Mary Stuart (actress)
Encyclopedia
Mary Stuart was an American
actress and singer/songwriter
.
She was born as Mary Stuart Houchins in Miami, Florida
and grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma
, where she graduated from Tulsa Central High School
and attended the University of Tulsa
before embarking on her professional career. Her middle name and eventual stage name was her mother's maiden name.
(in The Girl from Jones Beach), Errol Flynn
(in Adventures of Don Juan
), Clark Gable
(in The Hucksters
), Esther Williams
(in This Time for Keeps
) and Henry Fonda
and Lucille Ball
(in The Big Street).
offered her a role in a new undertaking that would become known as the soap opera
, or daytime serial. Their first project, The First Hundred Years
, was short lived. It had been canceled after just one year on the air. The executives at CBS
were wary of launching a second show, but they saw a future in soaps in the person of Mary Stuart after her screen test. It was then that they commissioned a second series. Stuart was cast as a midwestern housewife called Joanne Gardner
. The new serial was called Search for Tomorrow
and it turned out to be very successful. Stuart would become synonymous with her character.
Search for Tomorrow ran for thirty-five years until 1986 when it was finally canceled. During that time she was widowed three times and went through many trials and tribulations. She was the only soap star to receive a primetime Emmy nomination for performance in a series. (Shirley Booth
won the award.) Also during her stint as Joanne, she and co-star Larry Haines were given special Emmy recognition for their work. After executive producer Paul Rauch offered her the role of Judge Webber on ABC's One Life to Live, Stuart settled into a retirement, having worked nearly 40 years without breaks. She wrote a short story that was published in a magazine, which was eventually made into a CBS movie of the week.
In 1996, she came out of retirement and accepted the role of Meta Bauer on Guiding Light
, a part which had been played earlier by actress Ellen Demming
. Stuart would play the role until her death. Coincidentally, Demming and Stuart both died in 2002, within weeks of each other.
on an album in 1956 and with Michel Legrand
in 1973. She also played guitar
and she penned and sang songs on Search for Tomorrow. The character was an amateur singer/songwriter, and she would use her energies, happy or sad, to sing a song to convey what she was feeling, usually while she was alone.
Stuart would also sing and play guitar on Christmas episodes, including, but not limited to, one notable Christmas in which Stuart sang "Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella
" with actresses Ann Williams and Melissa Murphy, who played her sister and daughter at that time.
Stuart performed at her first public concert on January 8, 1974, at Catawba College
in Salisbury, North Carolina
. Stuart allegedly picked future soap actor Scott Holmes
, who attended Catawba at the time, to be one of her impromptu backup singers.
Her husband left New York to run an arm of Time/Life Broadcasting in Washington, D.C.
While Jeffrey Krolik kept his birthname, Cynthia Krolik insisted on changing her name to Cynthia Stuart. Cynthia graduated from the North Carolina School of the Arts
and eventually became a journalist, writing for the Detroit Free Press
, before following in her mother's footsteps as an actress.
Jeffrey Krolik graduated from Dartmouth College
, which was his father's alma mater, before moving to San Francisco; he became a regional sales director for HBO and was later appointed the general manager for Fox Sports Net Bay Area
. Jeffrey Krolik and Cynthia Stuart were both married in the Presbyterian Church, in which their mother raised them.
Mary Stuart remained single for two decades after her divorce before marrying Wolfgang Neumann in 1986; they remained married until Stuart's death in 2002.
, it was revealed that Mary Stuart was also suffering from gastric cancer and bone cancer. She had previously undergone an endoscopy
and an operation to remove a tumor in her stomach in 1999. Stuart had battled breast cancer
earlier in her life. She died the same month as actress Ellen Demming
, who had played Meta for many years.
An apron Stuart wore while playing Jo on Search for Tomorrow
currently hangs in the National Museum of American History
at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
actress and singer/songwriter
Songwriter
A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...
.
She was born as Mary Stuart Houchins in Miami, Florida
Miami, Florida
Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...
and grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Tulsa is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 46th-largest city in the United States. With a population of 391,906 as of the 2010 census, it is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with 937,478 residents in the MSA and 988,454 in the CSA. Tulsa's...
, where she graduated from Tulsa Central High School
Central High School (Tulsa, Oklahoma)
Central High School is the oldest high school in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was founded in 1906 as Tulsa High School, and located in downtown Tulsa until 1976. The school now has a campus in northwest Tulsa. Tulsa Central is part of the Tulsa Public Schools, Oklahoma's largest school district, and is a...
and attended the University of Tulsa
University of Tulsa
The University of Tulsa is a private university awarding bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. It is currently ranked 75th among doctoral degree granting universities in the nation by US News and World Report and is listed as one of the "Best 366 Colleges" by...
before embarking on her professional career. Her middle name and eventual stage name was her mother's maiden name.
