Margaret Field (née Margaret Joy Morlan; May 10, 1922 – November 6, 2011) was an American film actress usually billed as Maggie Mahoney after her marriage to actor Jock Mahoney. The mother of actress

Sally Field Sally Margaret Field (born November 6, 1946) is an American actress. She has performed in movies, Broadway theater, television, and made records of popular music. Known for her extensive work on screen and stage, she has received many accola ...

, she was best known for her work in two science-fiction films, '' The Man from Planet X'' (1951) and '' Captive Women'' (1952) and played dozens of roles in various television series.

Early years

Margaret Joy Morlan was born on May 10, 1922, in

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

, the daughter of Joy Beatrice (née Bickeley) and Wallace Miller Morlan. Late in the 1930s, her family and she moved to

Pasadena, California Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commerci ...

Career

Margaret Field-Jock Mahoney in Yancy Derringer

Field was discovered at the

Pasadena Playhouse Pasadena Playhouse is a Tony Award-winning historic performing arts venue located 39 S. El Molino Avenue in Pasadena, California. The 686-seat auditorium produces a variety of cultural and artistic events, professional shows, and community engag ...

by talent scout Milton Lewis for

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation, commonly known as Paramount Pictures or simply Paramount, is an American film production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the flagship namesake subsidiary of Paramount ...

. Following a successful screen test, she was offered an 18-month contract. She then attended Pasadena Junior College, studying voice training and acting, while acting in films. Early in her career, she acted in a series of ''Musical Parade''

short film A short film is a film with a low running time. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of not more than 40 minutes including all credits". Other film o ...

s for Paramount and had small roles in 26 full-length films from 1946 to 1953. She appeared, often more than once, in television series, among which were two roles as defendants on the

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

drama series '' Perry Mason''. In 1959, she played title character Eva Martell in "The Case of the Borrowed Brunette". In 1960, she played Linda Osborne in "The Case of the Nine Dolls". Other television appearances included a 1950 episode of ''

The Lone Ranger The Lone Ranger is a fictional masked former Texas Ranger who fought outlaws in the American Old West with his Native American friend Tonto. The character has been called an enduring icon of American culture. He first appeared in 1933 in a ...

'' entitled "Greed for Gold", ''

Wagon Train ''Wagon Train'' is an American Western television series that aired for eight seasons, first on the NBC television network (1957–1962) and then on ABC (1962–1965). ''Wagon Train'' debuted on September 18, 1957, and reached the top of the ...

'', ''

Bonanza ''Bonanza'' is an American Western television series that ran on NBC from September 12, 1959, to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 431 episodes, ''Bonanza'' is NBC's longest-running Western, the second-longest-running Western series on ...

'', '' The Virginian'', '' The Range Rider'', '' Yancy Derringer'' starring her husband Jock Mahoney, '' To Rome With Love'' starring

John Forsythe John Lincoln Forsythe ( Freund; January 29, 1918 – April 1, 2010) was an American stage, film/television actor, producer, narrator, drama teacher and philanthropist whose career spanned six decades. He also appeared as a guest on several t ...

, '' Lawman'' starring Barry Sullivan and Clu Gulager, '' Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse'', and the 1963 '' Twilight Zone'' episode " The New Exhibit", among many others. She also appeared in the

science-fiction film Science fiction (or sci-fi) is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, mutants, i ...

s ''Captive Women'' and ''The Man from Planet X''. In February 1956, Field co-starred with her husband Jock Mahoney in the ''

Death Valley Days ''Death Valley Days'' is an American Western (genre), Western anthology series featuring true accounts of the American Old West, particularly the Death Valley country of southeastern California. Created in 1930 by Ruth Woodman, the program was ...

'' episode "Swamper Ike".

Personal life

In 1942, Field married Richard Dryden Field, an Army officer, and had two children with him: television and film actress

and physicist Richard D. Field. On January 21, 1952, Field married actor Jock Mahoney in

Tijuana, Mexico Tijuana is the most populous city of the Mexican state of Baja California, located on the northwestern Pacific Coast of Mexico. Tijuana is the municipal seat of the Tijuana Municipality, the hub of the Tijuana metropolitan area and the most popu ...

, thereafter billed in her acting work as "Maggie Mahoney". Together they had a daughter, Princess, a director of television shows including '' ER'' and '' Shameless''. Field and Mahoney divorced in June 1968.

Death

Field, aged 89, died of cancer at her home in Malibu, California, on November 6, 2011, which was her daughter Sally Field's 65th birthday.Margaret Field, Actress and Mother of Sally Field, Dies at 89
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Filmography

Selected television

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Field, Margaret 1922 births 2011 deaths American film actresses American television actresses Deaths from cancer in California Actresses from Houston 21st-century American women