There have been (as of this writing) 87 Miss Americas (not all of who have been crowned in my lifetime! I only checked in on this planet forty-six years ago.) Of
those ladies, I have four personal favorites and have miraculously had the
good fortune to meet two of them! (Lee Meriwether, 1955, and Heather
French Henry, 2000.) The remaining two remain elusive and I suspect
they will stay that way! One is Miss Vanessa Williams, 1984, and the
other is today's featured celebrity, Mary Ann Mobley, Miss America
1959. (Stand back and take a look at this cape, bitches!)
Born February 17th, 1939 in
Biloxi, Mississippi, Mobley was the first contestant from her state
to win the title (in a pageant that had first begun back in 1921.)
The Miss America pageant was first broadcast on TV in 1954, the year
Meriwether won, and so was still finding its way through the medium
in 1958 when the pert nineteen year-old Mobley put in her bid for the
crown.
With every contestant engulfed in
frothy antebellum gowns and in highly-similar one-piece swimsuits, it
came down to two segments in which a gal could make enough impact to
separate herself from the pack, the talent contest and the interview.
As the string of finalists danced, sang cheery songs or enacted
dramatic readings, the pert, petite Mobley stepped onto the stage to
perform an operatic selection, “Un Bel Di,” garbed in a
full-length skirt. Midway through the song, she suddenly stopped,
jarring the audience in its tracks, and then segued into a belty
rendition of “There'll Be Some Changes Made,” removing the bottom
half of her gown to reveal a slim, pencil skirt! Then, she continued
by removing that and dancing around in abbreviated shorts! She blew
the lid off the place.
When the interviews began, each gal
stepped up to meet host Bert Parks and selected her random question
by reaching into a large fish bowl. Every lady looked at the bowl to
see where her hand would go, but Mobley looked dead ahead and
effortlessly reached in to grab her question, which she answered
deftly, articulately and passionately (in an era when girls sought to
be polite and demure to the point of near - or complete - dullness.)
Again, she wowed the audience and the judges.
When the pageant was over, the stunned
and elated Mary Ann Mobley was crowned by her predecessor Marilyn Van
Derbur (and caressingly kissed with the most lesbonic smooth probably
ever seen on TV to that date and for a decade after at least!)
Mobley was presented with her sceptre, cape and bouquet of roses to
the delight of her parents and little sister Sandra. It should be
noted that in her successful quest for the crown, she beat down Miss
Oklahoma (shown above left), otherwise known as Anita Bryant, who
thought she had it all tied up. For this alone, the gays of the
world should pay tribute to spry little Mary Ann! Bryant wound up as
second runner-up. It should also be noted that while Mobley broke no
rules with her bump-'n-grindy pseudo-striptease, pageant rules were
changed thereafter to avoid having any further ladies remove part of
their clothing during the competition.
Next it was back to the University of
Mississippi where she finished her studies before darting off to The
Big Apple to try her hand at the Broadway stage. She was cast in the
Prohibition-era musical Nowhere to Go But Up alongside Martin Balsam,
Tom Bosley (both shown with her here backstage), Bert Convy, Dorothy Loudon, Marty Allen and Frank
Campanella, but the ill-fated show closed after only nine
performances, living up to its name in spades. This despite
direction by Sidney Lumet (and a book and lyrics by James Lipton.)
A role in Guys and Dolls with Hugh
O'Brian and Betty Grable followed, along with appearances on Burke's
Law, leading to her winning a contract at MGM. Her first movie came
with 1964's Get Yourself a College Girl, a fluffy teen comedy-musical
at about the same level of mentality as all those beach party flicks.
Nonetheless, she was the star (along with Joan O'Brien, Chris Noel,
Nancy Sinatra and, as her love interest, the hunky Chad Everett!)
Not too a bad way to start.
She proceeded to make two of the
increasingly formulaic and feather-brained (but still wildly popular)
Elvis Presley movies. There was Girl Happy (1965), set in Ft.
Lauderdale during spring break, in which she played second fiddle to
Shelley Fabares, yet still got a few chances to canoodle with The
King.
Then there was Harem Scarum (1965), a
decidedly cheesy Arabian-themed flick in which she played “Princess
Shalimar.” She did, however, look incredible with the
midriff-baring costumes, piles of hair and chiffon dripping from
everything. She and Elvis, both being Mississippians, shared common
ground at least, though they would not work together again after
this.
She claims that they never dated and that he was a perfect gentleman, dividing women into two types, those he deeply respected and "the other kind."
