Yes, Mary Lackie was an amateur actress, one tiny aspect of this remarkable lady, but that only means that she did not belong to Equity, the actors’ union. Her dedication and performances on stage and behind the scenes were professional in all respects. How I wish video existed back then! She auditioned for me when I was directing at the Edyth
Bush Theater in St. Paul. Her demeanor, her voice, and her enthusiasm won her the role AND a Volkswagen Beetle. I would have been under pressure to cast her had I known before I made my selection that Frank had bet her a car if she auditioned and got the part.
That was the evening the Lackies and their four beautiful little urchins came into my life, a relationship long treasured.
Rehearsals were always illuminating and Mary came with her home made treats more often than not. We partied at their big, comfortable home from time to time. At a cast party, Mary wowed us with thinly sliced pork tenderloin with mustard sauce as an hors d’oeuvre. That very treat became a party standard in our home for the next forty plus years, always conjuring up the image of Mary.
We shared a keen interest in antiques. I once admired an old eight sided office clock hanging in her kitchen. About two weeks later, we did lunch and then in “the beetle,” drove to a home down on the other side of the Highland Park water tower in St. Paul.
Mary had scoured the town and found that the homeowners had a similar clock for sale and she wanted me to see it. That clock still hangs in our home in Chicago.
When I moved on to the University of Minnesota from the Bush Theater, Mary presented me with the most cleverly framed collage composed of bits and pieces of our time together at the theater. It still hangs in the library at my farm in Michigan. Some years later after the death of Edyth Bush (she, the wife of Archibald Bush, one of the founders of 3M of Minnesota), I received a large package in the mail along with a four page letter, in long hand angling up the page from left to right (Mary’s trademark?) telling me that now was the time to write that book about that St. Paul socialite, the second rate actress who received a little theater as a gift from her wealthy husband. In that envelop were clippings, photographs, and pages of research that Mary had done for just such a project. The book never got written. We were always going to get to it. Perhaps now is the time to put it all together.
I was now living in Chicago and soon the Lackies moved to Georgia. My partner, Roger Olson and I drove down for a visit. The house, no, the home on Haven Ridge was MARY. It was fabulous, reflecting her flair for design just as she had done in St. Paul. The old eight sided clock was there and that magnificent elongated chandelier in the hallscreamed “genius!” I hope that chandelier followed her to Panama City and finally to Redlands, but I doubt it. We got a royal tour of Atlanta, visited the Civil War Dioramas, and dined at Aunt Fanny’s Cabin with its resin baked potatoes…three wonderful days.
Those halcyon days in St. Paul still sustain me, especially now that Frank, Roger and now Mary are gone. Thanks for the memories dear, dear Mary. Sweet sleep.
Sherwood
28 February 2010
