| Ann Doran | |
|---|---|
 Ann Doran appeared as Nurse Meg Cratty in the Season 2 episode "The Trial of Henry Blake". | |
| Personal Information | |
| Birthname: | Ann Lee Doran |
| Gender: | Female |
| Born: | July 28, 1911 |
| Birthplace: | Amarillo, Texas, U.S. |
| Died | September 19, 2000 (aged 89) |
| Death Location | Carmichael, California, U.S. |
| Occupation/ Career: |
Actress |
| Years active: | 1922–88 |
| Series connection | |
| Appeared on/Involved with: | M*A*S*H |
| Character/appeared as: | Nurse Meg Cratty |
| Episode appearances/ Involved with: |
"The Kids" in Season 5 |
Ann Lee Doran (July 28, 1911 – September 19, 2000) was an veteran TV/film character actress.[1] She made a guest appearance in the Season 5 episode of the CBS-TV series M*A*S*H titled "The Kids" as Nurse Meg Cratty, who ran an orphanage near the camp. She replaced Hope Summers in the role, with Summers having played the nurse in the Season 2 episode "The Trial of Henry Blake"
Film career
Born in Amarillo, Texas, Doran began acting at the age of four. She appeared in hundreds of silent films under assumed names to keep her father's family from finding out about her work. Rarely in a featured role (with the exceptions of Jean Andrews in Rio Grande (1938) and James Dean's dominating mother in Rebel Without a Cause (1955)), Doran appeared in more than five hundred motion pictures and one thousand episodes of television shows, such as the American Civil War drama Gray Ghost.
Doran worked as a stand-in, then bit player, then incidental supporting player. By 1938 she was under contract to Columbia Pictures, where the company policy was to use the members of its stock company as often as possible. Thus, Doran appears in Columbia's serials (such as The Spider's Web and Flying G-Men), short subjects (including those of The Three Stooges, Charley Chase, Andy Clyde, and Harry Langdon), B features (including the Blondie, Five Little Peppers, and Ellery Queen series), and major feature films. She became a favorite of Columbia director Frank Capra and appears in many of his productions. Most of these appearances were supporting roles, although she did play leads in Columbia's Charley Chase comedies of 1938-40.
When Columbia launched the boy-and-his-dog Rusty series in 1945, Doran was cast and prominently featured when she took over the role in 1947. Although the actor playing the boy's father changed several times, Doran continued constant as the boy's mother beginning with her first entry in the series, FOR THE LOVE OF RUSTY (Columbia, 1947). Her steady, sensible maternal roles led to her being cast as James Dean's mother in Rebel Without a Cause.
Television
Doran guest starred on many television programs, including three appearances in the role of Bonnie Landis in the CBS legal drama, The Public Defender, starring with fellow Texan Reed Hadley. She appeared in the religion anthology series, Crossroads in the 1956 episode "The White Carnation", along with Elinor Donahue, James Best, and J. Carrol Naish.
Doran was cast in the CBS children's western My Friend Flicka, the story of a boy and his horse on a Wyoming ranch. She also appeared in episodes of Ray Milland's CBS sitcom Meet Mr. McNutley and Kenneth Tobey's syndicated aviation adventure series, Whirlybirds. Doran guest starred on CBS's Perry Mason in "The Case of the Prodigal Parent" (1958), "The Case of the Lurid Letter" (1962), and "The Case of the Drowsy Mosquito" (1963).
Doran was cast twice in 1959-1960 in episodes of the ABC/Warner Brothers western series, Colt .45, starring Wayde Preston.
In 1960, she was cast as Martha Brown, the mother of horse rider Velvet Brown (Lori Martin) in the NBC family drama National Velvet. Arthur Space played her husband, Herbert Brown. She made one appearance on ABC's McHale's Navy as Mrs. Martha "Pumpkin" Binghampton, wife of Captain Binghampton (Joe Flynn).
Three years later, she appeared in the 1965-1966 season of the 34-episode ABC western series, The Legend of Jesse James as Zerelda James Samuel, the mother of Jesse James and Frank James.
Later years and death
Doran continued to work in movies and television until shortly before her death of natural causes at the age of eighty-nine. She bequeathed $400,000 to the Motion Picture Country House, the retirement home for the movie industry.
