Marguerite "Maggie" McNamara (June 18, 1928 – February 18, 1978) was an American stage, film, and television actress.

Early life

Born in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, McNamara was one of four children born to Irish American

Irish American

Irish Americans are citizens of the United States who can trace their ancestry to Ireland. A total of 36,278,332 Americans—estimated at 11.9% of the total population—reported Irish ancestry in the 2008 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau...

 parents. Her mother was born in England to Irish parents. She attended Textile High School

Bayard Rustin High School for the Humanities

The Bayard Rustin Educational Complex at 351 West 18th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, is a "vertical campus" of the New York City Department of Education which contains a number of small public schools, most of them high schools...

 in New York and worked as a teen model

Model (person)

A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....

 while studying drama and dance. McNamara became one of the most successful models of John Robert Powers

John Robert Powers

John Robert Powers was an American actor and founder of a prominent New York City modeling agency.In 1923, John Robert Powers founded a modeling agency. The John Robert Powers Agency represented many models who went on to success in the Hollywood film industry, and even Betty Bloomer who became...

' modeling agency, and she commented on her modeling days:

"I was terrible shy and I used to work on myself to keep from showing it. When I was facing a camera I pretended that neither it nor the photographer were there. I played a game with myself according to the clothes I was wearing. [..] You have to feel right in what you are wearing, to have it look right. Just as each period has its own fashion, each person has his own style. When you find it I think you should stay with it. When I was modeling I had to dress exactly as Vogue wanted the picture to be. But any good quality becomes something else when it is overdone and I feel that this applies to being too clothes conscious. I don't care what the fashion dictator says. I will not follow if it's not right for me. But your over-all impression consists of more than clothes. Your grooming, posture, the sound of your voice and your perfume play a part in the total picture you create."

Career

In 1951, she began her acting career when she took over Barbara Bel Geddes

Barbara Bel Geddes

Barbara Bel Geddes was an American actress, artist and children's author. She is best known for her role in the television drama series Dallas as matriarch Eleanor "Miss Ellie" Ewing. Bel Geddes also starred in the original Broadway production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in the role of Maggie...

' role as Patty O'Neill in the stage production of The Moon Is Blue. Later that year, she made her Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 debut in The King of Friday's Men.

In 1953, she went to Hollywood

Hollywood, Los Angeles, California

Hollywood is a famous district in Los Angeles, California, United States situated west-northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word Hollywood is often used as a metonym of American cinema...

 to reprise her role in Otto Preminger

Otto Preminger

Otto Ludwig Preminger was an Austro–Hungarian-American theatre and film director.After moving from the theatre to Hollywood, he directed over 35 feature films in a five-decade career. He rose to prominence for stylish film noir mysteries such as Laura and Fallen Angel...

's film version of The Moon Is Blue

The Moon Is Blue

The Moon Is Blue is a 1953 American comedy film produced and directed by Otto Preminger. The screenplay by F. Hugh Herbert, based on his 1951 play of the same title, focuses on a young woman who meets an architect on the observation deck of the Empire State Building and quickly turns his life...

. Her performance earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress

Academy Award for Best Actress

Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...

 and a BAFTA

British Academy of Film and Television Arts

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.-Introduction:...

 nomination for Most Promising Newcomer to Film. McNamara's second film role was in Three Coins in the Fountain

Three Coins in the Fountain (1954 film)

Three Coins in the Fountain is the 1954 film that introduced the song of the same name, which became an enduring standard. It tells the story of three American girls looking for romance in Rome while employed at the American Embassy...

(1954). Although her career started off well, she made only two more films after Three Coins. In the early 1960s, she appeared in several television shows including an episode of The Twilight Zone

The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)

The Twilight Zone is an American anthology television series created by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from 1959 to 1964. The series consisted of unrelated episodes depicting paranormal, futuristic, dystopian, or simply disturbing events; each show typically featured a surprising...

entitled "Ring-a-Ding Girl." McNamara's last onscreen role was in a 1964 episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour

Alfred Hitchcock Presents

Alfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. The series featured dramas, thrillers, and mysteries. By the premiere of the show on October 2, 1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades...

entitled "The Body in the Barn."

