Mariclare Costello was born on February 3, 1936, in Peoria, Illinois. Her father, Dallas, worked as a civil engineer for the Illinois Department of Transportation and her mother, Margaret, was a secretary to the Illinois Speaker of the House. Mariclare Costello went to St. Mark School and the Academy of Our Lady in Peoria. She then attended Clarke College in Dubuque, Iowa. During her junior year, she spent time at the University of Vienna. She received a Master's degree in Theatre and Education from Catholic University in Washington.
She was one of the 30 actors selected from literally hundreds to be chosen for the original Lincoln Center Repertory Company. In 1964 she made her Broadway debut, originated the role of Louise in the Arthur Miller play After the Fall. In the Sixties, she appeared on Broadway in But for Whom Charlie, The Changeling, Tartuffe, Danton's Death, The Country Wife, Lovers and Other Strangers, and Harvey. She made her movie debut in The Tiger Makes Out in 1967. She appeared in the movie Pound (1970). She made her television debut in an episode of N.Y.P.D. in 1969. She also guest starred on Storefront Lawyers.
It was in 1972 that she began a five year run playing Miss Rosemary Hunter, the teacher at the school on Walton's Mountain, on The Waltons. In 1977 she left the show to play the matriarch Maggie Fitzpatrick on the short-lived drama The Fitzpatricks.She was a regular on the shot-lived Western Sara. She guest starred on the shows Ironside, Kojak, Amy Prentiss, Harry O, Sunshine, Barnaby Jones, This is the Life, The Incredible Hulk, Insight, NBC Special Treat, Visions, Lou Grant, and Little House on the Prairie. She appeared in such TV movies as The Execution of Private Slovik and After the Fall (based on the play and on which she reprised her role as Louise). She appeared in the movies Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971), Raid on Entebbee (1976), and Ordinary People (1980).
In the Eighties, she guest starred on Lou Grant; Fame; Murder, She Wrote; The Disney Sunday Movie; CBS Schoolbreak Special, CBS Summer Playhouse, In the Heat of the Night, and Santa Barbara. She appeared in the movie The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984).
In the Nineties, Mariclare Costello appeared in the movie Indecent Proposal (1983). She guest starred on the shows High Tide, Chicago Hope, and Judging Amy. Her last guest appear on a TV show was on Providence in 2002.
Mariclare Costello taught acting at Loyola Marymount University, and headed the drama program at St. Paul the Apostle Elementary School in Westwood. She directed plays at Loyola High School.
That Mariclare Costello was a talented actress can be seen in what may be two best known roles. As teacher Rosemary Hunter on The Waltons, she was both compassionate and strong-willed, always an advocate for her students. In Let's Scare Jessica to Death, she played a role as far from Rosemary Hunter as one can get, the rather menacing and vampiric Emily. In the Murder, She Wrote episode "Powder Keg" she played hotel owner Cassie Burns. On the Incredible Hulk episode "No Escape" she played the wife of a mental patient who escaped after David Banner hulked out in the van in which they were being transported. Mariclare Costello could play a variety of roles and play them all well.
No comments:
Post a Comment