Actress. Nicknamed "The Mother of the Movies". Born Mary Kennevan in Germantown, Pennsylvania, she entered films in 1915 after two decades of experience in touring repertory companies. She went on to portray kindly, perennially suffering mothers in scores of silent tearjerkers, notably "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch" (1919) and "Over the Hill to the Poorhouse" (1920), and was an equally stoic grandmother in early talkies. Carr's most visible film today is probably the Laurel and Hardy comedy "One Good Turn" (1931), in which she slyly spoofed her stock in trade; playing an amateur actress rehearsing an old melodrama, she nearly pulls the villain's pants off with her enthusiastic pleas for mercy. Her later appearances were infrequent and she bowed out with a cameo in "Friendly Persuasion" (1956). Among Carr's 140 screen credits are "Light at Dusk" (1916), "Why Men Leave Home" (1924), "The Wizard of Oz" (as Aunt Em, 1925), "Lights of New York" (1928), "Some Mother's Boy" (1929), "Pack Up Your Troubles" (1932), and "East Side of Heaven" (1939). She died at the Motion Picture Country Home at the age of 99. A trivia note: Carr's name can be spotted in the "List of Casualties" scene in "Gone With the Wind" (1939).
Actress. Nicknamed "The Mother of the Movies". Born Mary Kennevan in Germantown, Pennsylvania, she entered films in 1915 after two decades of experience in touring repertory companies. She went on to portray kindly, perennially suffering mothers in scores of silent tearjerkers, notably "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch" (1919) and "Over the Hill to the Poorhouse" (1920), and was an equally stoic grandmother in early talkies. Carr's most visible film today is probably the Laurel and Hardy comedy "One Good Turn" (1931), in which she slyly spoofed her stock in trade; playing an amateur actress rehearsing an old melodrama, she nearly pulls the villain's pants off with her enthusiastic pleas for mercy. Her later appearances were infrequent and she bowed out with a cameo in "Friendly Persuasion" (1956). Among Carr's 140 screen credits are "Light at Dusk" (1916), "Why Men Leave Home" (1924), "The Wizard of Oz" (as Aunt Em, 1925), "Lights of New York" (1928), "Some Mother's Boy" (1929), "Pack Up Your Troubles" (1932), and "East Side of Heaven" (1939). She died at the Motion Picture Country Home at the age of 99. A trivia note: Carr's name can be spotted in the "List of Casualties" scene in "Gone With the Wind" (1939).
Bio by: Bobb Edwards
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