Her other film of 1965 was of an
entirely different type. In Young Dillinger, she was the calculating
love interest of the title character, played by Nick Adams. The
movie costarred Robert Conrad as Pretty Boy Floyd and John Ashley as
Baby Face Nelson and while it would appear to be nothing but a bubble
gum account of these real-life bad guys, it contained enough violence
in it that CBS almost didn't air it later in 1968. A feisty Mobley
was one of the few cast members to get any sort of positive notice
from it.
1966 brought the first of two
near-misses when it comes to cult roles among classic TV fans. In
the episode “The Moonglow Affair” of The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,
Mobley played a secret agent named April Dancer, who worked in accord
with an older sidekick (Norman Fell.)
This was a back-door pilot for a
proposed spin-off series to be called The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., but
in the end it wound up starring Stefanie Powers and a sidekick (Noel
Harrison) of a similar age range. Powers was far more mod and kooky in the part than the more silken and serious Mobley had played it. The series only lasted one season,
being pulled off the air by 1967, but retains a fan following.
Mobley proceeded to another movie, this
time Three on a Couch (1966), which was a Jerry Lewis comedy. In it,
he wants his psychiatrist fiancee (Janet Leigh)to come to Paris with him, but she
feels beholden to the ladies of the title, a trio of lovelies who
have given up on men. In order to cure them of their malady and free
up his own lady love Leigh, Lewis masquerades as three different male
personas, each one designed to appeal one of the gals. (The other
two girls were played by Gila Golan and Leslie Parrish.)
Her other near-miss came when producers
of the smash TV hit Batman had her in mind to essay their new
addition to the series, Batgirl. However, Mobley proved unavailable
and the role ultimately went to fellow Elvis costar Yvonne Craig (who
proceeded to a build a legion of fans out of the deal.)
Mobley was fast becoming a familiar, lively face to TV viewers, though, with guest roles on Perry Mason, Run for
Your Life (with Ben Gazzara, pictured above), The Virginian, Custer and, notably, six installments of
Love, American Style (shown below with David Hedison.) Later came the
obligatory parts on The Love Boat and Fantasy Island.
Without any hesitation, my own favorite
guest appearance of hers on a TV show was when she filmed a two-part
episode of Mission: Impossible. Cast as a trapeze artist with a
prior relationship with the IMF leader (then played by Steven Hill),
she was brought in to help with a mission involving the escape of a
prisoner from a heavily guarded fortress. She and the other team
members would serve as a distraction with their touring carnival act. (Years later she would do several aerialist stunts for real on Circus of the Stars!) LOOK at her hair, her body, her outifit!
Impossible nearly always included a
set-up sequence in a sleek black and white apartment in which all of
the people wore black, white, grey or some combination thereof. Just
look at her!
Part of the plan was for aerialist
Mobley and mentalist Barbara Bain to establish jealousy over one of
the guards, plying him with attention and sniping at one another over
him. I ask you again... look at her hair and outfit!!
At the right moment, they would
continue the bad blood established earlier by engaging in a
knock-down, drag-out catfight. Bain and Mobley kept the guard
(played by Monte Markham) preoccupied with their endless clawing,
tussling and howling at one another.
The scenario resulted in some hilarious
expressions and passionate delivery from the two ladies. (Bain, in
particular, rarely lost her composure this way on the show as a
rule.) This was quite a potent image of Mobley and Greg Morris, too, for 1966 as CBS was prompting the producers to keep Morris away from Bain in scenes because of any hint of interracial attraction. Mary Ann Mobley could have done nothing else in her career
and I would still be agog over her eye-popping looks in this piece of
television. It's criminal that she never came back once Bain exited after season three (though Lee Meriwether did make a series of appearances that year.)
A far more important, personally
anyway, TV appearance came in late-1966 when she worked on The Iron
Horse, a western concerning the building of a railroad line. The
star was Dale Robertson, but he had a nice-looking blond costar named
Gary Collins.
We hold him somewhat dear as one of the stars of the treasured Airport (1970.) Collins was a married father of two (a boy and a girl)
whose marriage of about two years was faltering. The episode aired
in January of 1967 and Collins wed Mobley later that same year. See
photo below:
What followed was a four-plus
decade-long relationship in which Collins and Mobley seemed to
represent the perfect couple. They worked on TV shows together
(including his series The Sixth Sense), traveled the world together,
hosted events together and frequently paired up on game shows, always
with a smile and a sense of cozy togetherness.
When it came to game shows, Mary Ann
was a formidable player. Always in it for the win (sometimes the
kill), she would work hard to win money for her fellow contestants.
She appeared on Match Game, Super Password (with her old Broadway
co-star Bert Convy), To Tell the Truth and many others.
