Mary Kay Place Movies and Career Information

Mary Kay Place (born September 23, 1947) is an American actress, singer, director and screen writer. She is best known as portraying Loretta Haggers on the television series Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, a role which won her a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress - Comedy Series in 1977. Place also recorded one studio album for Columbia Records in the Haggers persona, which included the Top Ten country music hit "Baby Boy." Place was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She graduated from Nathan Hale High School and the University of Tulsa, where her father, Bradley E. Place, was an art professor; she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority and received a speech degree. Place moved to Hollywood with aspirations of becoming an actress and writer. She was hired for The Tim Conway Comedy Hour in the 1970s as a production assistant to both Conway and producer Norman Lear. It was Conway who gave her her first on-camera break, while it was Lear who saw to it that Place received her first writing credit on his subsequent All in the Family. On the episode, she sang “If Communism Comes Knocking on Your Door, Don’t Answer It.” Lear then cast her in the role of would-be country and