Mary Ann Mobley, who segued into a successful TV and film acting career after her reign as Miss America 1959, died Monday after a battle with breast cancer. She was 75.
Mobley, a Mississippi native, launched her acting career on Broadway in the musical Nowhere To Go But Up after serving her year as Miss America 1959. She went on to co-star in Guys And Dolls, a role that led to her first film contract and starring roles opposite fellow Mississipian Elvis Presley in Girl Happy and Harum Scarum at MGM.
Her first television appearances came on Burke’s Law (1963-1965), General Hospital, and Perry Mason. She also appeared on such shows as Love, American Style, The Love Boat, Designing Women and Fantasy Island. She had a recurring role as Maggie McKinney Drummond on Diff’rent Strokes in the final season, having taken over the role from Dixie Carter. She also appeared on Match Game ’76 as one of the celebrity panelists. Her final television appearance came in 1994 on Hardball. Mobley’s other film credits include Get Yourself A College Girl (1964), Girl Happy (1965), Three On A Couch (1966) and For Singles Only (1968).
She also became a filmmaker, producing documentaries in third-world countries including Cambodia, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Somalia, Kenya, Zimbabwe and the Sudan, focused on the plight of homeless and starving children.
Mobley was married to the late actor and TV host Gary Collins. He died in 2012.
Even though the real draws of the film were its guest musical acts, Mary Ann Mobley had the lead role in her very first film, 1964's GET YOURSELF A COLLEGE GIRL.
Mobley had her first dramatic film role playing the girlfriend of Nick Adams' YOUNG DILLINGER. The 1965 film was notorious in its time for its gratuitous violence, so much so that public outcry prompted CBS to cancel plans to air it in early 1968. In a grim coincidence, star Nick Adams died a few days later.
Mobley co-starred with Jerry Lewis and Janet Leigh in the 1966 comedy THREE ON A COUCH. Mobley was one of three female patients on the couch of psychiatrist Janet Leigh. Lewis, playing five different roles in the film, woos them all.
Mobley appeared in her only action feature in 1967's KING'S PIRATE, a remake of the 1952 Errol Flynn swashbuckler AGAINST ALL FLAGS. Mobley played another princess, this time being rescued by Doug McClure, playing a British naval officer who infiltrates a pirate gang.
Mobley's last feature film was 1968's FOR SINGLES ONLY, in which she co-starred opposite John Saxon. While the film looks like it might be a romantic comedy, the "Suggested for Mature Audiences" tag suggests otherwise, and the film played more like a melodrama. Mobley's character is involved with a seduction plot carried out on a bet, and her friend Lana Wood's character ends up being raped.
Some of her previously spotlighted TV work here at FSM:
A special "Introducing" credit on a S1 "Burke's Law" episode "Who Killed Verity Mather?" where she played the Captain's girlfriend "Sugar" in the prologue/epilogue.
The first to play April Dancer in the "Moonglow Affair" episode of "The Man From UNCLE".
And a guest member of the IM team in a first season "Mission: Impossible" episode "Odd Man Out."
She was also the other finalist for the role of Batgirl and with all due respect to fans of Yvonne Craig, I always felt she would have been better in the part. Fox though wanted her for a role in the short-lived series "Custer" which aced her out of that.
In the 70s, she was a frequent member of the game show circuit on "Match Game" and other programs.
She was also the other finalist for the role of Batgirl and with all due respect to fans of Yvonne Craig, I always felt she would have been better in the part. Fox though wanted her for a role in the short-lived series "Custer" which aced her out of that.
The television series Custer debuted on ABC-TV on 6 September 1967, but only lasted until December of that year before it was cancelled. Mary Ann Mobley appeared in only one of the 17 episodes that were filmed. Twentieth Century Fox took the 52-minute pilot episode, added footage from another episode of the series, and turned it into a 94-minute feature entitled THE LEGEND OF CUSTER, which began playing overseas in the summer of 1968.
Although Miss Mobley had quite a varied acting career my exposure to her as a teenager in the 1970s was as the Public Relations coordinator at King's Island Amusement Park in the fondly remembered episode of THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY titled "I Left My Heart in Cincinatti" (Episode #66).
It is the one filmed on location at Kings Island where the Danny, Keith, Reuben and Chris all seem to fall head over heels for Mobley's character Audrey Parson. And it had a rather funny cameo with baseball superstar Johnny Bench as a waiter that says "Wouldn't You Care For A Drink?" -- and that's how he was credited too!