Selected filmography
| Film | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Film | Role | Notes |
| 1922 | Robin Hood | Page to Richard | Uncredited |
| 1934 | Servants' Entrance | Marie, the Maid | Uncredited |
| 1936 | Mr. Deeds Goes to Town | Girl on Bus | Uncredited |
| Palm Springs | Schoolgirl | Uncredited | |
| 1937 | Paid to Dance | Rose Trevor | Alternative title: Hard to Hold |
| 1938 | Penitentiary | Blanche Williams | |
| You Can't Take It With You | Maggie O'Neill | ||
| 1939 | Blind Alley | Agnes | |
| The Man They Could Not Hang | Betty Crawford | ||
| Three Sappy People | Party guest | ||
| 1940 | His Girl Friday | Newspaper Office Worker | Uncredited |
| 1941 | Sun Valley Serenade | Waitress | Uncredited |
| 1942 | They All Kissed the Bride | Helene - the Drew's Maid | Uncredited |
| 1943 | So Proudly We Hail! | Lt. Betty Peterson | |
| Air Force | Mrs. Mary Quincannon | Uncredited | |
| 1944 | Mr. Skeffington | Maria, a nursemaid | Uncredited |
| 1945 | Pride of the Marines | Ella Mae Merchant | Alternative title: Forever in Love |
| 1946 | The Strange Love of Martha Ivers | Bobbi St. John | |
| 1947 | My Favorite Brunette | Miss Rogers | |
| 1948 | Pitfall | Maggie | |
| 1949 | The Kid from Cleveland | Emily Barrows Novak | |
| 1950 | Never a Dull Moment | Jean Morrow | |
| 1951 | The People Against O'Hara | Betty Clark, Policewoman | |
| 1952 | Rodeo | Mrs. Martha Durston | |
| 1953 | Island in the Sky | Moon's wife | Uncredited |
| 1954 | Them! | Child Psychiatrist | Uncredited |
| 1954 | The High and the Mighty | Mrs. Joseph | |
| 1955 | Rebel Without a Cause | Carol Stark | |
| 1955 | The Desperate Hours | Mrs. Walling | Uncredited |
| 1957 | Shoot-Out at Medicine Bend | Sarah Devlin | |
| 1958 | The Deep Six | Elsie - Mike's Wife | Uncredited |
| 1958 | It! The Terror from Beyond Space | Mary Royce | |
| 1959 | A Summer Place | Mrs. Talbert | Uncredited |
| 1963 | Captain Newman, M.D. | Mrs. Pyser | Uncredited |
| 1964 | The Brass Bottle | Martha Kenton | |
| 1964 | Kitten with a Whip | Mavis Varden | |
| 1965 | Mirage | Tenant in Apartment 3R | Uncredited |
| 1966 | Not with My Wife, You Don't! | Doris Parker | |
| 1967 | The Hostage | Miss Mabry | |
| 1968 | Live a Little, Love a Little | Landlady | Uncredited |
| 1969 | The Arrangement | Nurse Costello | |
| 1970 | There Was a Crooked Man... | Mrs. Lomax | |
| 1971 | The Hired Hand | Mrs. Sorenson | |
| 1976 | The Gumball Rally | Mrs. Ontley | |
| 1981 | All Night Long | Grandmother Gibbons | |
| 1986 | Wildcats | Mrs. Chatham | Alternative title: First and Goal |
| Television | |||
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1952 | Adventures of Superman | Mrs. King | 1 episode |
| 1953 | the Danny Thomas Show | Teacher | 1 episode |
| 1954 | Ramar of the Junge | Irene Loring | 1 episode |
| 1955 | Brave Eagle | Whispering Grass | 1 episode |
| 1956 | Father Knows Best | Dorothy Tyler | 1 episode |
| 1957 | December Bride | Miss Moore | 1 episode |
| 1958 | M Squad | Mrs. Rainey | 1 episode |
| Perry Mason | Mrs. Claire Durrell in "The Case of the Prodigal Parent" | 1 episode | |
| 1959 | Frontier Doctor | Ma "Dallas" Bell | 1 episode |
| Bourbon Street Beat | Mary Dumont | 1 episode, "The Tiger Moth" | |
| 1960 | Wagon Train | Aunt Lizzie | 1 episode |
| 1963–1970 | The Virginian | Various | 5 episodes |
| 1965 | McHale's Navy | Mrs. Binghamton | 1 episode |
| 1966–1967 | Hey, Landlord | Marcy Banner | 2 episodes |
| 1968 | The Guns of Will Sonnett | Margaret Stover | 1 episode |
| 1970 | The Bold Ones: The Lawyers | Mrs. Grimbi | 1 episode |
| 1970 | Ironside | Dora Copeland | 1 episode |
| 1971–1972 | Longstreet | Mrs. Kingston | 23 episodes |
| 1973 | Emergency! | Mrs. Perigrew and Hannah | 2 episodes |
| 1973 | Barnaby Jones | Nurse Nora Randall | 1 episode |
| 1974 | The Rookies | Mrs. Coleman | 1 episode |
| 1974 | Wikipedia:Little House on the Prairie | Mrs. Tyler | 1 episode |
| 1975 | M*A*S*H | Nurse Meg Cratty | 1 episode |
| 1978 | Wikipedia:Fantasy Island | Emma Howard | 1 episode |
| 1979 | Wikipedia:Eight Is Enough | Ms. Ryder | 1 episode |
| 1980 | Shriley | Charlotte McHenry | 13 episodes |
| 1982 | Wikipedia:Father Murphy | Abby | 1 episode |
| 1983 | Tales of the Unexpected | Mary Deacon | 1 episode |
| 1984 | Wikipedia:Knots Landing | Mercy | 1 episode |
| 1985 | Highway to Heaven | Mrs. Bradley | 2 episodes |
| 1986 | Wikipedia:Trapper John, M.D. | Mrs. McAndrew | 1 episode |
| 1987 | The Twilight Zone | Mrs. Clark | 1 episode |
| 1988 | Hunter | Mrs. Rawling | 1 episode |
References
- ↑ Ann Doran, 89, Character Actress. The New York Times (October 03, 2000).
External links
Ann Doran at the Internet Movie Database- All Time Rebel {1955-2005 | 50th Anniversary} (Archived 2009-10-25)
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