1884-1976
Stage and screen actress Mary Nash, born Mary Honora Ryan, was born on this day in Tory, New York (part of that state's "capital region"). Primarily a stage actress (she was famously on the New York stage with Ethel Barrymore--with whom she shares a birthday--in 1905), most sources cite her film career as beginning in 1934, but she was in fact in three films in 1915 and 1916; and not in bit parts. Her first film was The Unbroken Road (1915) in the lead role; it was an independent film with tinting by the Commercial Motion Pictures Co. She next appeared in Balboa Amusement's Tides of Time, a strange little short about the evils of greed displayed by the rich and powerful; it manages to work in some Edgar Allan Poe...at least in the form of book prop of his Conqueror Worm. Finally she appeared in the lead role Astra Films' Arms and the Woman (penned by Ouida Bergére, the future Mrs. Basil Rathbone) in 1916. Like so many accomplished stage actors of the time, Nash found silent film acting not to her taste (and really, who can blame them??); she returned to the stage and did not return to film until well into the sound era in 1934. The film that a lot of sources cite as her motion picture debut is Universal's Uncertain Lady--released on April 3rd. She would appear in 22 more films during her career. Probably the best known of these is the George Cukor directed remarriage comedy The Philadelphia Story in 1940. Her last film appearance came in Swell Guy in 1946. She then retired, but stayed in Los Angeles. Nash died in her Brentwood home in her sleep at the age of 92 on the 3rd of December in 1976. She is interred at St. Agnes Cemetery in Menands, New York--near her birth town. She was the sister of actress Florence Nash. She was also briefly married for a time to French actor José Ruben.
Nash in A Philadelphia Story
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