Film
After appearing in various bit parts in several movies throughout the 1940s, Warner Brothers offered her a three-year contract in 1948. She appeared with such stars as Ronald ReaganRonald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
(in The Girl from Jones Beach), Errol Flynn
Errol Flynn
Errol Leslie Flynn was an Australian-born actor. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles in Hollywood films, being a legend and his flamboyant lifestyle.-Early life:...
(in Adventures of Don Juan
Adventures of Don Juan
Adventures of Don Juan, known in the United Kingdom as The New Adventures of Don Juan, is a 1948 adventure Technicolor romance film made by Warner Bros...
), Clark Gable
Clark Gable
William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh...
(in The Hucksters
The Hucksters
The Hucksters is a 1947 MGM film directed by Jack Conway and starring Clark Gable that marked the debut of Deborah Kerr in an American film. It also featured Sydney Greenstreet, Adolphe Menjou, Keenan Wynn, Edward Arnold and Ava Gardner...
), Esther Williams
Esther Williams
Esther Jane Williams is a retired American competitive swimmer and MGM movie star.Williams set multiple national and regional swimming records in her late teens as part of the Los Angeles Athletic Club swim team...
(in This Time for Keeps
This Time for Keeps
This Time for Keeps is an American romantic musical film released in 1947 and produced by MGM. It is about a soldier, returning home from war who does not wish to work for his father's opera company or to continue his relationship with his pre-war lover. It stars Esther Williams, Jimmy Durante,...
) and Henry Fonda
Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
and Lucille Ball
Lucille Ball
Lucille Désirée Ball was an American comedian, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy...
(in The Big Street).
Television
After her contract was terminated, CBSCBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
offered her a role in a new undertaking that would become known as the soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
, or daytime serial. Their first project, The First Hundred Years
The First Hundred Years
The First Hundred Years is the first ongoing TV soap opera in the United States that began as a daytime serial, airing on CBS from December 4, 1950 until June 27, 1952...
, was short lived. It had been canceled after just one year on the air. The executives at CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
were wary of launching a second show, but they saw a future in soaps in the person of Mary Stuart after her screen test. It was then that they commissioned a second series. Stuart was cast as a midwestern housewife called Joanne Gardner
Joanne Gardner
Joanne Gardner was the main character on the long-running soap opera Search for Tomorrow. For 35 years, the role was played by actress Mary Stuart...
. The new serial was called Search for Tomorrow
Search for Tomorrow
Search for Tomorrow is an American soap opera which premiered on September 3, 1951 on CBS. The show was moved from CBS to NBC on March 29, 1982. It continued on NBC until the final episode aired on December 26, 1986, a run of thirty-five years. At the time of its final broadcast it was the...
and it turned out to be very successful. Stuart would become synonymous with her character.
Search for Tomorrow ran for thirty-five years until 1986 when it was finally canceled. During that time she was widowed three times and went through many trials and tribulations. She was the only soap star to receive a primetime Emmy nomination for performance in a series. (Shirley Booth
Shirley Booth
Shirley Booth was an American actress.Primarily a theatre actress, Booth's Broadway career began in 1925. Her most significant success was as Lola Delaney, in the drama Come Back, Little Sheba, for which she received a Tony Award in 1950...
won the award.) Also during her stint as Joanne, she and co-star Larry Haines were given special Emmy recognition for their work. After executive producer Paul Rauch offered her the role of Judge Webber on ABC's One Life to Live, Stuart settled into a retirement, having worked nearly 40 years without breaks. She wrote a short story that was published in a magazine, which was eventually made into a CBS movie of the week.
In 1996, she came out of retirement and accepted the role of Meta Bauer on Guiding Light
Guiding Light
Guiding Light is an American daytime television drama that is credited by the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest running drama in television and radio history, running from 1937 until 2009...
, a part which had been played earlier by actress Ellen Demming
Ellen Demming
Ellen Demming was an American actress, best known for her role as Meta Bauer on the soap opera The Guiding Light, which she played from 1953 to 1974....
. Stuart would play the role until her death. Coincidentally, Demming and Stuart both died in 2002, within weeks of each other.
Music
A capable vocalist, Stuart collaborated with Percy FaithPercy Faith
Percy Faith was a Canadian-born American bandleader, orchestrator, composer and conductor, known for his lush arrangements of pop and Christmas standards. He is often credited with creating the "easy listening" or "mood music" format which became staples of American popular music in the 1950s and...
on an album in 1956 and with Michel Legrand
Michel Legrand
Michel Jean Legrand is a French musical composer, arranger, conductor, and pianist...
in 1973. She also played guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
and she penned and sang songs on Search for Tomorrow. The character was an amateur singer/songwriter, and she would use her energies, happy or sad, to sing a song to convey what she was feeling, usually while she was alone.
Stuart would also sing and play guitar on Christmas episodes, including, but not limited to, one notable Christmas in which Stuart sang "Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella
Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella
"Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabelle" is a Christmas carol which originated from the Provence region of France in the 16th century. The song is usually notated in 3/8 time....
