Martha Scott

Martha Ellen Scott (September 22, 1912 – May 28, 2003) was an American actress born in Jamesport, Missouri, to Letha (née McKinley) and Walter Alva Scott, an engineer and garage owner. Her mother was a second cousin of U.S. President William McKinley. Scott lived in Jamesport until age 13, when her family relocated to Kansas City, Missouri, and later to Detroit, Michigan. Her interest in acting developed during high school and led her to the University of Michigan, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in drama in 1934 along with a teaching certificate.

Scott's professional career began immediately after graduation, when she performed with the Globe Theatre Troupe in a series of Shakespeare productions at the Century of Progress world's fair in Chicago in 1934. She subsequently moved to New York City, where she worked in stock stage productions and radio dramas before making her Broadway debut in 1938 in the original staging of Thornton Wilder's Our Town, originating the role of Emily Webb. Her Broadway career spanned from 1938 to 1991 and included productions such as The Skin of Our Teeth, The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker, A Distant Bell, Crucible, and The 49th Cousin. Charlton Heston was a recurring stage collaborator; Scott appeared opposite him in Design for a Stained Glass Window in New York and The Tumbler in London, playing his wife in both productions.

Scott made her film debut in 1940 by reprising the role of Emily Webb in the screen adaptation of Our Town, a performance that earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. She went on to appear in major Hollywood productions over the following decades, including Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956), William Wyler's Ben-Hur (1959), The Desperate Hours, and Airport 1975. In both The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur, she played the mother of Charlton Heston's character.

In 1968, Scott joined Henry Fonda and Robert Ryan in founding a theatrical production company called the Plumstead Playhouse, which later became the Plumstead Theatre Company and moved to Los Angeles. The company produced First Monday in October in both stage and film versions, with Scott serving as co-producer on each. Her final production with the company was Twelve Angry Men, performed at the Henry Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, California.

Scott's television work began in the medium's early years, including a starring role on The Nash Airflyte Theater on November 2, 1950, and guest appearances on Robert Montgomery Presents and two episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. She continued guest appearances through the 1960s on programs including Route 66, Ironside, and The Courtship of Eddie's Father, and served as narrator for the NBC afternoon program Modern Romances in the mid-1950s. In the 1970s she held recurring roles as Bob Newhart's mother on The Bob Newhart Show, as the mother of Colonel Steve Austin on both The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, and as Patricia Shepard on Dallas during its early seasons and again in 1986. From 1986 to 1987 she played Jennifer Talbot on General Hospital for six months until her character was written out. In 1987 she co-starred with Jeffrey Lynn in an episode of Murder, She Wrote that served as a direct sequel to their 1949 film Strange Bargain. Her final television appearance was in the 1990 movie Daughter of the Streets.

Scott was married twice: first to radio producer and announcer Carleton William Alsop from 1940 to 1946, with whom she had a son, Carleton Scott Alsop; and then to jazz pianist and composer Mel Powell from 1946 until his death in 1998, with whom she had two daughters, Mary Powell Harpel and Kathleen Powell. She died on May 28, 2003, in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, at age 90, from natural causes, and was interred beside Powell in the Masonic Cemetery in Jamesport, Missouri. For her contributions to theatre, Scott received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6126 Hollywood Boulevard.