Jan

The long career of character actress Mary Boland

Happy Birthday to stage star and character actress, Mary Boland, born on this date (January 28) in 1880.

Mary Boland is shown above on a page from the November 1906 issue of the photographic magazine The Burr McIntosh Monthly. The timing of this image is of special interest because it was published just before Boland came to Broadway in September 1907 to play in The Ranger with Dustin Farnum.

Following is the original text from the November 1906 Burr McIntosh Monthly:

MISS MARY BOLAND, although little known to New York theatergoers, enjoys an enviable artistic position on the Pacific Coast where she has appeared at the head of important stock companies in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Portland. In the Spring of 1905 she was a member of Miss Virginia Harned’s company, playing one of the principle roles in “The Lady Shore,” when that play failed in New York. Following that engagement she joined Robert Edeson’s company, and is still playing in that young actor’s successful starring vehicle of the past three years, the Indian play, “Strongheart.”

She appeared in a brief run of movies made on both coasts between 1915-1920, but did not return to film until signing a contract with Paramount in 1931. She would continue to appear on stage from time to time through 1954, but she was a film fixture through about 1940, appearing more sporadically after that time including in 1948’s Julia Misbehaves.

Mary Boland made some television appearances through the mid-1950’s, her last being a reprisal of her role of the Countess DeLave from the 1939 film classic The Women on the Producers’ Showcase’s star-studded adaptation. Boland was the only one of the original cast members to play the same part in the 1955 TV version, though Paulette Goddard was also on hand, but as Sylvia Fowler, originally played by Rosalind Russell.

Mary Boland is probably best known today for her appearances with Charlie Ruggles—they were cast together in 14 films throughout the 1930’s including the classic Ruggles of Red Gap (1935).

Other titles of interest featuring Mary Boland which can be easily seen today include Cecil B. DeMille’s jungle picture Four Frightened People (1934) and the classic literary adaptation Pride and Prejudice (1940) where she’s matriarch of the Bennet clan.

Mary Boland died in New York, June 23, 1965.

Mary Boland on the IMDb

Check for availability: Mary Boland in my eBay Store