Mary Boland

Mary Boland
in the trailer for The Women (1939)
Born	Marie Anne Boland January 28, 1880(1880-01-28) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Died	June 23, 1965 (aged 85) New York City, New York
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1907 — 1955

Mary Boland (January 28, 1880 – June 23, 1965) was an American stage and film actress.

Career

Born Marie Anne Boland in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she was the daughter of William Boland, an actor, and his wife Mary Cecilia Hatton. She had an older sister named Sara. Mary was performing on stage by the age of fifteen. She debuted on Broadway in 1907 in the play The Ranger with Dustin Farnum and had appeared in eleven Broadway productions, notably with John Drew, before making her silent film debut for Triangle Studios in 1915. After appearing in nine movies, she left filmmaking in 1920, devoting herself to the stage and appearing in a number of Broadway productions. Beautiful in her youth, and in her own way, the naturally blond Boland matured into a matronly type comedienne, not unlike Marie Dressler or Margaret Dumont, from which film audiences best remember her. She developed a witty speech with rapid style delivery which became popular in screwball film comedies of the 1930s.

Boland's greatest success on the stage in the 1920s was the comedy The Cradle Snatchers (1925-26) in which she, Edna May Oliver and Margaret Dale abandoned by their husbands, take on young lovers, her paramour being Humphrey Bogart in one of his first roles.

Mary Boland (c. 1915) during her tenure in silent films

After an eleven year absence, in 1931 she was lured back to Hollywood by Paramount Pictures, attracted by the fact that all films were then being made with sound and the film studios lucrative offerings to stage trained stars with voices. She achieved far greater film success with her second try, becoming one of the 1930s most popular character actresses, always playing major roles in her films and often starring, notably in a series of comedies opposite Charles Ruggles.

Boland appeared in numerous films, including Ruggles of Red Gap, The Big Broadcast of 1936, Danger - Love at Work, Nothing But Trouble, and Julia Misbehaves. She is likely best remembered for her portrayals of Countess DeLave in The Women (1939) and Mrs. Bennett in Pride and Prejudice (1940). Although she performed in both films and television productions, Boland also continued to work in live theatre, making her last Broadway appearance in 1954 at the age of seventy-four. That play, Lullaby, was not a success. Her last acting was done in the 1955 television adaptation of The Women recreating her film role.

Boland never married or had children. She died as the result of a heart attack and was interred in the Great Mausoleum, Sanctuary of Vespers in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. For her contribution to the motion picture industry, she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6150 Hollywood Boulevard.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mary Boland

• Mary Boland at the Internet Broadway Database
• Mary Boland at the Internet Movie Database
• Mary Boland at Allmovie
• Mary Boland at Findagrave.
• NYP Library collection of Mary Boland photographs.
• Mary in the 1920s
• Mary in mid 1920s
• Mary in the 1920s