Mary Jackson

Acting

Mary Jackson

Born 1910-11-22 · Milford, Michigan, USA

One of those strikingly familiar matrons you just can't place, character actress Mary Jackson is probably best known for her recurring role as one of the delightfully eccentric bootlegging sisters, "Miss Emily" Baldwin, on the series The Waltons (1971) that ran for nine seasons. She was born November 22, 1910 in rural Milford, Michigan, and earned a bachelor's degree from West Michigan University in 1932. A Depression-era school teacher for one year before pursuing her interest in theater, she returned to college (this time Michigan State University) in a fine arts program. She started out on the Chicago stage and in summer stock before migrating to the larger stages in New York and Los Angeles. Film and TV roles did not come her way until well into middle age. Guesting on such TV shows as "The Andy Griffith Show," "The Twilight Zone," "My Three Sons," "Hazel," "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," "Barnaby Jones" and "Highway to Heaven," she usually appeared as ladylike small-town citizens. She was also part of the ensemble in Peter Bogdanovich's first low-budget film thriller Targets (1968), which was Boris Karloff's last feature. In the 70s she started gathering up character bits here and there, such as her nuns in the all-star epic Airport (1970) and the horror Audrey Rose (1977). A variety of pleasant, maternal parts came her way, including Lynn Carlin's mother in the Blake Edwards' western Wild Rovers (1971) and Jane Fonda's in the comedy caper Fun with Dick and Jane (1977). She supported Fonda again in the Vietnam-era drama Coming Home (1978), was among the cast in the cultish Big Top Pee-wee (1988) and had a noticeable role in Steve Martin's Leap of Faith (1992). As for "The Waltons" success, character actress Dorothy Stickney played the part of Emily in the initial TV pilot along with Josephine Hutchinson as older sister Mamie. When the series came to fruition, Mary and actress Helen Kleeb, another one of those "I've seen her before" character faces, took over the spinster roles. Both she and Kleeb continued their sister act periodically in several Walton "reunion" TV-movies, which included assorted weddings and holiday gatherings. Both ladies made their final TV appearances in A Walton Easter (1997). Kleeb died of natural causes in 2003 at age 96. Mary passed away two years later at age 95 of complications from Parkinson's disease. - IMDb Mini Biography

Acting credits

The Exorcist III poster
6.3

On the fifteenth anniversary of the exorcism that claimed Father Damien Karras' life, Police Lieutenant Kinderman's world is once again shattered when a boy is found decapitated and savagely crucified.

The Exorcist III

1990

A Family Thing poster
6.6

Earl Pilcher Jr. runs an equipment rental outfit in Arkansas, lives with his wife and kids and parents, and rarely takes off his gimme cap. His mother dies, leaving a letter explaining he's not her natural son, but the son of a Black woman who died in childbirth; plus, he has a half brother Ray, in Chicago, she wants him to visit. Earl makes the trip, initially receiving a cold welcome from Ray and Ray's son, Virgil. His birth mother's sister, Aunt T., an aged and blind matriarch, takes Earl in tow and insists that the family open up to him.

A Family Thing

1996

Airport poster
6.5

An airport manager tries to keep his terminals open during a snowstorm, while a suicide bomber plots to blow up a Boeing 707 airliner in flight.

Airport

1970

Coming Home poster
7.0

In 1968 California, a Marine officer's wife falls in love with a former high school classmate who suffered a paralyzing combat injury in the war.

Coming Home

1978

Targets poster
7.1

An aging horror-movie icon's fate intersects with that of a seemingly ordinary young man on a psychotic shooting spree around Los Angeles.

Targets

1968

Audrey Rose poster
5.7

A man is convinced that 11-year old girl, Ivy, is the reincarnation of his own daughter Audrey Rose, who died in a fiery car accident, along with his wife, two minutes before Ivy was born.

Audrey Rose

1977

Fun with Dick and Jane poster
6.6

When an upwardly mobile couple find themselves unemployed and in debt, they turn to armed robbery in desperation.

Fun with Dick and Jane

1977

Leap of Faith poster
5.8

Jonas Nightengale is a fraudulent Christian faith healer who makes a living travelling around America holding revival meetings and conducting 'miracles' with the help of his friend and manager, Jane, and their entourage.

Leap of Faith

1992

Big Top Pee-wee poster
5.0

Paul Reubens stars as Pee-wee Herman in his second full-length film about a farmer who joins the circus after a storm drops a big tent in his front yard. Pee-wee, along with an outlandish cast of animals and circus performers, puts on the best show ever.