Then there was the super-ultra-cheesy
Beat the Clock revival in which she and her husband went up against
John and Patty Duke Astin. (The show had begun with everyday people as contestants, but soon switched to an all-star edition with the players
trying to earn money for their half of the audience.) No matter the
show, when Mobley came forth, it was with winning in mind!
Anyhoo, back to 1967 where the newlywed
had filmed a shoddy adventure film called The King's Pirate, starring
Doug McClure as a highly unlikely swashbuckler and Jill St. John as
his lady love. Mobley costarred as a sultry, fiery Mongol princess. I don't think Mobley ever appeared in
anything quite this revealing in any of the other parts she played
during her acting career. Her top in one part is a glorified Ace
bandage!
1968 brought two opportunities to work
with John Saxon. There was the obscure made-for-TV movie Istanbul
Express, an espionage drama that starred Gene Barry along with Saxon,
Mobley and the always stunning Senta Berger. Then Mobley and Saxon
starred in the faux-racy For Singles Only, about an apartment
building run by Milton Berle in which only singles are permitted to
rent. Few gals (or certain guys for that matter!) would have balked at the working conditions such as cavorting with Saxon in the pool!
Some of the other castmates included
Lana Wood, Peter Mark Richman, Chris Noel, Ann Elder and Marty
Ingels. Looking at these photos of Mississippian Mary Ann Mobley, I
am now wondering if perhaps the character and casting of Mary Ann on
Gilligan's Island was inspired by her in any way. The similarities
are considerable between Dawn Wells and her.
Sometime in the early-1970s, Collins
and Mobley welcomed their daughter Clancy, who grew up to become a
television executive at Paramount and her mother's old stomping
ground MGM.
Much more television followed including
episodes of Ironside, To Rome with Love and even The Partridge
Family. She was able to navigate easily from comedy to romance to
drama, ensuring that she could work whenever she pleased. A key
guest appearance came in 1974 when she joined her husband Collins
(and costar Diana Muldaur) on his series Born Free, which was based
on the 1966 movie and was being filmed in Africa.
While there, she caught a glimpse of
the living conditions of many of the local inhabitants and resolved
that she was going to begin doing something to alleviate as much of
the squalor and devastation due to war as she could. Thus, in the
years since this, in addition to Kenya she has been to Zimbabwe,
Mozambique, Ethiopia, the Sudan, Somalia and Cambodia (as the sole
female and part of the first American TV crew to enter the communist
country.) During her trip to Mozambique where she was filming one of
several documentaries she's done, she was shot at!
This series of efforts to raise
awareness and help the underprivileged of the world is only a small
part of the charity work that she and Collins took part in over the
years. There was also a twenty-five year (and counting) association
with the March of Dimes, work for research into birth defects, breast
cancer, Crohn's disease, mental illness and many other charities.
Having used her very first earnings as a singer and actress to
provide chimes for the church in her hometown, she later had the
pediatric wing of a hospital named in her honor there as well.
Her association with the Miss America
organization continued as well, of course, and she has made frequent
appearances there (seen here with Lee Meriwether), including stints
as a co-host. When longtime emcee Bert Parks was unceremoniously
dumped in 1979 in an effort to attract younger viewers to the
pageant, Ron Ely was hired for two years.
In 1982, however, her husband Gary
Collins was appointed as host and he held that spot for a decade.
She co-hosted with him on several occasions, but after the 1988
pageant (in which she and Collins had to fill air time for twelve
feverish minutes while the judges debated who should win the crown!),
she limited her contributions to simpler visits, mostly involving
waves from the crowd or briefly on stage.
Collins, of course, was the master of
ceremonies on hand in 1983 when Vanessa Williams was crowned Miss
America 1984. At that time, the pageants were deliciously
preposterous wagon trains filled to the brim with songs, dances and
production numbers. Collins had charisma as a host (he adeptly
handled Hour Magazine from 1980-1988), but as a singer, he sometimes
delivered numbers that would make a baby seal crawl out of the safety
of its warm nest and slink off in search of a club-wielding hunter to
end the pain! Anyway, Williams was the first black
winner and he posed with her for the commemorative portrait. Look at
Miss W. above and note how many different procedures our dear girl has
had since then!
Since her reign was prematurely ended
in the scandal of some nude photographs coming to light (a situation
you can read more about here), the runner-up Suzette Charles, seen
here with a decidedly forced smile just after the pageant, was
appointed to the position.
Charles was Miss America 1984b and only
had seven weeks in which to serve before the next year's pageant!
Still, Collins was called upon to pose with her, too, for a
commemorative portrait, even though he had been far afield from all
the drama when Williams exited and Charles ascended to the crown.
