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Reta Shaw

 
Actor: Reta Shaw
Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Actors
  • Born: Sep 13, 1912 in South Paris, Maine
  • Died: Jan 08, 1982 in Encino, California
  • Occupation: Actor
  • Active: '50s-'60s
  • Major Genres: Comedy, Drama
  • Career Highlights: The Pajama Game, The Lucy Show: Lucy Goes to a Hollywood Premiere, The Lucy Show: My Fair Lucy
  • First Major Screen Credit: The Pajama Game (1957)

Biography

Formidable American character actress Reta Shaw was the daughter of a New England orchestra leader. Educated in virtually all forms of the arts except acting, Shaw took a series of musical and "civilian" jobs before appearing in her first play, the 1946 dud It Takes Two. She went on to character roles in such major Broadway musicals as Annie Get Your Gun and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Shaw was one of the few members of the original Broadway cast of Picnic to be invited to appear in the 1956 film version. The hefty Ms. Shaw was subsequently shown to good advantage as a pajama factory employee in the 1957 film musical The Pajama Game (again repeating her stage role), and in dozens of smaller but still showy roles, such as Mrs. Brill the maid in 1964's Mary Poppins. From 1968 through 1970, Reta Shaw was seen on a weekly basis as housekeeper Martha Grant on the TV sitcom version of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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Reta Shaw

Reta Shaw (right)
with Hermione Baddeley in Mary Poppins
Born Reta Shaw
September 13, 1912(1912-09-13)
South Paris, Maine
Died January 8, 1982 (aged 69)
Encino, California

Reta Shaw (September 13, 1912—January 8 1982) was a familiar American character actress best remembered as the housekeeper on TV's The Ghost & Mrs. Muir.

She was a supporting actress in many films and television programs, including the cook in Mary Poppins and the cook in Disney's Pollyanna.

At forty-six, she appeared in the first season (1958-1959) of CBS's The Ann Sothern Show in the role of Flora Macauley, the overbearing wife of the gentlemanly hotel owner Jason Macauley, played by Ernest Truex.

In the 1960-1961 television season, she played the housekeeper, Thelma, to Tab Hunter's character Paul Morgan, a young cartoonist, in NBC's The Tab Hunter Show. Shaw again played a housekeeper in the 1961-1962 CBS series Ichabod and Me, starring Robert Sterling and George Chandler, as active and retired newspapermen in a small New England town.

In 1962, Shaw appeared in the NBC Western series The Outlaws with Barton MacLane. Thereafter, she guest starred in the CBS anthology series, The Lloyd Bridges Show.

Shaw's character of Bertha/Hagatha, a matronly witch, was a recurring role on TV's Bewitched. She also appeared as Miss Gormley in an episode of NBC's The Brian Keith Show.

She also played escaped convict Big Maud Tyler in an episode of The Andy Griffith Show called Convicts at Large. She appeared again in season 4 as Eleanora Poultice, the educated voice teacher of the legendary Barney Fife.

Shaw died at the age of sixty-nine of emphysema in Encino, California. Her cremated remains are interred in a niche in the Columbarium of Remembrance at Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery.

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