Mary Jackson (actress)


Mary Jackson was an American character actress whose nearly fifty-year career began in 1950 and was spent almost entirely in television. She is best known for the role of the lovelorn Emily Baldwin in The Waltons and was the original choice to play Alice Horton in the daytime soap opera Days of Our Lives, playing the part in the unaired pilot. The role was instead given to Frances Reid.

Biography

Jackson was born in the village of Milford, Michigan on November 22, 1910. She attended Western Michigan University where she earned a bachelor's degree 1932.
She worked for one year as a schoolteacher during the Great Depression before pursuing her interest in theatre.
She returned to college, enrolling in Michigan State University's fine arts program and subsequently beginning her performing career in summer stock theatre in Chicago. She embarked on a television career in New York City in the 1950s, during the first Golden Age of Television, before beginning work in Hollywood in the 1960s.
Always close to her Michigan roots, Jackson was a charter member of the Milford Historical Society. In 1988, Jackson was instrumental in raising money to rebuild the Oak Grove Cemetery Bridge over the Huron River - a bridge that connects her hometown of Milford to its oldest burial grounds. Jackson was buried there following her death from Parkinson's disease in Los Angeles, two-and-a-half weeks after her 95th birthday. She was survived by her husband of 68 years, Griffin Bancroft Jr., to whom she was married from July 4, 1937.

Select filmography

1950s