Marie was born in Mobile, Alabama, to George Layet and his wife Josephine Garner.
[1] Her parents were reportedly respected and well-known, but she was orphaned at a young age, and was raised primarily by her grandmother.
At the age of 24, she returned to Mobile and opened her own art studio, and she wrote silent films in order to pay her bills after answering an advertisement.
[5] After her marriage, she turned her attention to the local theater scene, co-founding the Mobile Little Theatre and working on stage plays.
[3] In 1937, reeling from her publisher rejecting her second novel (Penhazard) and dealing with the effects of long-term alcoholism, she died at her home in Florida.