Mary Carver

Mary Carver, born Mary Carvellas on May 3, 1924, in Los Angeles, California, was an American actress whose professional career extended across more than six decades. She attended Hollywood High School and later Los Angeles City College before embarking on a stage and screen career that would take her from Broadway to film and television. She died on October 18, 2013, at her home in Woodland Hills, California, at the age of 89, survived by her two daughters.

Carver's Broadway career ran from 1951 to 1980 and included three productions. She made her Broadway debut in Out West of Eighth in 1951, returned to the stage in The Shadow Box in 1977, and appeared in Fifth of July during the 1980s. Beyond Broadway, she also taught in the theater department at the University of Southern California.

Her film work began with From Here to Eternity in 1953 and continued across several decades, encompassing Pay or Die (1960), I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1977), Protocol (1984), Best Seller (1987), Arachnophobia (1990), and Safe (1995). On television, she accumulated an extensive list of credits, including The Donna Reed Show, Gunsmoke, Lux Video Theatre, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Lou Grant, The Rockford Files, Mannix, McCloud, Quincy M.E., Mary Hartman Mary Hartman, Star Trek: Enterprise, ER, The Guardian, and The Twilight Zone. Her most sustained television role was that of Cecilia Simon on Simon & Simon, a matriarch she portrayed across 153 episodes and eight seasons from 1981 to 1989.

In 1952, Carver married film director Joseph Sargent. The couple had two daughters, Athena Sargent and voice actress Lia Sargent, before divorcing in 1968.