Mobley began to make recurring
appearances on the sitcom Diff'rent Strokes in 1985 (replacing a
fired Dixie Carter in the role, who would soon go on to great success
on Designing Women, a series Mobley later appeared on as a guest in
1990.)
That series was, however, on its last
legs (and, in fact, had been canceled by NBC only to be picked up for
one last, brief season by ABC.) Mobley played the leading actor
Conrad Bain's wife, which made her the mother of his adopted son, the
diminutive Gary Coleman, who was eighteen at the time of this photo!
In 1988, Mobley made several
appearances on the prime-time soap Falcon Crest, playing Susan
Sullivan's psychiatrist (ironically as we will see later, with an emphasis on alcohol treatment) and then began to recede from acting roles by
the mid-1990s. Her last credited part was on the 1994 baseball-set
comedy series Hardball, which starred Bruce Greenwood and Alexandra
Wentworth.
For his part, Collins popped up opposite Christopher Plummer and the ever-glamorous Stephanie Beacham in the 1992 Danielle Steel miniseries Secrets.
Mobley busied herself with a raft of
charitable causes, often in the company of her husband. Collins' own
acting career extended a tad longer than hers, working regularly up
until 2000 followed by one final guest part on the short-lived show
Dirty Sexy Money in 2009. The still glowing couple could be spotted
at numerous events together, always with big smiles. (Check out the hair on Miss Donna Mills in the shot below!)
But things were not all peaches and
cream. Along the way, Collins had developed something of a problem
with alcohol, namely becoming reliant upon it and, more critically,
driving while under the influence of it. Between 2007 and 2009, he
was arrested three times for DUI, resulting in everything from fines
to brief jail time to home arrest. His troubles far from over, in
2010 there was an accident that he left the scene of illegally and in
2011 a dust-up with a restaurant owner. In 2011, the previously
happy and “perfect” couple did the unthinkable and split up!
In the wake of all this, Mobley was afflicted with
breast cancer and had been living in her beloved Mississippi.
Collins returned to her during her considerable struggle with the
disease and they were reconciled again. Sadly, Collins' own health
had deteriorated from his bout with alcoholism and encroaching age.
He died in 2012, reportedly of natural causes.
Now a widow, a cancer survivor and
seventy-five years of age, Miss Mobley still makes personal
appearances and continues to work tirelessly for her various causes
and charities, always garbed in flattering, tasteful, contemporary
clothing and flashing that (by now surgically-augmented) Miss America
smile. But for a few significant hurdles over the past decade, hers
would seem to have been quite a charmed life with much happiness and
success.
For the sunny, sexy, animated,
attractive, vivacious performances she has given over the four decades of her
career along with her staggering contributions toward making the
world a better place for others, we salute her in The Underworld.
just last night as i went to bed with the tv tuned to "metv." night gallery was on with her & gary.
ReplyDeletecoincidence? i think not.
:-) I think that most or all of "The Sixth Sense" episodes were somehow re-cut and repackaged into the "Night Gallery" syndication package. So you probably saw their "Sixth Sense" work, but in a "Night Gallery" episode. Fans of the first series get very annoyed by this situation... Thanks for dropping by, Norma! Always a pleasure.
ReplyDelete(And now that I'm finally home from work and rehearsal, I could go back and fix some of the typos this post had from it being hastily written at work today!)
Love her. Hope she's well. There's an actress/singer named Catherine McPhee(Smash) who reminds me of her. Maybe they could co-star in the future.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed the article! I can recall she and Collins were guesting on one of the daytime talk shows, I think it was Mike Douglas, she had just had their daughter and she shared how they came up with her unusual, for a girl, name. She was just so relaxed and natural. I was completely charmed, she seemed genuinely nice and kinda fun, I've been a fan ever since. I was sorry when they were having all those troubles, they did seem well matched and for years happy.
ReplyDeleteShe was such a knockout, she still looks good but it may be time to lose the plastic surgeon's number before it's too late!
So many great pictures, although that costume for The Kings Pirate looks more uncomfortable than sexy, which I'm sure was the desired effect. Thanks for those pictures of her with the ultra yummy John Saxon. I think I've commented before he's a fave of mine.
That train in the second picture is awesome.
I love this gal. MAM was one of my favorites guest stars throughout the 70s. On top of the fact I love her for being herself, I loved her for being married to Collins. (He has always been one of my favorite blonde hunks.)
ReplyDeleteA couple of things (and I may have this wrong) If memory serves, she was good friends with Dixie Carter, and both spoke about the one episode they worked together of "Designing Women."