Big Top Pee-wee

1988

Friendly Persuasion poster
6.6

The story of a family of Quakers in Indiana in 1862. Their religious sect is strongly opposed to violence and war. It's not easy for them to meet the rules of their religion in everyday life but when Southern troops pass the area they are in real trouble. Should they fight, despite their peaceful attitude?

Friendly Persuasion

1956

Some Kind of Hero poster
5.6

A Vietnam vet returns home from a prisoner of war camp and is greeted as a hero, but is quickly forgotten and soon discovers how tough survival is in his own country.

Some Kind of Hero

1982

Skinned Alive poster
5.1

Crawldaddy and her two kids are travelling across the country on the search for victims. The dysfunctional family has the disturbing habit of skinning people alive before killing them. When their van breaks down, they are put up by a friendly couple.

Skinned Alive

1990

Ozone poster
4.7

While on a stakeout, hardboiled cop Eddie Boone gets injected with a dangerous new designer drug causing nightmarish side effects. As he searches for his missing partner, Eddie discovers the urban streets full of mutants, monsters, and mayhem orchestrated by the mastermind behind the lethal narcotic.

Ozone

1993

Blume in Love poster
5.8

Lawyer Stephen Blume, who specializes in divorces, lives a paradoxical situation when, having his own marriage break up, is still in love with his ex-wife.

Blume in Love

1973

A Small Killing poster
8.5

A college professor is recruited by an undercover cop to pose as a bag lady to track down a drug connection following the brutal killing of a skid row crone.

A Small Killing

1981

Wild Rovers poster
6.1

Ross Bodine and Frank Post are cowhands on Walt Buckman's R-Bar-R ranch. Bodine is older and broods a bit about how he will get along when he's too old to cowboy. Post is young and rambunctious and ambitious for a better life than wrangling cows. When one of their fellow cowboys is killed in a corral accident, Post suggests a way into a better life for himself and his friend: robbing a bank. Bodine reluctantly joins in the plan and the two contrive to rob the local bank. They make good their escape initially, but Walt Buckman and his two sons, John and Paul, are incensed at this betrayal by their own trusted employees. John and Paul set out to bring Bodine and Post to justice.

Wild Rovers

1971

Kid Blue poster
7.0

Bickford Waner, an apparently naive young man from Fort Worth, arrives in the tiny Texas town of Dime Box and takes on a variety of menial jobs. He's befriended by Reese Ford and his wife Molly, but before long Molly has seduced Bickford. Only with the arrival of Bickford's former girlfriend Janet Conforto is it revealed that Bickford is actually the notorious train robber Kid Blue. Humiliated by a scandal arising from his affair with his friend's wife, Bickford gives up on going straight and plots a crime.

Kid Blue

1973

The Two Lives of Carol Letner poster
9.0

A former call-girl who has left the profession behind to pursue a college career is recruited by the police to turn one more trick in order to trap the person laundering syndicate money.

The Two Lives of Carol Letner

1981

A Death in Canaan poster
5.3

When a teenager is accused of his mother's murder, the community of Canaan rallies to his defense.

A Death in Canaan

1978

My Town poster
7.0

A series of vignettes based upon an imaginative girl's unique outlook on her community.

My Town

1986

A Walton Thanksgiving Reunion poster
7.3

The fourth Waltons reunion TV movie is set in the 1960s , with John-Boy still living in New York, trying to persuade his fiancée to marry him. Meanwhile, Ben and Cindy's daughter Virginia has died, and Cindy is finding life very lonely without her. She tells Ben that she would dearly love to adopt another baby, but Ben feels that it is not a good idea. Ben argues with his father about buying a new truck for their lumber company, but John keeps insisting that they can't afford it. Elsewhere, Erin now has three children and is separated from Paul. Her decision to start seeing another man causes some indignation among the other Walton family members. Ike and Corabeth become grandparents when Aimee has a daughter, while Elizabeth returns from Europe and reunites with Drew, her old beau.

A Walton Thanksgiving Reunion

1993

The Case of the Hillside Stranglers poster
6.5

The chilling true story of the "two of a kind" killing cousins, Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi, better known as the Hillside Stranglers.

The Case of the Hillside Stranglers

1989

Letters from Frank poster
8.0

When aging newspaper Editor Frank Miller is fired after decades of service and replaced by a computer, he cannot take this fate quietly. Frank becomes enraged and starts writing letters to his son, Richard, expressing his fury.

Letters from Frank

1979

Our Time poster
7.6

Drama about students at a girls' school, their boyfriends, and an unexpected pregnancy.

Our Time

1974