Actors - Mary Kay Place

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	Actors - Mary Kay Place

Mary Kay Place (born September 23, 1947 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA) is an American actress and singer. As graduate of University of Tulsa with a Speech Degree, she moved to Hollywood with aspirations of becoming an actress and writer. She was hired for 1970s The Tim Conway Comedy Hour as a production assistant to both star Conway and producer Norman Lear. It was Conway who gave her her first on-camera break, while it was Lear who saw to it that Place received her first writing credit on his subsequent All in the Family. Her appearance on this show as one of Gloria’s buddies is quite memorable because she sang “If Communism Comes Knocking on Your Door, Don’t Answer It.”

Lear then cast her in the role of would-be C&W star Loretta Haggers on the satirical soap opera Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976-77). She won an Emmy Award for her work as Loretta, and was later nominated for a Grammy Award for her spin-off musical album Tonite! At the Capri Lounge Loretta Haggers. Place wrote two of the songs on Tonite!, “Vitamin L” and “Baby Boy.” Both showed that she knew how to capitalize on the character’s personality and comic effects. “Vitamin L” is “love you see, and without it, well, it’s hell.” (Pronounced “hayull”) “Baby Boy,” which charted on country radio, told the story of Loretta and Charlie Haggers (played by Graham Jarvis). The couple was forever trying to conceive (the joke being that she was half his age and the sex was non-stop). “Baby Boy” was mythical in that she announced “I just found out today that our baby’s on the way.”

Both albums featured A-list country and pop performers from the 1970’s. Dolly Parton, on whom the Loretta character was loosely based, provided backing vocals as well as the song “All I Can Do.” Emmylou Harris, Anne Murray and Nicolette Larson sang back up as well. Aimin’ to Please’s “Something to Brag About” was a duet with Willie Nelson and charted for the pair in 1977.

Mary Hartman was one of the biggest cult television programs of all time. The show centered around the sex-crazed Haggers and the almost sexless Mary (Louise Lasser) and Tom Hartman (Greg Mullavey). Mary was Loretta’s best friend and Tom was Charlie’s best friend. Tom and Charlie worked together at the plant in the fictional town of Fernwood, Ohio. Loretta never really did make the big time, but she did have marginal success. In one episode, Loretta makes an appearance on The Dinah Shore Show. She was talking about all of the people who had helped her along her way. During a break, she was told that some of those people were Jews. After that she referred to Jews as “them that what killed our Lord.” The host quickly signaled to cut to commercial. Maybe this explains why Loretta never became a “Super Star.”

Mary Hartman ended when Louise Lasser left the show in 1977, but the remaining cast stayed on for one more year to film Forever Fernwood. The series ended with Loretta and Charlie finally getting the child that they had always wanted. While working on Mary Hartman, Place also wrote scripts for several TV sitcoms, including The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Phyllis and M*A*S*H, usually in collaboration with her professional partner Linda Bloodworth. Place hosted Saturday Night Live
in 1977 and was one of the rare talents to host and also appear as the musical guest (with Willie Nelson on the duet “Something to Brag About”).

In films since 1976's Bound for Glory
, Place has only occasionally been given a chance to shine on the big screen. The best of her early movie roles include Bernice, the washout nightclub singer who briefly replaces Liza Minnelli in Martin Scorsese’s New York, New York
(1976), and Meg, the reconstituted "child of the sixties" who desperately craves motherhood in The Big Chill
(1983).

In the 1979 Burt Reynolds film, Starting Over
, Place plays the first woman whom Reynolds dates after a divorce. On their blind date, Place's character is a bit too zealous and practically knocks Reynods down in the elevator in her building in a last ditch attempt to make him fall for her. Instead, she just falls on him.

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