Mary Welch (1922 – May 31, 1958) was an American stage actress on Broadway.

Biography and career

Welch was born in

Charleston, South Carolina Charleston is the largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina, the county seat of Charleston County, and the principal city in the Charleston–North Charleston metropolitan area. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint o ...

, in 1922, later growing up in

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

. She attended

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

, where she won awards as a drama student. At UCLA, she earned degrees in English literature and drama. Welch later moved to New York in 1944, where she starred in her first Broadway play as Jo in an adaptation of ''

Little Women ''Little Women'' is a coming-of-age novel written by American novelist Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888). Alcott wrote the book, originally published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869, at the request of her publisher. The story follows the lives ...

''. In 1947, she was a part of the

Theatre Guild The Theatre Guild is a theatrical society founded in New York City in 1918 by Lawrence Langner, Philip Moeller, Helen Westley and Theresa Helburn. Langner's wife, Armina Marshall, then served as a co-director. It evolved out of the work of the W ...

's play ''

A Moon for the Misbegotten ''A Moon for the Misbegotten'' is a play in four acts by Eugene O'Neill. The play is a sequel to O'Neill's '' Long Day's Journey into Night'', with the Jim Tyrone character as an older version of Jamie Tyrone. He began drafting the play late in 1 ...

''. She starred in the first production of ''

A Streetcar Named Desire ''A Streetcar Named Desire'' is a play written by Tennessee Williams and first performed on Broadway on December 3, 1947. The play dramatizes the experiences of Blanche DuBois, a former Southern belle who, after encountering a series of person ...

'' in 1947, replacing

Kim Hunter Kim Hunter (born Janet Cole; November 11, 1922 – September 11, 2002) was an American theatre, film, and television actress. She achieved prominence for portraying Stella Kowalski in the original production of Tennessee Williams' ''A Streetcar N ...

. Welch later starred in ''The Solid Gold Cadillac'' (1953) and then was a part of ''

Sunrise at Campobello ''Sunrise at Campobello'' is a 1960 Warner Bros. biographical film telling the story of the struggles of future President of the United States Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his family when Roosevelt was stricken with paralysis at the age of 39 i ...

'' (1957) at the time of her death. Her other roles include the plays ''The Joyous Season'', ''Joy to the World'', and ''Dream Girl''. A clause in Welch's contract, from playwright

Eugene O'Neill Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism, earlier ...

, for ''A Moon for the Misbegotten'' stated that she had to gain at least to reach for the role. O'Neill also originally stated that she looked too normal for the role. Welch appeared in a few episodes of TV dramas in the 1950s, and in one notable movie role. In ''Park Row'' (1952), written and directed by

Samuel Fuller Samuel Michael Fuller (August 12, 1912 – October 30, 1997) was an American film director, screenwriter, novelist, journalist, and World War II veteran known for directing low-budget B movie, genre movies with controversial themes, often ...

, Welch plays the tough newspaper publisher who is the main character's rival... and then romantic interest. In his autobiography, Fuller said of Mary Welch, "She was a beautiful, self-possessed woman with an inner strength that shone through her personality."

Personal life and death

Mary Welch was married to the actor David White. Welch died on May 31, 1958, at Mount Sinai Hospital from an

internal hemorrhage Internal bleeding (also called internal hemorrhage) is a loss of blood from a blood vessel that collects inside the body. Internal bleeding is usually not visible from the outside. It is a serious medical emergency but the extent of severity depen ...

that started while she was pregnant with her second child. She was a patient at the hospital for several weeks. At the time of her death, she was performing in the production ''Sunrise at Campobello''. Regarding Welch's earlier weight gain for ''

'',

Harold Clurman Harold Edgar Clurman (September 18, 1901 – September 9, 1980) was an American theatre director and drama critic. In 2003, he was named one of the most influential figures in U.S. theater by PBS.

of ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...

'' wrote, "This stupid and horrible clause may very well have led to the actress's death shortly after the play's production". In 2005, journalist Laura Shea wrote in ''The Eugene O'Neill Review'', "While a significant, if temporary, weight gain is not beneficial to one's health, it is unlikely that this played a role in her untimely death over ten years after ''A Moon for the Misbegotten''. After her death, her husband raised their only child, Jonathan, who died on December 21, 1988, at the age of 33, in the bombing of

Pan Am Flight 103 Pan Am Flight 103 was a regularly scheduled Pan Am transatlantic flight from Frankfurt to Detroit via a stopover in London and another in New York City. The transatlantic leg of the route was operated by ''Clipper Maid of the Seas'', a Boeing ...

over

Lockerbie, Scotland Lockerbie (, gd, Locarbaidh) is a small town in Dumfries and Galloway, south-western Scotland. It is about from Glasgow, and from the border with England. The 2001 Census recorded its population as 4,009. The town came to international atte ...

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Welch, Mary 1922 births 1958 deaths People from Halifax County, North Carolina Actresses from North Carolina 20th-century American actresses American stage actresses Deaths in childbirth University of California, Los Angeles alumni