Mary LaRoche (also often credited Mary La Roche; July 20, 1920 – February 9, 1999) was an American actress and singer best known for her roles in the feature films Gidget (1959) and Bye Bye Birdie (1963) and for her performances as a guest star and supporting character on American television series between the early 1950s and mid-1970s, including on such popular series as The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Perry Mason, and Gunsmoke.
Mary LaRoche
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| Born | Mary Catherine La Roche (1920-07-20)July 20, 1920
Rochester, New York, U.S.
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| Died | February 9, 1999(1999-02-09) (aged 78)
Rochester, New York, U.S.
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| Alma mater | Eastman School of Music |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1939–1977 |
| Spouses |
(m. 1941; div. 1947)
(m. 1967) |
Born in Rochester, New York in 1920, Mary was the youngest of three daughters of Catherine R. (née Carney) and William P. La Roche. Her mother was of Irish descent, although she too had been born in New York.[1] Her father, a native of Canada, supported the family working as the manager of a local hotel and later as the proprietor of a restaurant in Rochester.[1][2] Mary received training in piano and voice at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester and by age 10 she was already acting on radio programs.[3] She gained additional acting experience in Rochester with the Community Players[4] and the Paddy Hill Players.[5] In 1939, La Roche (later LaRoche) was a sectional winner in the radio talent-show competition Gateway to Hollywood.[5]
LaRoche began singing and acting on and off Broadway in 1938. Over the next seven years she appeared in a number of Broadway musical comedies, including the 1942 operetta The Merry Widow[6]byFranz Lehár. She later was cast in various feature films during the 1950s and 1960s, including in the role of a singer in Catskills Honeymoon in 1950; Operation Mad Ball in 1957; Clark Gable's love interest in 1958's Run Silent, Run Deep; The Lineup, also released in 1958; Gidget in 1959, in which she portrays the mother of Sandra Dee's title character; The Ladies Man in 1961; Bye Bye Birdie in 1963, playing the part of Ann Margaret's mother; and The Swinger in 1966.
LaRoche was very active too in television, usually in guest appearances in single episodes of a television series. She began performing on television as early as 1946, when she was part of a two-person skit that was broadcast on WBKB-TV in Chicago.[7] Then, between 1951 and 1977, she appeared in at least 37 different television series, including five appearances on Perry Mason, two episodes of The Twilight Zone and an episode of The Streets of San Francisco in 1976. One of LaRoche's more complex and dramatic characterizations on television is in the one-hour 1963 episode of Gunsmoke titled "Quint-Cident". In that episode of the classic Western, in a central role opposite Burt Reynolds, she portrays a beleaguered and mentally exhausted widow trying to survive alone on an isolated farmstead in Kansas during the late 1870s.
LaRoche was married to actor John Hudson[8] and to actor-producer Sherwood Price.[9]
