Mary Adams (1970 - 1973)

Actress. She appeared in the original theater productions of “Hazard” (1948), ” Night Has a Thousand Eyes”(1948), ” Rebel in Town” (1956), “Blood of Dracula”(1957) and Diary of a Madman” (1963). On television she made appearances on “The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show”, “Hallmark Hall of Fame”, “Captain Midnight”, “Dennis the Menace” and “Twilight […]

Mary Akeley (1878 - 1966)

Mary Akeley was born to Richard Watson and Sarah Jane Pittis Jobe on 29 January 1878. She grew up on her parents’ farm in Tappan, Ohio and graduated from Scio College, Ohio. After graduation she taught at a public school until 1901 when she joined Bryn Mawr College. She later transferred to Columbia University, New […]

Mary Alden (1883 - 1946)

Born in New York City, Alden began her career on the Broadway stage. She spent five years on Broadway before moving to Hollywood where she worked for the Biograph Company and Pathé Exchange in the first portion of her career. Her most popular role in movies came in Birth of a Nation directed by D.W. […]

Mary Alice Bird Babb (1850 - 1926)

Alice Bird Babb was one of the seven founders of P.E.O. (Philanthropic Educational Organization), one of the pioneer societies for women, that was founded on January 21, 1869, at Iowa Wesleyan College in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. Today, P.E.O. has grown to almost a quarter of a million members in chapters in the United States and […]

Mary Anderson (1918 - 2014)

Actress. Originally considered for the role of ‘Scarlet’ O’Hara’, she played ‘Maybelle Merriwether’ in the classic picture “Gone With the Wind” (1939). Born and raised in the Deep South (some sources state her year of birth as 1920), she attended Howard College (now Samford University) in Alabama. During this period, she was discovered and experienced […]

Mary Ann Bickerdyke (1817 - 1901)

Mary Ann Bickerdyke (July 19, 1817 – November 8, 1901), also known as Mother Bickerdyke, was a hospital administrator for Union soldiers during the American Civil War.  She was born in Knox County, Ohio, to Hiram Ball and Annie Rodgers Ball. She later moved to Galesburg, Illinois.  After the outbreak of the Civil War, she […]

Mary Ann Cotton (1832 - 1873)

Mary Ann Robson was born on 31 October 1832 at Low Moorsley (now part of Houghton-le-Spring in the City of Sunderland) and baptised at St Mary’s, West Rainton on 11 November.  When Mary Ann was eight, her parents moved the family to the County Durham village of Murton, where she went to a new school […]

Mary Ann Jackson (1923 - 2003)

Mary Ann Jackson’s film career began under the shadow of her actor relatives, mother Charlotte Jackson (1891–1992) and older sister, “Peaches” Jackson (1913–2002). Peaches had a fairly prolific stint as a child actress, working with such stars as Rudolph Valentino and DW Griffith in full-length features. Jackson made her film debut in a 1925 Ruth Taylor […]

Mary Ann Mobley (1937 - 2014)

Mary Ann Mobley was born in 1937 in Brandon, Mississippi. After serving her reign as Miss America 1959, Mobley embarked on a career in both film and television. She signed a five-year contract with MGM. She made her first five television appearances on Burke’s Law from 1963-1965, and went on to make multiple appearances on […]

Mary Anna Morrison Jackson (2014 - 2014)

Mary Anna Morrison – popularly known by friends and family as “Anna” – was born at Cottage Home, the family plantation near Lincolnton, North Carolina. Her father, Robert Hall Morrison, was a Presbyterian preacher and the first president of Davidson College, and her mother, Mary Graham, was the niece of William Alexander Graham, a Senator […]

Mary Astor (1906 - 1987)

Mary Astor Actress. Born Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke, in Quincy, Illinois to a German immigrant father, Otto Ludwig Langhanke, and an American mother from Illinois, Helen Marie Vasconcellos, of Portuguese and Irish ancestry. Her parents were very ambitious for her, they began with placing Mary into various beauty contests. In one contest that came to the […]

Mary Beale (1633 - 1970)

Artist. Famed British portrait painter and is regarded as Britain’s first professional female artist. Born Mary Cradock in Suffolk, Mary Beale was one of the very few women artists working in England during the seventeenth century. Mary Beale’s mother died when she was young, her father, who knew the artist Robert Walker, introduced her to […]

Mary Bear (1910 - 1972)

Actress. Born Mary Baer in Los Angeles, California, she was regular performer in films of the 1940s to 1950s. Her credits included “The Lady In Ermine” (1948), “Johnny Allegro” (1949), “The Life of Riley” (1949), “Stella” (1950), “Mother Didn’t Tell Me” (1950), “Singing Guns” (1950) and I‘ll Cry Tomorrow” (1955). (bio by: John “J-Cat” Griffith)

Mary Beard (1876 - 1958)

Historian.  Family links:  Spouse:  Charles Beard (1874 – 1948)

Mary Benny (1905 - 1983)

Actress, Comedienne.  The real life wife of actor Jack Benny, she played the role of the long-suffering housewife who is given no money to run the household. Born Sadye Marks in Seattle, Washington, she first worked as a department store clerk, when she met Jack Benny, who was then a beginning radio star.  She married […]

