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221 C H a P t e r t H i r t e e n When Acting Is Everything . . . sometimes, esPeCially after isabella died, it was as if mary Purposely arranged a grueling schedule to avoid being alone. Consider this eight-week period in a seemingly ordinary summer in 1971. On May 24, she began a four-day assignment on Here’s฀Lucy, taping “Lucy and Her All-Nun Band.” While taping, she signed a contract to perform the following week in an episode of The฀Jimmy฀Stewart฀Show, beginning June 2. That job behind her, she flew to Oregon to shoot scenes with Michael Douglas for Disney’s Napoleon฀and฀Samantha film. She returned to Los Angeles in late June in advance of her next job, which would begin July 19. But resting in the interim was not an option for Mary. Instead, she began organizing a bridal shower for Lucie Arnaz, which took place July 17. The following afternoon, Mary boarded a TWA flight to St. Louis, where she appeared on stage for a week in The฀Music฀Man with Peter Marshall. Singularly devoted to her craft, Mary was happiest when at work. When not working, she was consumed with lining up her next project. She did not take jobs for granted. Indeed, Mary’s professional drive is one of first things people mention when asked about her. “She was an actress from the bottom of her toes to the top of her head. She loved doing it, loved everything about being on the set. She especially took a kind of pride that I admire enormously in being incredibly professional in her behavior and in what she delivered in the performance,” says television director Joan Darling, whose credits include the iconic “Chuckles Bites the Dust” episode of the Mary฀Tyler฀Moore฀Show. After directing Mary in an episode of Doc, Darling hired Mary for the film Willa. “She was the absolute consummate professional in every possible way. She was an on-time, prepared, wonderful comedienne who always knew where the laugh was.” w H e n a C t i n g i s e v e r y t H i n g . . . 222 Mary found such joy in her work that, entering rehearsal rooms, she sometimes grandly—and playfully—proclaimed, “It’s Mary Wickes, grand old lady of stage, screen and shortwave radio!” As Joe Ross says, “She made up her mind, I am an actress and that was it, full-blast.” Tying her identity so closely to professional success produced some peculiar behavior. Mary’s pursuit of work was obsessive. She was represented by a succession of agents, but she hounded casting directors and producers herself, at every stage of her career reminding them of her accomplishments with a relentlessness that would embarrass other actresses of her stature. Also, professional slights took on greater significance than they might have for performers with more satisfying personal lives. Mary was quick to see a slight, even when none was there—and even quicker to go to the mat over it. And living for the theatre meant living with the theatre, so creating family-like relationships with colleagues became essential. This was not always easy for someone with Mary’s strong personality. When pursuing work, Mary wrote to every leading theatrical and film producer, director, and casting agent of the day, capitalizing any way she could on prior relationships. Her uncommonly aggressive pursuit was something she adopted at the very beginning of her career. For instance, while staying at the AWA Clubhouse in Manhattan in March 1935, her biggest role so far having been as understudy to Margaret Hamilton, she wrote theatrical producer Crosby Gaige for an interview. He didn’t bite, but a year later he did cast her in Larger฀than฀Life, a comedy about a domineering woman who pushes her timid son into marriage. Disappointing tryouts in Springfield, Massachusetts, kept the show from Broadway but paired Mary with Thelma Ritter for the first time. Mary and Ritter, the two premier comic character actresses of the twentieth century, would work together twice more, in a radio version of “Rip Van Winkle” in 1948 and an Alfred฀Hitchcock฀Presents television show in 1956. By 1949, since she had already turned in memorable performances for Moss Hart in three stage productions and one film, Mary should have felt no need to remind this leading playwright of her work. But she wrote even him whenever it appeared he...

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