Mary Jackson (November 22, 1910 – December 10, 2005) 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.[1][better source needed]
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.[6]
Jackson appeared on Broadway in such hits as “Kiss and Tell” and “Eastward in Eden,” was standby for
Wendy Hiller in “Flowering Cherry” on Broadway, playing the role twice. She toured nationally in “Apple of His Eye” with Edward Arnold, and in “The Heiress” with
Basil Rathbone. Jackson was a member of the Chicago company of
Tennessee Williams' “Garden District” and also toured with the play; was featured with
Shirley Booth in Chicago in “The Desk Set.” (Jackson would later be a guest star on Booth's TV show, Hazel.) Her many stock engagements included the Ann Arbor Spring Festival, Bucks County Playhouse, Ogunquit Playhouse, Alley Theatre in Houston. For the 1962 and 1963
Summer stock seasons she performed at the
Elitch Theatre.[7]
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.[8] Jackson was buried there [citation needed] 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 since July 4, 1937.[9]