Mary La Roche

Mary La Roche (also credited as Mary LaRoche; July 20, 1920 – February 9, 1999) was an American actress and singer who worked across Broadway, film, and television over a career spanning several decades. She is perhaps best remembered for her appearances in the feature films Gidget (1959) and Bye Bye Birdie (1963) and for extensive guest work on American television series from the early 1950s through the mid-1970s.

Born in Rochester, New York, La Roche was the youngest of three daughters of Catherine R. (née Carney) and William P. La Roche. Her mother, of Irish descent, had also been born in New York, while her father was a Canadian native who worked first as a hotel manager and later as a restaurant proprietor in Rochester. La Roche studied piano and voice at the Eastman School of Music and was performing on radio programs by the age of ten. She accumulated further acting experience through Rochester's Community Players and the Paddy Hill Players. In 1939, she placed as a sectional winner in the radio talent competition Gateway to Hollywood.

La Roche's Broadway career ran from 1938 to 1944. Her first credit was The Girl from Wyoming (1938–1939), a musical comedy in which she appeared as one of the Cow-Belles. She subsequently appeared in two musicals in 1942: The New Moon, with music by Sigmund Romberg, in which she played a nightclub singer, and The Merry Widow, an operetta with music by Franz Lehár and an original book by Victor Léon and Leo Stein adapted by Adrian Ross, in which she again performed as a singer. Her final Broadway credit was Laffing Room Only (1944–1945), with music and lyrics by Burton Lane, in which she played Sonya, a nightclub singer. Beyond Broadway, La Roche performed the role of Nellie Forbush in a 1953 Australian production of South Pacific.

Her film career began with Catskill Honeymoon (1950), in which she played a nightclub singer. Subsequent film roles included Operation Mad Ball (1957); Run Silent, Run Deep (1958), in which she portrayed Laura Richardson, the love interest of Clark Gable's character; and The Lineup (1958), in which she played Dorothy Bradshaw. In Gidget (1959), she appeared as Mrs. Dorothy Lawrence, the mother of Sandra Dee's title character. Later film credits included The Ladies Man (1961), Bye Bye Birdie (1963) — in which she played Doris McAfee, the mother of Ann-Margret's character — and The Swinger (1966).

La Roche began working in television as early as 1946, when she participated in a two-person skit broadcast on WBKB-TV in Chicago. Between 1951 and 1977, she appeared in at least 37 different television series. Among her recurring appearances, she was featured five times on Perry Mason between 1958 and 1963, each time in a different role. She appeared in two episodes of The Twilight Zone: "A World of His Own" in 1960 and "Living Doll" in 1963. Her television work also included an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in 1963, two episodes of Gunsmoke, and a 1976 episode of The Streets of San Francisco. In the Gunsmoke episode "Quint-Cident" (Season 8, Episode 33), she played Willa Devlin, a widow struggling to survive alone on an isolated Kansas farmstead in the late 1870s, in a central role opposite Burt Reynolds. She also appeared in two two-part episodes of The Wonderful World of Disney — "A Boy Called Nuthin'" (1967) and "The Wacky Zoo of Morgan City" (1970) — as well as in the television films The Family Kovack (1974) and Brinks: The Great Robbery (1976). La Roche was married to actor John Hudson and to actor-producer Sherwood Price.