In 1915, Marsh made her first film appearance, uncredited, in the
short The Mad Maid of the Forest, which her father was filming. Later that same year she was also cast in
Hearts Aflame and then billed as Dorothy Rosher. After these minor roles as a baby and
toddler, Marsh finally became a star in
Mary Pickford films such as
Daddy-Long-Legs (1919) and
Pollyanna (1920). She signed with
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer but was released from her contract in 1932.
Harry Cohn of
Columbia, always willing to sign MGM's castoffs, hired her for two features, after which she freelanced among almost all the Hollywood studios, large and small. She had built enough of a name to receive featured roles; her most familiar role of the 1930s is probably as
W. C. Fields's daughter in 1934's ''
You're Telling Me! (Marsh made an impression on Fields, and in a subsequent Fields script for It's a Gift'' he asked for a "Joan Marsh type".) She was a versatile performer, capable of playing ingenues and "other women", sometimes essaying dialects. In 1936, she sang on the
CBS radio program
Flying Red Horse Tavern. By 1940 Joan Marsh went where the work was, and co-starred with
John King in
Blame It on Love, a promotional featurette for kitchen appliances. She continued to appear at various studios, being featured in major films and starring in minor ones. When she appeared as a gangster's moll in Universal's
Little Tough Guys picture ''
Keep 'Em Slugging, she became friendly with Huntz Hall and Bobby Jordan, who recruited her for their East Side Kids series at Monogram. After her featured roles in Mr. Muggs Steps Out (1943) and Follow the Leader'' (1944), she retired from the screen at the relatively young age of 30. == Personal life ==