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Mariette Hartley (born Mary Loretta Hartley on June 21, 1940, in Weston, Connecticut) is a prolific American character actress.
She began her career in her teens as a stage actress, coached and mentored by the noted Eva Le Gallienne. Her film career began with Ride the High Country, a classic western with actors Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea; and directed by Sam Peckinpah.
She has worked with Rod Serling and Gene Roddenberry, two famed creators of television and film science fiction. She first appeared in Serling's 1964 The Twilight Zone episode "The Long Morrow". In 1969, she acted in the next-to-last "Classic" Star Trek episode, All Our Yesterdays (1969), under Roddenberry. She appeared in several science fiction films, Marooned (1969), Earth II (1971), and Genesis II (1973), another Roddenberry production.
On television, she portrayed Dr. Claire Morton, the daughter of Leslie Nielsen's character on the primetime adaption of Peyton Place. In 1978, she appeared in the TV series Logan's Run, based on the film of the same name, and in The Incredible Hulk alongside Bill Bixby for two episodes as Dr. Carolyn Fields. For this role, in which she marries the title character, Ms. Hartley won an Emmy Award. Hartley also co-starred with Bixby in the 1983 sitcom Goodnight, Beantown.
During the late 1970s, Hartley also appeared with James Garner in a popular series of television commercials advertising Polaroid cameras. The two actors worked so well together that it was often erroneously supposed that they were married in real life. Her biography contains a photo of her in a T-shirt proclaiming, "I am NOT Mrs. James Garner." Hartley also guest-starred in a memorable episode of Garner's TV series The Rockford Files during this period. The script required them to kiss at one point. Unknown to them, a paparazzo was photographing the scene from a distance. The photos were run in a tabloid trying to provoke a scandal, causing a good deal of attention.
In the 1990s, she toured with Elliott Gould and Doug Wert in the revival of the mystery Deathtrap.
She has spoken in public about her experience of bipolar disorder, and was a founder of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
She is the author of Breaking The Silence with Anne Commire, and stars in her own one-woman show, If You Get to Bethlehem, You've Gone Too Far, currently running in Los Angeles.
Currently, she plays the mother of Courteney Cox's character, Dorothy Spiller, on the hit drama series, Dirt, on FX Networks. Hartley has also had a recurring role on Law and Order: SVU as attorney Lorna Scarry.
Trivia
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Hartley is a granddaughter of American psychologist John B. Watson through Watson's daughter from his first marriage.
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At the end of the ABC TV special "The Halloween That Almost Wasn't" (1979), her character of Winnie the Witch transformed into a lady in red similar to Stephanie Mangano from Saturday Night Fever at a disco dance moments after flying on a broom.
Awards and recognition
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