Personal life and death

McNamara was married to actor/director David Swift. The marriage ended in divorce and McNamara never remarried. After her last onscreen role in 1964, McNamara fell out of public view and spent her later years working as a typist in New York City. In February 1978, she was found dead after a deliberate overdose of sleeping pills. According to police reports, she had a history of mental illness and left a suicide note.

Maggie McNamara is interred in Saint Charles Cemetery

Saint Charles Cemetery, Farmingdale

Saint Charles Cemetery located at 2015 Wellwood Ave Farmingdale, New York 11735 is aRoman Catholic cemetery managed by the Diocese of Brooklyn. It is more formally known as St. Charles/Resurrection Cemeteries.Among those interred here are:...

 in Farmingdale

Farmingdale, New York

The Village of Farmingdale is an incorporated village on Long Island within the Town of Oyster Bay in Nassau County, New York in the United States...

, Long Island

Long Island

Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...

, New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1953	The Moon Is Blue The Moon Is Blue The Moon Is Blue is a 1953 American comedy film produced and directed by Otto Preminger. The screenplay by F. Hugh Herbert, based on his 1951 play of the same title, focuses on a young woman who meets an architect on the observation deck of the Empire State Building and quickly turns his life...	Patty O'Neill	Nominated: Best Actress in a Leading Role Academy Award for Best Actress Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry... Nominated: Most Promising Newcomer to Film BAFTA Award British Academy of Film and Television Arts The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.-Introduction:...
1953	Die Jungfrau auf dem Dach	Tourist	Uncredited Alternative title: The Girl on the Roof
1954	Three Coins in the Fountain Three Coins in the Fountain (1954 film) Three Coins in the Fountain is the 1954 film that introduced the song of the same name, which became an enduring standard. It tells the story of three American girls looking for romance in Rome while employed at the American Embassy...	Maria Williams
1955	Prince of Players Prince of Players Prince of Players is a 1955 20th Century Fox biographical film about the 19th century American actor Edwin Booth. The film was directed and produced by Philip Dunne from a screenplay by Moss Hart, based on the book by Eleanor Ruggles. The music score was by Bernard Herrmann and the cinematography...	Mary Devlin Booth
1963	The Cardinal The Cardinal The Cardinal is a 1963 film which was produced independently and directed by Otto Preminger, and distributed by Columbia Pictures. The screenplay was written by Robert Dozier, based on the novel by Henry Morton Robinson....	Florrie Fermoyle
1963	Ben Casey Ben Casey Ben Casey is an American medical drama series which ran on ABC from 1961 to 1966. The show was known for its opening titles, which consisted of a hand drawing the symbols "♂, ♀, *, †, ∞" on a chalkboard, as cast member Sam Jaffe intoned, "Man, woman, birth, death, infinity." Neurosurgeon Joseph...	Dede Blake	Episode: "The Last Splintered Spoke of the Old Burlesque Wheel"
1963	The Twilight Zone The Twilight Zone The Twilight Zone is an American television anthology series created by Rod Serling. Each episode is a mixture of self-contained drama, psychological thriller, fantasy, science fiction, suspense, or horror, often concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist...	Barbara "Bunny" Blake	Episode: "Ring-a-Ding Girl"
1964	The Great Adventure The Great Adventure (TV series) The Great Adventure is a historical anthology series that appeared on CBS for the 1963-1964 television season. The series, hosted each week by Van Heflin, and featuring theme music by Richard Rodgers, presented each week a one-hour dramatization of the lives of famous Americans and important...	Laura Drake	Episode: "The Colonel from Connecticut"
1964	The Greatest Show on Earth The Greatest Show on Earth (TV series) The Greatest Show on Earth is an American drama series starring Jack Palance about the American circus, which aired on ABC from September 17, 1963, to April 28, 1964...	Moira O'Kelley	Episode: "Clancy"
1964	The Alfred Hitchcock Hour Alfred Hitchcock Presents Alfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. The series featured dramas, thrillers, and mysteries. By the premiere of the show on October 2, 1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades...	Camilla	Episode: "Body in the Barn"

External links