" with actresses Ann Williams and Melissa Murphy, who played her sister and daughter at that time.
Stuart performed at her first public concert on January 8, 1974, at Catawba College
Catawba College
Catawba College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in Salisbury, North Carolina, USA. Founded in 1851 by the North Carolina Classis of the Reformed Church in Newton, the college adopted its name from its county of origin, Catawba County, before moving to its current home of Salisbury...
in Salisbury, North Carolina
Salisbury, North Carolina
Salisbury is a city in Rowan County in North Carolina, a state of the United States of America. The population was 33,663 in the 2010 Census . It is the county seat of Rowan County...
. Stuart allegedly picked future soap actor Scott Holmes
Scott Holmes
Scott Holmes is an actor, best known for the role of District Attorney Tom Hughes in the CBS soap opera As the World Turns, a role he played from 1987 through ATWT's 2010 cancellation...
, who attended Catawba at the time, to be one of her impromptu backup singers.
Private life
Stuart married the CEO of Time/Life, Richard Krolik in August 1951, and gave birth to daughter Cynthia in 1955 and son Jeffrey in 1956. She and Krolik were divorced in 1966 and she later alleged in her book, Both of Me, that Krolik was a frequently verbally abusive husband. She recounted that she had secretly been writing a children's book and when she told Krolik, he threw the manuscript across the room, yelling, "How do you expect to write a book if you've never read one?" The incident discouraged Stuart and she never sought out a publisher. After her divorce, Stuart cut her hair, which had grown to waist-length. Her character on Search for Tomorrow was known for her bun hairdo and the more modern hairstyle necessitated a major change in the storyline.Her husband left New York to run an arm of Time/Life Broadcasting in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
While Jeffrey Krolik kept his birthname, Cynthia Krolik insisted on changing her name to Cynthia Stuart. Cynthia graduated from the North Carolina School of the Arts
North Carolina School of the Arts
The University of North Carolina School of the Arts , formerly the North Carolina School of the Arts, is a public coeducational arts conservatory in Winston-Salem, North Carolina that grants high school, undergraduate and graduate degrees. It is one of the seventeen constituent campuses of the...
and eventually became a journalist, writing for the Detroit Free Press
Detroit Free Press
The Detroit Free Press is the largest daily newspaper in Detroit, Michigan, USA. The Sunday edition is entitled the Sunday Free Press. It is sometimes informally referred to as the "Freep"...
, before following in her mother's footsteps as an actress.
Jeffrey Krolik graduated from Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
, which was his father's alma mater, before moving to San Francisco; he became a regional sales director for HBO and was later appointed the general manager for Fox Sports Net Bay Area
Fox Sports Net
The Fox Sports Regional Networks, or simply Fox Sports Net , are a collection of cable TV regional sports networks in the United States owned and operated by News Corporation.- Beginnings :...
. Jeffrey Krolik and Cynthia Stuart were both married in the Presbyterian Church, in which their mother raised them.
Mary Stuart remained single for two decades after her divorce before marrying Wolfgang Neumann in 1986; they remained married until Stuart's death in 2002.
Death
When she died in 2002 of a strokeStroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
, it was revealed that Mary Stuart was also suffering from gastric cancer and bone cancer. She had previously undergone an endoscopy
Endoscopy
Endoscopy means looking inside and typically refers to looking inside the body for medical reasons using an endoscope , an instrument used to examine the interior of a hollow organ or cavity of the body. Unlike most other medical imaging devices, endoscopes are inserted directly into the organ...
and an operation to remove a tumor in her stomach in 1999. Stuart had battled breast cancer
Breast cancer
Breast cancer is cancer originating from breast tissue, most commonly from the inner lining of milk ducts or the lobules that supply the ducts with milk. Cancers originating from ducts are known as ductal carcinomas; those originating from lobules are known as lobular carcinomas...
earlier in her life. She died the same month as actress Ellen Demming
Ellen Demming
Ellen Demming was an American actress, best known for her role as Meta Bauer on the soap opera The Guiding Light, which she played from 1953 to 1974....
, who had played Meta for many years.
An apron Stuart wore while playing Jo on Search for Tomorrow
Search for Tomorrow
Search for Tomorrow is an American soap opera which premiered on September 3, 1951 on CBS. The show was moved from CBS to NBC on March 29, 1982. It continued on NBC until the final episode aired on December 26, 1986, a run of thirty-five years. At the time of its final broadcast it was the...
currently hangs in the National Museum of American History
National Museum of American History
The National Museum of American History: Kenneth E. Behring Center collects, preserves and displays the heritage of the United States in the areas of social, political, cultural, scientific and military history. Among the items on display are the original Star-Spangled Banner and Archie Bunker's...
at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.
Writings
- All My Afternoons; Annie Gilbert, pub. 1978. p. 52