Contact Us
To contact the Marie Dressler Foundation by mail or email, see our About Us page.
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Support Us
Go to this page to support Marie Dressler Foundation online.
Vintage Film Festival
The Foundation produces the Vintage Film Festival every year on a weekend in October. Full details here.
Marie Dressler House
The history of the Marie Dressler House is here. It is now the home of the Interactive Canadian Women in Film Museum.
Dressler House is located at:
212 King street West (Hwy 2),
Cobourg, Ontario, Canada.
The Marie Dressler Museum has been expanded and is now called "Canadian Women in Film Museum".
Hours
Opening hours for 2023
By appointment only - see About Us page
Visit the new museum's website here for details of how to book your visit at other times
News
News about the Activities of the Marie Dressler Foundation
Marie Dressler Foundation is planning an expansion of the museum at Dressler House to include sections for the other two Canadian female Oscar winners: Mary Pickford and Norma Shearer and at the Council Meeting on 13 January 2020, the team working on this gave a progress report. Toronto University agreed to offer the project to students in their Master program for Museum Studies and 5 students accepted: Michelle Wright, Enya Barbeau, Karen Cheung, Natalie Heaton and Emma Myers. They presented a brief overview of what the museum will look like and talked about the great access they had to experts who are knowledgeable about the two stars plus thousands of artifacts – mostly photographs and film clips. It appears that this will be the first museum dedicated to these Oscar winners so the artifacts will have a home.
Saturday November 9, 2019 was Marie Dressler’s 151st birthday and we celebrated it. After an introduction by Town Crier Mandy Robinson, foundation chair Rick Miller presented the documentary Without Lying Down which is about women in early Hollywood who were very successful. The film focused particularly on screenwriter Frances Marion and her close friend Mary Pickford. Rick then briefly spoke about the Foundation’s plans to expand the existing Marie Dressler museum to include female Canadian stars Mary Pickford and Norma Shearer. He also called on Mayor John Henderson to draw the ticket for the winner of the first of three door prizes. After the event, the good-sized audience in the Citizen’s Forum in Victoria Hall were invited to enjoy the refreshments.
Below are some photos of the event. Click any photo to enlarge then scroll through all of them.
On October 7, 2019, Mayor John Henderson of the Town of Cobourg, proclaimed Saturday, November 9, 2019 as "Marie Dressler Celebration Day" in the Town of Cobourg.
Mayor Henderson (photo right) encouraged Citizens to visit Marie Dressler Museum to discover Marie's remarkable story and also invited them to attend a special Marie Dressler birthday event on that day.
Download the official Proclamation here.
At Monday’s Committee of the Whole Council meeting, Marie Dressler Foundation (MDF) chair Rick Miller presented plans to expand the existing Museum at Dressler house to include two other Canadian female Oscar winners: Mary Pickford and Norma Shearer. Rick said that he had firm commitments from partners in the venture who would supply material for the museum and assist with marketing. To proceed, Rick wanted the Town to revise the existing lease from just a part of Dressler House to include the entire building. After some debate, Councillors approved a revised lease and a bylaw implementing the lease was approved at their meeting on 9 September, 2019.
Read more: Plans for Museum Expansion presented to Cobourg Council