Esther Muir; Movie Actress, Comedienne

Esther Muir, a blond wisecracking actress who appeared in about 70 films, including “A Day at the Races” with the Marx Brothers, in which she was memorably slathered with wallpaper paste, has died. She was 92.

Miss Muir, who lived in Somers, N.Y., died Aug. 1 in a hospital in Mount Kisco, N.Y.

Recalling with humor the wallpapering scene with Groucho Marx in the 1937 film, Miss Muir once said: “It was an unforgettable experience. We played pranks and had many laughs in spite of the hard and messy work.”

Born in Andes, N.Y., in years variously reported as 1903 or 1895, Miss Muir first worked as a model during her teens in New York City and spent the 1920s as a Broadway actress.

She won a role in a show called “Greenwich Village Follies” and appeared in other revues before landing the lead role in “My Girl Friday!” in 1929.

Cast as the “dumb blond” comedienne, she toured with the Marx Brothers in a stage version of “A Day at the Races” before the production was translated to film.

Miss Muir made her film debut in “A Dangerous Affair” in 1931. Among her other movies were “So This Is Africa!”, “The Bowery,” “Wine, Women and Song,” “Unknown Blonde,” “The Party’s Over,” “I’ll Take Romance,” “City Girl,” “Battle of Broadway,” “The Law West of Tombstone” and “X Marks the Spot.” Her final film was “The Mayor of 44th Street” in the early 1940s.

She was married and divorced three times--to choreographer-director Busby Berkeley, composer and producer Sam Coslow and Richard Brown, the president of a clock manufacturing company called General Time Corp.

“My work,” she once quipped, “helped compensate for my poor choice of husbands.”

After her decade on stage and another decade on screen, Miss Muir went into real estate development, financing and supervising the building of more than 400 tract homes in Southern California.

She is survived by her actress daughter, Jacqueline Coslow, of New York City, and two grandchildren.