Marsha Mason

Marsha Mason has a wonderful, extremely engaging "feel good" quality about her,
an innate warmth that makes you root for her whether she's playing a
stubborn single mom, brittle prostitute, or strung-out alcoholic.
She was a resoundingly respected and popular film actress of
the 1970s and 1980s whose career skyrocketed in the bittersweet
comedies/dramas of award-winning
Neil Simon. Earning a string of
leading lady Oscar nominations within a short span of time (three of
them, courtesy of husband Simon), Marsha's movie career suffered a
major fall-out when the famed couple parted ways in 1983 -- most
probably due to her almost exclusive, amazingly successful association
with him.The elder of two sisters born to James Joseph Mason and Jacqueline
Helena (Rachowsky) Mason in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 3, 1942,
Marsha was raised, for a time, in Crestwood, Missouri, before moving to
Webster Groves (a suburb of St. Louis) and graduating from Nerinx Hall
High School. There, she attended Webster University and, after
receiving her degree, moved to New York where she began taking acting
classes and finding some work in TV commercials in-between regular
job-hunting.Marrying fellow struggling actor
Gary Campbell in 1965, Marsha made
an inauspicious movie debut with the forgettable
Hot Rod Hullabaloo (1966).
Focusing intently on stage work, she made her professional debut in
1967 with "The Deer Park" at the Theatre de Lys and, the next year,
joined the cast as a replacement in the established hit comedy, "Cactus
Flower", at the Royale Theatre. Subsequent work came her way both on-
and off-Broadway ("It's Called the Sugar Plum", "The Indian Wants the
Bronx", "Happy Birthday, Wanda June", "Richard III"). She later hooked
up with San Francisco's prestigious American Conservatory Theatre and
appeared in an enviable number of their productions ("The Merchant of
Venice", "Private Lives", "You Can't Take It With You", "A Doll's
House", "Cyrano de Bergerac", "The Crucible").Daytime soaps played a vital part during this period of time (1969-1972), playing a
hooker-turned-vampire on the popular
Dark Shadows (1966) series and
winning regular roles on
Where the Heart Is (1969)
and Love of Life (1951).
Divorced after five years from actor Gary Campbell in 1970, the pert-nosed, dark-haired beauty met
Neil Simon, a recent widower, when he
cast her in his 1973 original Broadway production of "The Good Doctor".
They had a whirlwind romance and married with a few weeks.1973 was an excellent year in other ways in that Marsha won the second femme lead in
Blume in Love (1973), starring
George Segal and
Susan Anspach, and then beat out such
stars as Barbra Streisand for the
coveted role of the hooker opposite
James Caan's sailor in the realistic
drama
Cinderella Liberty (1973). The
chemistry was electric between the two and Mason earned her first Oscar
nod. Following a leading stage role in "The Heiress" (1975) and playing
"Roxane" in a TV version of
Cyrano de Bergerac (1975),
Marsha earned two more
Neil Simon-driven Oscar nominations
with The Goodbye Girl (1977),
opposite Oscar winner Richard Dreyfuss,
and Chapter Two (1979), which
reunited her with James Caan and was
based on Mason and Simon's own relationship.Simon would offer his wife Oscar-worthy material one more time with
Only When I Laugh (1981), as an
alcoholic trying to stay on the wagon for daughter
Kristy McNichol. This would be Marsha's
fourth Academy Award nod. The couple's last film project
together came in the form of
Max Dugan Returns (1983), which
was a major misfire.Following Marsha's divorce from Simon, her film product decreased rapidly
in quantity as well as quality. With the exception of the
Clint Eastwood vehicle,
Heartbreak Ridge (1986), she
made no other films in the 1980s. While her film output did increase in
the 1990s, none of them -- Stella (1990),
Drop Dead Fred (1991),
I Love Trouble (1994),
Nick of Time (1995) and
2 Days in the Valley (1996)
-- did anything to jump-start her waning cinematic career.Over the years, Marsha maintained by focusing on TV and stage work.
More recent theatre credits have included "The Night of the Iguana",
"The Prisoner of Second Avenue" (another popular Simon work in which
she appeared opposite Richard Dreyfuss
in London), "Wintertime", "Steel Magnolias", "I Never Sang for My
Father", "All's Well that Ends Well" and the Simon play "California
Suite", some of which played Broadway.On the small screen, Marsha starred in her own short-lived series
Sibs (1991) and appeared in an
Emmy-nominated recurring role on the series,
Frasier (1993), as a love interest
for Martin Crane. She has also
appeared in a number of TV-movies, including one as
Judy Garland's mother, "Ethel Gumm", in
Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (2001),
and has guest-starred on such series as "Seinfeld," "The Education of Max Bickford," "Lipstick Jungle," "Army Wives," "The Good Wife," "Madame Secretary." Her more recent recurring parts have been on the comedy series The Middle (2009) and Grace and Frankie (2015).On a rare occasion, the veteran actress has directed both on film and TV. Feeling out of
sorts in Hollywood at one stage, Marsha strongly pursued her spiritual
side, primarily as a disciple of Swami Muktananda. She later moved to
New Mexico in 1993 and she became an owner of an organic farm where she
raised herbs and operated a wellness line of bath and body products.
She also enjoyed professional race car driving at one point. An
insightful, highly revealing autobiography came out in the form of
"Journal: A Personal Odyssey" in 2000.