Quick Facts
Biography
Blanche Payson (September 20, 1881 – July 4, 1964) was an American film actress.
Biography
She was born Mary Elizabeth to parents Thomas and Sarah Bush. She first attracted public notice when she served as policewoman in the Toyland exhibit at the Panama Exposition in San Francisco in 1915. She was married to Eugene Payson in San Francisco prior to 1910, who died before 1915.
Payson then moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles and began her film career with the Mack Sennett studio, appearing in short films in mostly uncredited roles. She appeared in nearly 160 films between 1916 and 1946. At 6 foot 2 inches, she towered over both men and women co-stars in the many slapstick comedies she appeared, as a foil for such comedians as The Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy and similar popular acts of the time. She often played brutal and dominant women, such as Oliver Hardy's wife in Helpmates (1932) or Bobby Hutchins' stepmother in the Our Gang comedy Dogs Is Dogs (1931).
She was born in Santa Barbara, California and died in Hollywood, California.
Selected filmography
- Wife and Auto Trouble (1916)
- A La Cabaret (1916)
- A Social Cub (1916)
- The Sultan's Wife (1917)
- Bears and Bad Men (1918)
- Three Ages (1923)
- Oh Doctor! (1925)
- Half a Man (1925)
- We Moderns (1925)
- La Bohème (1926)
- For Heaven's Sake (1926)
- Peaceful Oscar (1927)
- The Bachelor's Baby (1927)
- Figures Don't Lie (1927)
- Below Zero (1930)
- Our Wife (1931)
- Dogs Is Dogs (1931)
- I Surrender Dear (1931)
- Helpmates (1932)
- Impatient Maiden (1932)
- Hoi Polloi (1935)
- All Over Town (1937)
- Slander House (1938)
- Cookoo Cavaliers (1940)
- An Ache in Every Stake (1941)
- Blondie for Victory (1942)
- Ghosts on the Loose (1943)