Mary Newcomb
[citation needed] Newcomb was an advocate for allowing women to vote, giving speeches with Carrie Chapman Catt and Elsie Lincoln Benedict.
Together Alex and Mary rented an apartment at 135 East 56th St. She appeared in “A Woman Disputed” and then again in “The Distant Drum” by Vincent Lawrence at the Hudson Theatre.
At that time J. Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times wrote of her, “Mary Newcomb returning from what seems to have been a retirement of some minor sort makes an unusually sympathetic and appealing character of the wife, a part which is with truth from beginning to end.” She also appeared in “Sign on the Door in by Robert R. Mill in March of 1928.
Among Mary and Alex's good friends and riding partners were Lord and Lady Digby who lived at nearby Minton Magna.
In 1931 Mary starred in another comedy “Supply and Demand”, by Philip and Amiee Stuart at The Theatre Royal, Haymarket.
She starred in her first British film entitled “Frail Women” under Maurice Elvery's direction at Twickingham Studios.
Her personality, and the public, demand that she should.” After “Frail Women”, Julius Hagan signed Mary to a three-year film contract, saying “In my opinion, there is no one of her type to touch her in either England or Hollywood.
“La Voix Humaine” by Jean Cocteau was a twenty five minute telephone monologue preceding another play at the Ambassadors Theatre.
In it she played a highly successful married woman who asserts her right to find romantic satisfaction outside her marriage, as many men do.
As one reviewer summed it up, “It was in that magnificent lonely speech in Rheims Cathedral that Miss Newcomb found her triumph, though in the Inquisition she lost nothing.” In January Mary played Emilia in Shakespeare's Othello and in February she was Phaedra in Hippolytus.
In April Mary replaced Irene Brown as Stella Harringway in “Children to Bless You” at the Duke of York's Theatre with Marjorie Mars as Audrey.
“It was no slavish imitation; a different woman came on the scene without in the slightest destroying the structure of the comedy or even affecting its texture, except, perhaps for the better.” In November she appeared in “Storm Over Europe” by Douglas Jerrold, a play about the restoration of a monarch in an unnamed European country.
In July 1939 Mary was the star attraction in a huge “Spirit of Dorset” women’s pageant that took place at Lulworth Castle.
Mary played the last Abbess of Shaftesbury, Elizabeth Zouche, marking that 1939 was the 400th anniversary of the surrender of the Abbey to the Crown in the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
A review in the Western Gazette stated "Miss Newcomb gave a moving and dignified study of the Abbess and the scene when the crowd pressed around her, many weeping and kneeling to ask her blessing, was poignant.” [6] In September 1939 Mary launched The Mary Newcomb Players, a theater troop that traveled through the South of England and later in Europe to support the war effort by producing plays to entertain the troops.
Her troupe included actors from London and other places, and whenever possible Mary recruited soldiers who were stationed at various bases to take parts in her productions.
In her later years Mary described driving at night during the blackout without headlights down country roads in Southern England to put on performances at obscure bases.
Utterly sincere and unselfconscious, the boys had their audience quiet and listening in two minutes, and held them so – with the help of Mr. O’Neill – for forty.” Among the Players’ other productions were “The Man With A Load Of Mischief”, “French Leave”, “Gas Light”, and “Jealousy”.
In 1943 Mary took her Players to London to raise money to support the troupe's efforts by performing several benefit plays including “A Man With A Load Of Mischief” and Eugene O’Neill's “Days Without End.” After the D- Day landings in Normandy The Mary Newcomb Players traveled to France, Holland, and Belgium to continue their support for the war effort.
This decision was no doubt influenced by her secondary school education under the Sisters of Mercy at Lauralton Hall, and also by her portrayal of St. Joan.
