Biography

She was born Marion Townsend in St. Louis, Missouri

Missouri

Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

 and is best known for her performances on the television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 variety

Variety show

A variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is an entertainment made up of a variety of acts, especially musical performances and sketch comedy, and normally introduced by a compère or host. Other types of acts include magic, animal and circus acts, acrobatics, juggling...

 series Arthur Godfrey and His Friends

Arthur Godfrey and His Friends

Arthur Godfrey and His Friends is an American television variety show hosted by Arthur Godfrey. The hour-long series aired on CBS from January 1949, to June 1957 , then again as a half-hour show from September 1958, to April 1959.Many of Godfrey's musical acts were culled from Arthur Godfrey's...

, from 1950 to 1955, in which she sang duets with Frank Parker, as the "Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy of the 1950s.".

According to Richard Lamparksi's 1975 book "Whatever Became of...?", Marion began taking vocal lessons when she was twelve years old and studied at London's Royal Conservatory under Sir Thomas Beecham. Later, she roomed with Marilyn Monroe at Hollywood's Studio Club while being coached by Sigmund Romberg. She recorded for CBS Records

CBS Records

CBS Records is a record label founded by CBS Corporation in 2006 to take advantage of music from its entertainment properties owned by CBS Television Studios. The initial label roster consisted of only three artists; rock band Señor Happy and singer/songwriters Will Dailey and P.J...

 in the mid-1950s, and had a hit single with "The Man in the Raincoat", which reached #14 on the Billboard Hot 100

Billboard Hot 100

The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

 in 1955. In April 1955 she was dropped from CBS's roster, and the same month she was fired by Arthur Godfrey from his show along with Haleloke and the Mariners; the following month she married television producer Larry Puck, who had also been fired by Godfrey. She later pursued a career as a stage actress, most notably as the Baroness, Elsa Schraeder, in The Sound of Music

The Sound of Music

The Sound of Music is a musical by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the memoir of Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers...

, 1959-1963.

Marion is a widow and lives in Sea Bright, New Jersey, enjoying her organic garden and caring for the stray animals she takes in.