June Marlowe was born Gisela Valaria Goetten to German parents in St. Cloud, Minnesota. She was a prolific actress in silent films during the 1920s, appearing in films opposite John Barrymore and Rin Tin Tin. She was one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1925. Her career did well until the introduction of talking pictures. Marlowe did not make an easy transition, and by 1930 she was starting to drift away from acting. By chance, she happened to meet director Robert F. McGowan one day in a Los Angeles, California, department store. McGowan was searching for an actress to portray the schoolteacher in the Our Gang series of children’s comedies. After producer Hal Roach suggested that brunette Marlowe don a blonde wig to match the hair of the lead kid in the series, Jackie Cooper, she was given the part of Miss Crabtree. June Marlowe and Cooper were paired together in three Our Gang films, Teacher’s Pet, School’s Out and Love Business. She also had a small role in 1931’s Little Daddy. In addition to her work in Our Gang, Marlowe appeared in fellow Roach stars Laurel and Hardy’s first feature film, Pardon Us. Marlowe’s Miss Crabtree character was used in only two more shorts, 1931’s Shiver My Timbers and 1932’s Readin’ and Writin’. After Cooper left Our Gang in 1931 she appeared in MGM features.

On July 2, 1933, June Marlowe married Hollywood businessman Rodney Sprigg and retired from motion pictures to become a housewife. The couple remained married until Sprigg’s death in 1982. In her later years, she suffered from Parkinson’s disease, dying from complications on March 10, 1984. Marlowe was originally buried at the San Fernando Mission Cemetery. She was later re-interred in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. The name of Edna Krabappel, a cartoon character from the animated television series The Simpsons, was chosen by early Simpsons writers Wallace Wolodarsky and Jay Kogen in 1990 as a play on the fruit “crabapple” and as a reference to Miss Crabtree from the Our Gang shorts.