Mary Fickett
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| Mary Fickett | |||||||
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| Born | May 23, 1932 Bronxville, New York, U.S. |
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Mary Fickett is an Emmy-winning American actress (b. 23 May 1932 in Bronxville, New York, USA).
Fickett has two children from her three marriages. She has been married to Allen Fristoe (a daytime TV director) since June 1979.
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[edit] Career
Mary Fickett studied acting at New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse under Sanford Meisner and started her television career working in "Television Theatre" programs like Kraft Television Theatre in the 1950s. Her first feature film was Man on Fire alongside Bing Crosby in 1957. In 1958, she received a Tony Award nomination as Best Featured Actress in a Play for her performance in Sunrise at Campobello, opposite Ralph Bellamy.
During the 1960's, she was briefly a part of a forerunner to CBS' The Early Show. The show was Calendar, and she was featured on the show along with host Harry Reasoner. In 1961 she played the role of Sally Smith on The Edge of Night. In 1967, she returned to the show in the different role of Dr. Katherine Lovell and stayed with the show for a year.
[edit] All My Children
In January, 1970, the American Broadcasting Corporation launched its new soap opera All My Children, created by Agnes Nixon. Fickett was an original cast member playing Ruth Parker Brent, a nurse at the local hospital and wife of alcoholic car salesman Ted Brent. Her character quickly found an attraction to the widowed Dr. Joe Martin (Ray MacDonnell). The pair tried to ignore their attraction until Ruth's husband was killed in a car accident. Ruth and Joe married on screen but found their happiness cut short by the Vietnam War. Agnes Nixon had always intended for her soap to deal with important issues of the day, so to facilitate Richard Hatch exiting the role of Phil Brent his character was drafted into service. Ruth became an anti-war protester and made some of the first anti-Vietnam speeches aired on American Daytime Television. This storyline decision, although troubling to television executives at the time, won Fickett the first Emmy Award given to a performer in daytime television, in 1973. She received a Daytime Emmy nomination in 1974 for her performance in a storyline that involved her son being missing in action. This was another milestone for daytime TV, as it was the first time a war scene was aired on daytime television. The audience saw Phil being hit by a bullet and going down, then carried away by a young Vietnamese boy (played by the adopted son of a friend of Agnes Nixon).
Joe and Ruth were happily married, but found they could not conceive a child together. To have the child they always wanted they began proceedings to adopt Tad Gardner, a child that had been abandoned. A problem arose when Tad's father, Ray Gardner, arrived in town wanting money and filed a lawsuit to stop the adoption proceedings. He then tried to extort money from the Martin family, in exchange for stopping the lawsuit. Joe refused to do this and kicked him out of his house, but Ruth called him back saying they could "sort things out." Fickett's second controversial storyline started when Ray showed up in a drunken rage and raped Ruth. She received her second Daytime Emmy nomination for this storyline in 1976.
The character of Ruth, as played by Fickett, and Joe Martin have since became the "tentpole" characters at All My Children, representing the show's history.
[edit] Semi-retirement and retirement
In the mid 1990's Fickett decided that she wanted to slow down her schedule and spend more time with her family. She allowed her contract to expire and expected to go on recurring status, meaning she could still appear on the program but did not have to meet any contractual obligations or minimum number of appearances.
Negotiations with the producers of the program broke down and the soap world was shocked when the role of Ruth Martin was recast with Lee Meriwether taking on the character in 1996. In 1999 Meriwether's agents had communication problems which aggravated the producers of All My Children. This prompted them to go full circle, firing Meriwether and rehiring Fickett on recurring status. She resumed the role of Ruth and supported several front burner storylines including son Tad's romance with Dixie and the breakdown of son Jake (Joe) Martin's marriage to Gillian. After another year, Fickett decided to call it quits from the busy schedule of soap opera acting and retired in December 2000. In 2002, the producers of All My Children wanted to bring Ruth back to the show's canvas but Fickett remained in retirement. Lee Meriwether has been playing Ruth when the occasion calls for it since then.
