Mary Boland was a lively and buxom character actress who made a name for herself playing vacuous or pixilated motherly types during the 1930s.
Born in Philadelphia, Mary was the daughter of traveling actor William A. Boland, who was on tour at the time of her birth. She was educated at Sacred Heart Convent in Detroit.
Mary made her stage debut at 25 in the play "Strongheart" and was on Broadway two years later in "The Ranger" with Dustin Farnum. She started in silent films in 1915 with Thomas H. Ince's "The Edge of the Abyss".
After a wartime interval, entertaining troops on the Western Front during World War I, Mary returned to the stage and had notable successes with the comedies "Clarence" (1919-20) with Alfred Lunt, "Meet the Wife" (1923-24) with a young Humphrey Bogart, and "Cradle Snatchers" (1925-26) starring as Susan Martin.
These performances established her as one of the theater's foremost comediennes, ideally cast as dithery wives and mothers, or social climbers.
Mary's film career ended in 1950 and she appeared in her last play, "Lullaby", in 1954. She retired to live out the rest of her days in her suite at the Essex House in New York.
