Marjorie Zier ~ The Murdered Bathing Beauty

 

Marjorie Zier was a Mack Sennett bathing beauty who was tragically murdered by her boyfriend

She was born Marjorie June Zier on on February 3, 1909 in Hennepin, Minnesota. Her father, Harrison Zier, was a car salesman. The family moved to Los Angeles, California in 1920. Marjorie started taking dance lessons and dreamed about becoming an actress. At the age of sixteen she dropped out of high school and made her film debut in the silent drama The Ancient Mariner. In 1925 she eloped with Danny Dowling, a cafe entertainer. He became abusive and she had the marriage annulled. She was discovered by producer Mack Sennett who hired her to be one of his bathing beauties. The lovely brunette appeared in numerous films including Pass The Dumplings, A Dozen Socks, and A Racing Rodea. On August 17, 1929 she married Hugh Pickering, a Chicago millionaire. They divorced two years later. Unfortunately her acting career never took off. Her final film was the 1930 comedy Rough Idea Of Love.

In 1934 she married J. Richard Van Conover, a wealthy oil man. Marjorie filed for divorce in 1939 claiming he beat her. Her fourth marriage, to meat packing heir Michael Cudahy, lasted just three months. By the early 1940s she had developed a serious drinking problem. She found a job working as a flight hostess for TWA. Then she began a relationship with Stanley Wassil, a real estate agent. He was also an alcoholic and their relationship became abusive. During the evening of March 8, 1952 they got into a fight and he beat her badly. The next day, March 9, she tragically died from her injuries. Marjorie was only forty-three years old. Stanley confessed to the police "I pushed her in the face and her head slammed against the wall. I didn’t intend to kill her." Shockingly he only served one year in jail. She was buried in an unmarked grave at Angelus Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.