by Hal Erickson
biography
Though she remained single throughout her life, actress Marjorie Gateson was the perfect screen "wife" to many a stuffed-shirt aristocrat, blustering businessman or windbag politician. A product of the New York stage, Gateson came to Hollywood when movies learned to talk; of her many matronly roles, she is probably best remembered as the party hostess whom prizefighter Harold Lloyd teaches how to "duck" in The Milky Way (1936). She returned to New York in the early 1940s, where she co-starred in one of the pioneering TV serials, One Man's Family. Marjorie Gateson returned to soap operas near the end of her career in the role of Grace Tyrrell on The Secret Storm, a part she played until illness struck her down in 1969.
