Mary Hatcher

Mary Hatcher (June 6, 1929 – April 3, 2018) was an American coloratura soprano, actress, and songwriter born in Haines City, Florida. Her career encompassed Broadway, film, and live performance across roughly a decade before she retired from show business in 1952.

Hatcher was the daughter of William Frank Hatcher. Her early exposure to performance came through weekly radio broadcasts featuring operatic and classical repertoire. Ralph Polk, an employer of her father, heard these broadcasts and provided financial support for her professional voice training, which included study at the Gardner School for Girls and at the school of Queens Mario of the Metropolitan Opera. By 1944, the family had relocated to California, and Paramount Pictures signed Hatcher to a seven-year contract that August.

Her stage career began before her film work was underway. At fifteen, she was cast as Laurey in a road production of Oklahoma!, and her Paramount film debut was postponed by a year to allow her to complete that tour. During the Oklahoma! tour, she married fellow cast member James Alexander, who played Curley, in Seattle on August 12, 1946; Alexander was playing Curley opposite her Laurey at the time. Because Hatcher was seventeen and lacked her parents' consent, her father had the marriage annulled. She later appeared in an extended Broadway run of Oklahoma! as well, during which the local Tampa press noted she had recently been performing alongside Howard Keel in the production.

Hatcher's film career ran from 1946 to 1951 and encompassed eight pictures. Her debut was an uncredited appearance as a chorus girl in M-G-M's Till the Clouds Roll By in 1946. Her first credited screen role came the same year, playing Dibs Downing in Our Hearts Were Growing Up. A second uncredited role followed in The Trouble with Women in 1947. That same year, Paramount cast her in one of the two title roles in Variety Girl, an all-star revue whose loose plot followed two young women attempting to break into the film industry, with their experiences on the Paramount lot serving as a framework for cameo appearances by studio contract players including Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Gary Cooper, Paulette Goddard, and Burt Lancaster. In 1948, she appeared in Isn't It Romantic? as the sister of Veronica Lake's character. Her film output peaked in 1949 with two starring roles: The Big Wheel, an auto racing film featuring Mickey Rooney and Thomas Mitchell, and Holiday in Havana, a Latin-themed musical in which she appeared opposite Desi Arnaz.

Also in 1949, Hatcher made her Broadway debut in Texas, Li'l Darlin', Johnny Mercer's musical in which she played Dallas Smith, the female lead. The production opened to a mixed reception and ran for 293 performances. Her Broadway credits additionally include Oklahoma!

On May 9, 1949, Hatcher married comedian Herkie Styles in St. Louis; Styles was performing with Benny Goodman's orchestra at the time. In February 1951, the two appeared together as headliners at the El Rancho Vegas Hotel in Las Vegas on a bill that also featured Benny Goodman. That same year, Hatcher starred as Maid Marian in Tales of Robin Hood and visited Tampa to perform with Styles at the Skyline Room of the Bayshore Royal Hotel. She declined an offer to play Alice Kramden in The Honeymooners. Her marriage to Styles ended, and on September 23, 1951, she married drummer Alvin Stoller in Westwood, California. She subsequently left show business in 1952, though she occasionally appeared on television and composed songs during her retirement. She remained married to Stoller until his death in 1992.

Hatcher died on April 3, 2018, at a hospital in Riverside, California, from bile duct cancer, at the age of 88. Her death was announced by her grandson John Stoller. She was survived by a brother, two children, six other grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.