Mary Welch

Mary Welch (1922 – May 31, 1958) was an American stage actress on Broadway.

Biography and career Welch was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1922, later growing up in San Diego. She attended UCLA, where she won awards as a drama student. At UCLA, she earned degrees in English literature and drama. Welch later moved to New York in 1944, where she starred in her first Broadway play as Jo in an adaptation of Little Women. In 1947, she was a part of the Theatre Guild's play A Moon for the Misbegotten. She starred in the first production of A Streetcar Named Desire in 1947, replacing Kim Hunter. Welch later starred in The Solid Gold Cadillac (1953) and then was a part of Sunrise at Campobello (1957) at the time of her death.

Welch appeared in a few episodes of TV dramas in the 1950s, and in one notable movie role. In Park Row (1952), written and directed by Samuel Fuller, Welch plays the tough newspaper publisher who is the main character's rival... and then romantic interest. In his autobiography, Fuller said of Mary Welch, "She was a beautiful, self-possessed woman with an inner strength that shone through her personality."

Personal life and death Mary Welch was married to the actor David White. Welch died on May 31, 1958, at Mount Sinai Hospital from an internal hemorrhage that started while she was pregnant with her second child. She was a patient at the hospital for several weeks.

At the time of her death, she was performing in the production Sunrise at Campobello. In 2005, journalist Laura Shea wrote in The Eugene O'Neill Review, "While a significant, if temporary, weight gain is not beneficial to one's health, it is unlikely that this played a role in her untimely death over ten years after A Moon for the Misbegotten.