Mary Anne McGarry

Mary Anne McGarry was an actress born in Cincinnati, Ohio, who began performing at fourteen. Her first professional part was Irena in Chekhov's Three Sisters at the Gaslight Theater in St. Louis. She called theater her drug of choice and worked across the United States as an actor, director, writer, and producer. While building a stage career, she studied at Universite Laval, Cambridge University, and St. Louis University, and earned a theater and film doctorate from Northwestern University. She later led the MFA acting program at UC Irvine. Her stage credits included six seasons with South Coast Repertory, plus the Mark Taper Forum, Pasadena Playhouse, Steppenwolf, and Chicago's Court Theaters. She moved into television and film in 1988 and was fired from the first season of Roseanne alongside George Clooney. The Los Angeles Times named her solo show Honeymoon in Galway among the year's best. She died in 2023.