Marsha Mason

Vocation

Family

American actress nominated for an Oscar as Best Actress four times. Mason's father was a printer in St. Louis who worked for the Dept. of Motor Vehicles after his business failed. She attended Catholic school and four years at Webster College. After acting in a production of "Babes in Toyland" in high school, she started taking speech and drama classes. Anxious to leave St. Louis and start her career, she headed for New York in 1964 after college, working in a series of part-time jobs and taking acting classes. She began doing TV commercials which led to a part in a CBS soap opera, "Love of Life." In 1967, she worked in an off-Broadway production of "The Deer Park." The following year she toured for eight months with the national company of "Cactus Flower." Mason married Gary Campbell, a fellow acting student and tenant in New York in 1966. They divorced in 1971 as her movie career was beginning; it was then that she landing a lead in "Blume in Love" by Paul Mazursky. Her next role in "Cinderella Liberty" earned her first Oscar nomination. Feeling the pull of Broadway, she went to New York to audition for Neil Simon's "The Good Doctor." She not only landed the role, but the playwright. She married the prolific playwright in 1973 after a 22-day courtship. Simon's prolific output brought her back to the screen, some of her roles having been written by Simon: "The Goodbye Girl," 1977, "Chapter Two," 1979 and "Only When I Laugh," 1981, all of which earned her additional Academy Award nominations. She and Simon had no kids of their own but she helped raise his two daughters. Following her unanticipated divorce from Simon after ten years, October 1983, she turned to directing plays, starring in TV productions, and writing screen and stage plays. She also loves the sport of car racing. Mason became a disciple of Baba Muktanada after studying theosophy and Judaism. Since 1997, she has been raising herbs as a medicinal farmer in New Mexico. She published her autobiography, "Journey: A Personal Odyssey." In 2001 she began a TV series role in "The Education of Max Bickford." Link to Wikipedia biography