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MARY the star
of the silver screen
of tv and radio
and the theatre scene
..... MARY ANDERSON, born at Sacramento, California in 1859 and educated at the Ursuline Convent in Louisville. She was a stage actress whose beauty and classical restrained style made her famous and she toured between England and America playing many Shakesperian roles and in the plays of W S Gilbert. She suffered a nervous breakdown in 1889 and retired, married Antonio de Navarro and settled in England. Her autobiographies were A Few Memories (1896) and A Few More Memories (1936)
..... MARY ASTOR born Lucille Vasconells Langehanke on May 3rd 1906 in Quincy, Illinois and whose
ambitious father pushed her into movies at the earliest possible moment. She starred in the movies for 40 years and the pinnacle of her long career was opposite Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon in 1941. With the coming of sound her career had begun to fade but when lurid extracts of her diary were published in the 1930s her movie career began to pick up once again and the period of her finest films began -Dodsworth (1936) The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) The Hurricane (1937) Midnight (1939) and when she received an Academy Award in 1941 for her role as the rival wife in The Great Lie it made her the only star ever to steal a picture from Bette Davis. Her last film was made in 1965 Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte and eventually a chronic heart condition forced her to retire to the Motion Picture and TV Country Home in California where she wrote novels
..... MARY DARBY (Mrs Robinson) was a brilliant and beautiful actress at Drury Lane who was proposed to at the age of 13 by a Captain in the Royal Navy who believed that she was 16 and who won the heart of the Prince of Wales. Whilst at finishing school Mary was introduced to David Garrick, the famous English actor, manager and dramatist and her mother was persuaded to allow her to train for the stage. Her greatest success was as Perdita in " A Winter's Tale" and it was in this role that she was first seen by the Prince of Wales who began to send her letters which were signed 'Florizel'. After they met she found out who 'Florizel' really was. Although she loved him he soon tired of her and finding herself heavily in debt she went to Paris where Queen Marie Antoinette was captivated by her beauty as was the whole court and she became "la belle anglaise". In 1784,at the age of 24, she contracted an illness which left her crippled and three years later she returned to England. She spent her last years at Englefield College in Surrey where she wrote poetry and under the name of Tabitha Bramble wrote for the Morning Post poetry department. She was 42 years old when she died in 1802 and was still in love with the Prince of Wales. One of her last requests was that a lock of her hair be sent to him after her death
..... MARY SUSAN ETHERINGTON, born in 1864, became a stage comedienne known as Marie Tempest who trained as a singer and began her stage career in musical comedy. In 1899 she began to perform in dramatic roles. In 1902 she toured the world as Kitty in The Marriage of Kitty and on her return to London became known for playing, the parts of elegant middle-aged women. She said "Ineverallow myself to be bored because boredom is ageing. If you live in the past you grow old and dull and dusty. It's very nice, of course, to be young and beautiful, but there are other qualities, thank God". In 1937 she was was made a DBE
...... MARY GARDEN was an American-Scottish opera star who went to America as a child and studied singing in Chicago and Paris. She was born Mary Davidson in Aberdeen in 1877 and her career began when she took over in mid-performance in the title role of Louise at the Opera Comique in 1900
..... MARY KLOTZ, born in Philadelphia on August 16th 1907 became Mae Clarke whose famous moment in the history of the cinema was when James Cagney squashed a grapefruit into her face in the 1931 film The Public Enemy. Apparently audiences were so delighted with this scene that they were once again paired together in 1933 in Lady Killer but the scene in which she was dragged across the room by her hair by Cagney's character failed to raise the excitement of the early film. Her other films include the first version of Waterloo Bridge, The Front Page and she also had small parts in Annie Get Your Gun and Singing in the Rain. She died in 1992 aged 84
