[1] She emigrated to London in 1886 when she was fifteen, and she grew to minor prominence when she sang in music halls throughout the United Kingdom during the late 19th century.
"[1] When World War I started she emigrated to the United States, and there she joined the team on Margaret Sanger’s Birth Control Review.
Although she used her tenacity and loud voice to get people to pay attention to her cause, she did not use violence as much as she had in the United Kingdom, although she was still arrested many times for advocating birth control.
Her father, whose name was Gustav (see Riddell, Death in Ten Minutes), abused Marion and hated that she had red hair.
[3] When Marion was fifteen, she was secretly sent by her German uncle to live with her aunt in England, to escape her father's violence (see Riddell).
She found a natural home in London music halls, where variety shows included songs and skits that commented on current events.
[5] Marion's more significant contribution to the music hall industry was rebelling against the corrupt system that permitted assaults against women within it.
The working conditions for performers were harsh, and Peter Bailey has criticized the creation of the "more or less professionalized labor force".
[1] In the same year she gained public recognition when she wrote a response letter to the London Era newspaper after they published actors' lack of loyalty to their agents.
Marion wrote that she had "given up hope for a woman who wants to earn her own living, and at the same time rise in the profession on her merits only, without influence of any sort."
Conversely, performance opportunities increased when she moved to the United States, but she was not able to work because of her time spent with the Birth Control Review.
Marion featured together with Jennie Baines, Lillian Forrester, her friend Clara Elizabeth Giveen, Lilian Lenton, Miriam Pratt and Mary Raleigh Richardson.
[1] When she came back to the United States, she started working at the Speech Improvement Project at the WPA where she helped children learn English.