Mary Walter
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mary Walter (1908 or 1912 — February 25, 1993) was a Filipino actress whose film career spanned 8 decades which saw her transformation from a romantic lead in the silent film era into a wizened fixture in horror movies in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
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[edit] Film career
Born to an American father in what is now Sorsogon City, Sorsogon, Walter began her film career as a bit player, Walter first came into fame in 1927, when she starred in Ang Lumang Simbahan, staged from the popular novel by Florentino Collantes. Her leading man in that film was Gregorio Fernandez, with whom she would be romantically paired in a succession of silent films, constituting perhaps the first "love-team" in Filipino cinema.
After appearing in many silent films, Walter easily made the transition when sound film emerged in the Philippines in the mid-1930s. She was among the stars who appeared in the 1942 LVN film Prinsipe Teñoso, the only film produced by a Filipino film studio during the Japanese Occupation.
In 1948, after a 21-year film career, Walter retired to her hometown in Sorsogon. Ten years later, she was induced to act again, and she appeared in LVN's Kastilaloy. Now in her forties, she was cast as matrons or mothers. As she further aged, Walter became one of the most identifiable character actresses in Philippine cinema. Fair, petite and gaunt, she became inalienably identified in grandmother roles. A chain-smoker, her gravelly voice made her ideally cast in villainous roles, most prominently in the 1974 Lino Brocka film Tatlo, Dalawa, Isa. By the 1980s, she was a memorable presence in popular horror films such as Shake, Rattle and Roll (1984) and Tiyanak (1988).
Walter never retired again after returning to film in 1958. She died on February 25, 1993.
[edit] Trivia
- Contrary to what is published in her IMDB biography, Walter was not the actress engaged in the first kissing scene in Philippine cinema. The distinction falls to Dimples Cooper, who kissed Luis Tuason in the 1926 film Ang Tatlong Hambog.
[edit] External link
[edit] Reference
- Garcia, Jessie B. (2004). A Movie Album Quizbook. Iloilo City, Philippines: Erehwon Books & Magazine, p. 202-203. ISBN 971-93297-0-X.
