Mary LaRoche

Mary LaRoche was an American actress and singer who began her career in 1938 with singing and acting roles on Broadway and off Broadway. Born in Rochester, New York, she trained in piano and voice at Rochester's Eastman School of Music and was already acting on radio by age 10. For seven years she appeared in Broadway musical comedies, among them a 1942 staging of The Merry Widow. She later acted in films such as Operation Mad Ball (1957), Run Silent, Run Deep (1958), The Lineup (1958), Gidget (1959), and Bye Bye Birdie (1963). In Gidget she played the mother of Sandra Dee's title character, and in Bye Bye Birdie she played Ann Margaret's mother. On television she made guest appearances in at least 37 series from 1951 to 1977, including Perry Mason, The Twilight Zone, and Gunsmoke. She died in 1999.