Tugboat Annie, Wallace Berry Lamp Base

original production material

A plaster lamp base of Wallace Beery (1885-1949), in costume from this film, which was his second pairing with the wonderful Marie Dressler (1868-1934). Three years previously they teamed for a similar feature, "MIN AND BILL", which won her an Academy Award. The year before this film Beery had won Best Actor for "THE CHAMP". In fact, Beery was in most of the great MGM films of that decade and was one of the most famous stars of his day. Although, he mostly played the bighearted lout, co workers said he was quite the opposite. Further research, and the discovery of a Clark Gable example, reveal that the lamps were made by a Bill Davis, located on North Vermont Ave. in LA, and advertised in fan magazines in the early 1930s.