..... MARY 'MAE' MARSH was one of Samuel Goldwyn's first stars in 1917 although her work in the cinema began in 1912 at Biograph with D W Griffith who said that she "was born a star". She left Biograph in 1917 but returned again in 1923 to star in The White Rose with Ivor Novello and again starred with him in a British film titled The Rat. Her career faded with the advent of sound except for tiny roles but she appeared in every film made by John Ford, who was a great friend of hers. The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance are two of the major cinema classics of the silent era and she starred in both of them. Some believe that she was the greatest actress of the silent screen. Mae Marsh was born in Madrid, New Mexico in 1895 and died in California in 1968
..... MARY MARTIN was a Broadway singer and actress, comedienne, film star, author. Her published book was Needlepoint (1969) and her autobiography My Heart Belongs (1976). She was also the mother of the celebrated villain of the television series Dallas, J.R. played by Larry Hagman. He was the son of her first husband, whom she married at the age of 16 and she had a daughter by her second marriage to Richard Halliday. She was born on December 1st 1913 at Weatherford, near Dallas in Texas and became addicted to the musical cinema from an early age. One of her favourite roles was as Nellie Forbush in South Pacific which ran on Broadway for 2 years and then went to London. Other stage roles were in Annie Get Your Gun, The Sound of Music for which she was awarded the Theatre Wing's Tony Award and the New York Drama Critics Award, Old World in New York opposite Anthony Quayle and as the legendary Peter Pan which was shown on television also. There were numerous film and television appearances and she remained a familiar show business personality well into her seventies
..... Gladys Marie Smith became the 'world's sweetheart' MARY PICKFORD and was the first film star to get a percentage of her pictures. She was born on April 8th 1893 in Toronto, started in films in 1909 at a salary of $40 per week and 10 years later owned her own studios, United Artists and was earning $1m each year. Her first marriage was in 1911 to Owen Moore but they divorced because of his alcoholism and she then married Douglas Fairbanks. They were divorced in 1936. Mary was a first-class business woman and continued to play the 'little girl' roles which had made her famous and made her money but she decided to retire from films in 1933 when she found that there was no way that she could carry these roles into the sound era. She was the first and greatest victim of typecasting but was made so by herself in order to retain her box office popularity. In retirement she gave radio broadcasts and wrote several books and in 1937 she founded a cosmetics company and married her third husband Buddy Rogers. In 1975 she was awarded a special Academy Award for her services to the film industry. When she died in 1979 she left a fortune of $50m
..... MARY FRANCES REYNOLDS became Debbie Reynolds, the bouncy, bright-eyed singing-dancing star of the '50s musicals whose most famous film was Singing in the Rain in which she starred with Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor. She was a top box office attraction until the mid-60s. Born on April 1st 1932 in El Paso, Texas she got into films after winning the title of Miss Burbank in 1948. Her first role was a minor one in 'June Bride' in 1948 and by the end of the 1950s she had reached the peak of her popularity. It was at this time that her marriage to Eddie Fisher was coming to an end and her career began to fade in the 1960s.In 1972 she lent her voice to the animated cartoon feature Charlotte's Web and appeared on Broadway in the musical Irene in 1973
..... MARY DOROTHY STANTON was born on December 10th 1914 in New Orleans. At the age of 14 she became Miss New Orleans and then went on to become one of the biggest names on radio. Hollywood discovered her and she became the undisputed 'Queen of the Sarong' Dorothy Lamour. In the 40s and 50s she made a series of 'Road' movies with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope and was an essential part of the series. In 1962, Road to Hong Kong, in which she only had a guest role, was the only one in the series to flop. The sarong became synonymous with her and she is quoted as saying " I kept it up by sheer muscle control'. However due to the exotic image created for her she never became known as a musical star. Dorothy Lamour retired in 1953 after The Greatest Show On Earth and made only one more film Donovan's Reef in 1963 with John Wayne. After 35 years of marriage, her husband Bill died in 1979 and she "dropped out" for a while refusing to see friends, family or doctor. She eventually returned to the theatre and made occasional television appearances. Her sarongs were auctioned off over the years with the proceeds going to charity but she was told that her very first sarong is in the Smithsonian Institute