Mary Bertrand (1881 - 1955)

Actress. Born Mary Bertrand Steenbergen in Illinois, she began her career in the early 1900s, performing at the Liberty Theatre New York and on Broadway. For feature films she appeared in “The Wife Takes A Flyer” (1942) and “Tahiti Honey” (1943). (bio by: John “J-Cat” Griffith)  Family links:  Parents:  Peter Steenbergen (1847 – 1922)  Elizabeth […]

Mary Beth Hughes (1919 - 1995)

Born Mary Elizabeth Hughes in Alton, Illinois, Hughes’ parents divorced in 1923. After the divorce, Hughes’s mother, Mary Frances Hughes (née Lucas), moved with her only child to Washington, D.C. As a child, Hughes began acting in stage productions. While acting in a school play in the early 1930s, her performance caught the attention of […]

Mary Blackford (1914 - 1937)

American stage and motion picture actress of the 1930s. She appeared in the 1934 romantic drama “Love Time.” Her promising career ended early after an auto accident in 1934 left her paralyzed from the neck down. (bio by: A.J. Marik)  Family links:  Parents:  Charles T Blackford (1866 – 1923)  Ethel L Blackford (1878 – 1963) […]

Mary Boland (1882 - 1965)

Born Marie Anne Boland in Girardville, Mary Boland was the daughter of repertory actor William Boland, and his wife Mary Cecilia Hatton. She had an older sister named Sara. The family later moved to Detroit. Mary Boland went to school in the classy Convent of the Sacred Heart in Detroit. By the age of fifteen she […]

Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut (1823 - 1886)

Diarist. Born Mary Boykin Miller at Pleasant Hill in Stateboro, South Carolina, the eldest child of Mary Boykin and Senator Stephen Decatur Miller. She was educated home before she was sent to Madame Talvande’s French School for Young Ladies, a boarding school in Charleston, at the age of about 13. She met James Chestnut, Jr. […]

Mary Brian (1906 - 2002)

She was born Louise Byrdie Dantzler in Corsicana, Texas, the daughter of Taurrence J. Dantzler (December 1869 – March 18, 1906) and Louise B. (August 12, 1876 – April 3, 1973). Her brother was Taurrence J. Dantzler, Jr. (August 9, 1903 – April 6, 1973). Her father died when she was one month old and the […]

Mary Brough (1863 - 1934)

Actress. She starred in British silent and early sound films. In 1881 she began her stage career at the Aldwych Theatre in London, appearing in such hit plays as “Thark” and “The Cuckoo in the Nest”. She was best-known for portraying menacing cockney women in British satires. Her screen credits include “Beauty and the Barge” […]

Mary Calkins (1863 - 1930)

Mary Calkins began her serious study of psychology under William James, shortly after his highly renowned textbook, The Principles of Psychology, was printed in 1890. Calkins highly regards one of her first experiences with James in her autobiography, claiming “what I gained from the written page, and even more from tete-a-tete discussion was, it seems […]

Mary Carew Armstrong (1913 - 2002)

Olympic Games Gold Medalist Athlete. Born Mary Louise Carew, she was a fifteen year old sprinter when she won the first of her four straight National Titles in the 40-yard dash in 1929. At the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California, Armstrong ran the first leg of the 400-meter relay race. As a member […]

Mary Carr (1874 - 1973)

Actress. Nicknamed “The Mother of the Movies”. Born Mary Kennevan in Germantown, Pennsylvania, she entered films in 1915 after two decades of experience in touring repertory companies. She went on to portray kindly, perennially suffering mothers in scores of silent tearjerkers, notably “Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch” (1919) and “Over the Hill to the […]

Mary Castle (1931 - 1998)

Castle was born as Mary Ann Noblett to Erby G. Noblett, Sr. and Myrtle A. Noblett (née Brown) in Pampa, Texas. Her mother was one-sixteenth Quapaw Indian. The Nobletts moved to Fort Worth, Texas, then Phillips, subsequently a ghost town in Hutchinson County, Texas, prior to relocating to Long Beach, California. At the age of […]

Mary Clare Absalom (1892 - 1970)

Mary Clare Absalom was born in 1892. She trained at a dramatic school and began her career on the London stage at the age of 18 in 1910. She appeared in the film The Black Spider in 1920, and thereafter divided her time between the stage and the cinema. In September 1936 she played the […]

Mary Cover Jones (1897 - 1987)

Mary Cover Jones was the middle child of three born to Carrie Louise Higson and Charles Blair Cover. She had a brother who was five years older than her, and a sister who was four years younger than her. Jones’ mother was a homemaker involved in several local community organizations while her father was a […]

Mary Coyle Chase (1906 - 1981)

Playwright, Journalist. She was a pioneering female newspaper reporter, starting with the Denver “Rocky Mountain News” from 1924 to 1931, and later working for United Press International news agency and the International News Service. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1945 for her play “Harvey”, a drama about inebriated drinker ‘Elwood P. Dowd’ and […]

Mary Curran (1906 - 1992)

Stage and silent screen actress.