Mary Gleason(1921-1998)

Mary Ellen Gleason was 19 years old when she got her first modeling job in her hometown of Roberts, Illinois wearing bridesmaids outfits. It was during the war that she entertained troops overseas, returning to New York where she got hired as a mannequin at Bonwit Teller modeling luxurious gowns for multimillionaires and acted as a spokesmodel with Standard Oil Co. -she was crowned Miss Standard Oil- and Dixon Appliances. She married a musician named Frank Langone on August 4, 1945, and the couple had a daughter named Donna who'd later achieve success doing stunts in The Lost Boys (1987) and The Wild Pair (1987). Her daughter, who uses the name Madonna Joy, remembered her parents' marriage as being solid until Mary wanted to "settle down and be a wife and mother" which Frank wasn't ready to do. This led to their eventual divorce with Mary marrying an architect named Joseph Gregoire.

The lovely starlet was chosen by Samuel Goldwyn at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to be one of his 'Goldwyn Girls' alongside Diana Mumby, Karen X. Gaylord, Martha Montgomery, Mary Brewer, and Irene Vernon. They appeared in various movies together including The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) with Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo. Mary would continue her success as a solo act in Frenchie (1950) gambling at a casino with Joel McCrea, The French Line (1954) watching Gilbert Roland sing 'With a Kiss', and Son of Sinbad (1955) firing arrows alongside Dale Robertson. The latter two movies she was cast in by Howard Hughes, whom she met at the Hollywood Canteen -a popular nightclub- years prior.

I find Mary Gleason's career impressive because she kept doing movies into her 40s, competing with women a lot younger than her. One of her colleagues, the aforementioned Martha Montgomery, left the industry in 1947 after marrying composer Alfred Newman. Mary Gleason would continue to appear on Dr. Kildare, The Andy Griffith Show, and Columbo and even lived in a nearby apartment building that she managed so she could be close to the studios. One of her more interesting gigs was on The Lucy Show as a stand-in for Lucille Ball. I say that it's interesting because a decade prior she said during an interview with columnist James Bacon that her ambition was "to be another Lucille Ball." She got her wish apparently.

The last several years of Mary's life were spent on cruises -she loved cruises immensely- and helping her daughter -and later granddaughter Jennifer Elizabeth- with their own acting careers. Jennifer has appeared in movies like Isle of the Dead (2016) and An Unkept Secret (2024) and continues to pound the pavement. I asked Madonna Joy why her mother didn't achieve greater success in the movies, and she told me that her mother didn't have the desire to pursue it, saying that "I don't remember my mother ever mentioning an audition that she wanted or a film that she tried to get cast in. There weren't any scripts around the house giving me the impression that she had such ambition." Mary Ellen Gleason died after she and her husband were headed home when a truck sideswiped the unsuspecting couple.