Actress Award was given to [these] three Canadian actresses who found their way to Hollywood,” said Rick Miller, president & chair of the Marie Dressler Foundation. “This is a glorious history for young Canadian women to learn about because these women pioneers were also producers, studio founders, and very savvy businesswomen who achieved unheard of prestige and rank in an age where very few women ever attained any positions of power. These women were the power in Hollywood, a feat never seen again.”
Debra Kwinter, director of TIFF’s “Share Her Journey” program, emphasized that this history is crucial for understanding — and interrogating — the current gender inequality throughout the industry. “If these women could do it then, how can we help women to do it now?” she asked.