In it, she delivered one of my favorite lines ever from a TV sitcom and I might be paraphrasing, "If you screw with us we will do to you what Sherman did to Atlanta!"
I found her to have wonderful comedic timing in it and you could tell she was enjoying every minute of playing a rabid belle.
The other thing I recall about her, she popped up with Collins in an episode of the macabre comedy "Dead Like Me" as themselves selling electric girdles on an infomercial. The electric girdle stimulated all that fat away. If anyone remembers that show, it was (and remains) one of my favorites!
Anyway, Kisses from the country!
A Star is a Star is a Star is a Star!
ReplyDeleteMary Ann Mobley (February 17, 1937 – December 9, 2014)
Rest in peace lovely lady.
Because Steven Hill passed away two weeks ago, I have been watching the Mission Impossible episodes in which he was the head of the IM Force. I agree that this was among Miss Mobley's finest guest performances. She played off Mr. Hill and Ms. Bain perfectly.
ReplyDeleteMay she rest in peace in the loving arms of our Creator.
I don't know where I've been that I missed hearing about Hill's passing. Thanks for stopping by to see and read more about Mary Ann.
ReplyDeleteThis was a delightful post! So amazing the length of her career and I agree with what you said about her being able to cross genres. Talent and a pro! I remember her in the Elvis movies and I did love her in game shows and watching her and Gary in anything they were in. I remember Hour Magazine and you could tell he was a star and bigger things were coming. She and Julia catting on Designing Women was such a hoot. Especially Julia in that costume!
ReplyDeleteThe only reason I'm not shocked at her Mongol princess costume is because I think I've seen Nicki Minaj in that same look a half a dozen times!
I read these posts and lots of times they take me away from the subject at hand and I think about other things all together. Reading about the Miss America pageant makes me think about my friend Joe, a fashion illustrator who I worked with in the 80's- 90's. He grew up in Philly and when he was a teenager in the 50's he and his friends would drive to Atlantic City with their tuxedos and attend the pageant. He talked a lot about Bess Myerson and what she did when she was off camera. She would sit in her booth high above the stage and mostly primp. They would leave their bleacher seats before the winner's announcement and make their way down to the runway to cheer the new Miss America!
BrianB
BrianB, thanks for taking a swim back to older posts like this one! I can't say I'm at all surprised about Bess and her desire to look on point for TV...! For many people, pageants were serious business. I guess they still are, but it's not the same. I don't even watch any of them any more.
ReplyDeletePoseidon, for as many older posts as I've opened at this point, I have only hit the tip of the iceberg! It's been a stressful time at work this summer so it's nice to open a post and read about a person, movie or tv show that I remember. The best part is the information about them that you have that I never knew. I have quite a bit of awareness about these things from the past because I apparently have a lot of recall but when I read your posts and learn something new it gives me such a bigger picture about these topics. I will definitely continue to work my way down the subject list!
ReplyDeleteI haven't watched a pageant since maybe when Bert Parks died! But we never missed it back in the 60's-70's! I can really go in to "old fogie" mode talking about this but it's truly not the same. I don't want to say it was more innocent back then, but there was a wonderful simplicity and lack of distraction from music, lighting, production values and audience reactions. (Looking at every variety show in TV right now!)
I always though Bess was so elegant and ladylike and then years later it came out about her and the mobster and I was like "Whaaaat?!" LOL! Nowadays that kind of behavior would create a career!
And isn't it funny that we are talking about beauty pageants the same week Ron Ely ends up plastered all over the news! I watched one or two pageants that he hosted but it wasn't the same with him wearing a tuxedo and not a loin cloth! But that would have distracted the judges! Boy, how I wanted to be Jai when the Tarzan series ran! And then the Supremes showed up on an episode as missionary nuns!!!
OK, totally off topic now so thanks for listening!
BrianB
BrianB, never fear... no one's more of an old fogey than me! LOL I don't know what it is, but I have just lost my entire interest in practically all contemporary "entertainment" be it from the endless CGI, over-the-top "action," audiences screaming at the top of their lungs after every commercial break on talk shows, reality shows and game shows, etc... Is that in any way energizing or entertaining to a viewer? If so, I'm worried. I guess due to perceived short attention spans and fear of channel-flipping, there is so much quick editing, flashy graphics, obnoxious music and so on and I just find it all very tiresome. I can't be bothered with it. As for Ron Ely, apart from the tragedy he is now facing - poor man - I always liked him as the snarky, easily-amused host of "Face the Music." Look it up on youtube sometime. He has one particular episode with the WORST contestants and he made me howl with laughter even louder than Tarzan ever yelled...!
ReplyDelete