#60: Mary, Mary

December 16, 2025
  • Performances: 1,572.
  • Open / Close:  March 8, 1961 – December 12, 1964
  • Theater: The original Helen Hayes Theatre.
  • Tony Awards: Barbara Bel Geddes was nominated for Best Actress in a Play but she lost out to Joan Plowright for “A Taste of Honey.” “Becket” was the play that hauled in all of the awards that year. Though lauded, “Becket” only ran 210 performances over two engagements.
  • Fun Fact: Barry Nelson, the male lead of “Mary, Mary” — as well as “Cactus Flower,” another play Jordan and I discussed on the podcast — was technically the first actor to play James Bond. The boyish actor played the suave superspy in the 1954 American television adaptation of “Casino Royale.”

Podcast

In the midst of your “Merry, Merry Christmas,” let me interest you in a little “Mary, Mary” Broadway! Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of this play — I certainly hadn’t — but like so many other shows I’ve covered, there are SO many crazy and interesting stories related to this surprising entry in the pantheon of long running productions that reveal fascinating aspects of Broadway history.

And the perfect person to bring a near-bottomless depth of knowledge to the subject of plays on Broadway is, of course, Jordan Schildcrout, author of “In the Long Run: A Cultural History of Broadway’s Hit Plays.” As we get to talking about this play, Jordan lays out the context for its unexpected success and we explicate how it ends up being weirdly both pro- and anti-feminist. We also spend some time ruminating on the career of Barbara Bel Geddes, known to most from “Dallas,” but actually rose to fame initially for originating Maggie in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” a role Elizabeth Taylor would go on to own thanks to the movie adaptation.

This “Mary, Mary” isn’t so contrary a subject for the holidays as, in its own oddly traditional way, it reinforces conservative values and the sanctity of marriage. But at the same time, we can look back at it and be thankful that we truly have moved on past when women weren’t “allowed” to be both pretty and witty.

Here’s the whole movie. Based on reviews, it’s “staginess” was a problem in terms of making it a successful movie but it results in a good depiction of what the stage play was like.
If only there were clips of Barbara Bel Geddes as Mary, but I couldn’t find any but…
…there is this fascinating clip of her in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”
This may be AI generated but it’s a nice summary of the sweep of Barbara Bel Geddes’ career.
As mentioned above, the boyish Barry Nelson was the first actor to play James Bond. Wild!
In the podcast, Jordan talks a bit about Betsy von Furstenberg. Just based on this interview, I expect she was an amazing presence on stage.
Before “Dallas,” her appearance in “Vertigo” may have been the reason many people would have known who Barbara Bel Geddes was.