Even though I do watch and enjoy silent films, I am only familiar with Marie Prevost through the Nick Lowe song.
The story told by Nick Lowe suggests that she was unable to make the transition from silent film to talkies. The imdb bio does mention that her New England accent (birth place listed as Ontario, Canada) was a problem in the sound era, but still in her credits list we see:
[ul]1930 5 Credits
[li]1931 9 Credits[/li][li]1932 4 Credits[/li][li]1933 5 Credits[/li][li]1935 2 Credits[/li][li]1936 5 Credits[/li][/ul]
The roles might not have been as good but one of her 1936 credits gives her third billing and another fifth billing. So she wasn’t really out of work when she died. Still imdb lists cause of death as “alcoholism and malnutrition”. I can’t imagine she was malnourished because of lack of money to buy food, since she was working. I supposed it is not unlikely that she was spending all her money on booze, but I’m wondering is there any evidence that she might have been anorexic?
Also, Nick Lowe makes the only references I have found suggesting that her dog had been eating her dead body.
So my main questions:
Just how bad had her career gotten (simply looking at her credits list doesn’t really paint a vivid picture, since I’m not familiar with the films)?
Any reason to believe she was anorexic?
Had her dog really been eating her dead body?