Film & TV / Theatre & dance
Mary Jackson
1910–2005 · character actress
Milford-born character actress, Miss Emily Baldwin of The Waltons, who stayed close to her Oakland County village and is buried there.
- Born
Milford, Michigan- Died
Los Angeles, California
aged 95- Detroit years
- 1910–1930s
- Field
- Film & TV, Theatre & dance
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Mary Jackson was born in the village of Milford, in western Oakland County, on November 22, 1910. She graduated from Western Michigan University in 1932 and taught school for a year during the Depression before following her interest in theater, enrolling in Michigan State's fine arts program and starting out in summer stock in Chicago. She spent years in regional theater, touring with Tennessee Williams's Garden District and appearing at the Ann Arbor Spring Festival, and only turned to screen work in 1950, when she was nearly forty. Almost all of her fifty-year career was in television, and she is best known as Miss Emily Baldwin, the gentle, lovelorn of the two elderly Baldwin sisters on The Waltons (1972–1981). She never lost her Michigan roots: she was a charter member of the Milford Historical Society, and after her death in Los Angeles in 2005 she was buried in Milford's Oak Grove Cemetery.
Highlights
- Miss Emily Baldwin on The Waltons (1972–1981)
- Original choice for Alice Horton in the unaired Days of Our Lives pilot
- Began in summer stock after a year as a Depression-era schoolteacher
- Charter member of the Milford Historical Society
- Buried in Oak Grove Cemetery, Milford
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 2
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Founded · charter member
Milford Historical Society
Jackson was a charter member of the society, which runs the local history museum in Milford.
Buried here · 2005
Oak Grove Cemetery (Milford)
Her grave is in her hometown's cemetery.