Mary Nash

Biography

Mary Nash’s name first flickered onto marquees in 1904 as a nimble dancer, but it was 1905 that stamped her footprint in New York when she stepped onstage beside Ethel Barrymore for the off-Broadway bow of Alice-Sit-by-the-Fire. She stayed in Barrymore’s orbit for Captain Jinks and The Silver Box, then tackled Shaw’s razor-sharp wit in 1915’s Major Barbara at the Playhouse Theatre. Between 1921 and 1922 she swapped barbs and pratfalls in the breezy comedy Captain Applejack, only to pivot a decade later to the aching dignity of Cassie in Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1933). By the time Hollywood called in 1934, Nash had already logged thousands of live-performance miles; the camera merely introduced her to a wider congregation. She chilled hearts as Shirley Temple’s icy adversary in both Heidi (1937) and The Little Princess (1939), then slipped into satin and pearls as Katharine Hepburn’s impeccably correct mother in The Philadelphia Story (1940). Sandwiched between came her shrewd, scene-stealing Emma Louise in Come and Get It (1936) and the doomed, jewel-bedecked queen of the eye-popping Technicolor fantasy Cobra Woman (1944). Off-screen, her leading man—briefly—was fellow actor José Ruben (1888–1969).