| Birth Name: | Mary Janice Rule |
| Birth Date: | 15 August 1931 |
| Birth Place: | Norwood, Ohio, U.S. |
| Death Place: | New York City, U.S. |
| Occupation: | Actress, psychotherapist |
| Years Active: | 1951–2003 |
| Spouse: | |
| Children: | 2 |
| Alma Mater: | Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute (PhD) |
Mary Janice Rule (August 15, 1931 – October 17, 2003)[1] was an American actress and psychotherapist. Beginning her career as a dancer, she gained early recognition in the original 1953 Broadway production of William Inge's Picnic.
Rule appeared in over 20 films, including Bell, Book and Candle (1958) with James Stewart, The Swimmer (1968) with Burt Lancaster, and Robert Altman's 3 Women (1977) with Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek. Her television work included appearances in The Twilight Zone, Route 66, and The Fugitive.
Rule began studying psychoanalysis in 1973 and received her PhD in 1983, specializing in treating fellow actors. She practiced psychotherapy in New York and Los Angeles and continued to act occasionally until her death in 2003.
Rule was born in Norwood, Ohio, to parents of Irish origin.[2] Her father was a dealer in industrial diamonds.[3] She began dancing at the Chez Paree nightclub in Chicago at age 15, which paid for ballet lessons, and was a dancer in the 1949 Broadway production of Miss Liberty.[4] Rule also studied acting at the Chicago Professional School.
She was pictured on the cover of Life magazine on January 8, 1951, as being someone to watch in the entertainment industry.[5] [6] Gaining a contract by Warner Bros., her first credited screen role was as Virginia in Goodbye, My Fancy (1951), which featured Joan Crawford in the lead. The established star belittled the younger woman, making Rule's work on the film difficult, although Crawford years later wrote a letter of apology to Rule for treating her badly on this film.[4] Rule's Warner contract was allowed to lapse after only two films.[7] She was troubled by the attitude toward women's beauty at the studios in the early 1950s: "Because I was afraid of being robbed of my individuality, I fought with the makeup people, the hairdressers, and I didn't understand problems of the publicity department," she was reported as saying in 1957.[8]
Rule was in the original 1953 Broadway cast of William Inge's Picnic (in the role of Madge Owens, the innocent beauty, played by Kim Novak in the film version),[7] whose company also included Paul Newman in his Broadway debut. This commitment led her to turn down the role ultimately played by Eva Marie Saint in On the Waterfront (1954). "I knew I couldn't shoot in a movie all day and work on a stage at night and do my best in both," she was quoted as saying by Hedda Hopper of the Los Angeles Times in 1966.[8] Among her other Broadway shows were The Flowering Peach, The Happiest Girl in the World, and Michael V. Gazzo's Night Circus, a 1958 production which lasted for only a week,[9] but introduced Rule to Ben Gazzara, who became her third husband.[7]
Her other films in the 1950s included A Woman's Devotion (1956), the Western Gun for a Coward (1957) and Bell, Book and Candle (1958), in which she played the fiancée who loses publisher 'Shep' Henderson (James Stewart) to the spell-casting witch Gillian Holroyd (Kim Novak). On television, she appeared in an episode of Checkmate ("The Mask of Vengeance", 1960), where she played Elena Nardos, the roommate of Cloris Leachman's character, Marilyn Parker. She played Helen Foley in The Twilight Zone S1 E29 "Nightmare as a Child" which aired on April 29, 1960. She appeared as different characters in three episodes of Route 66. She acted as both Barbara Webb and Barbara Wells with David Janssen in two episodes of The Fugitive entitled "Wife Killer" and "The Walls of Night". She also had a major role as Nancy Reade in "Three Bells to Perdido", the debut episode of the Richard Boone western Have Gun – Will Travel. Rule also starred, second billing to Yul Brynner, in the western film Invitation to a Gunfighter (1964).
Among her later film roles were Emily Stewart in The Chase (1966), Sheila Sommers in The Ambushers (1967), Burt Lancaster's bitter ex-lover in The Swimmer (1968), Willie in Robert Altman's 3 Women (1977), journalist Kate Newman in Costa Gavras' political thriller Missing (1982), and Kevin Costner's mother in American Flyers (1985).
Rule had a brief engagement to Farley Granger in 1955.[10] They had appeared in the Broadway play The Carefree Tree in 1955. Next followed a relationship with Ralph Meeker; Meeker had played Hal in Picnic.
Rule was briefly married, during 1955, to television and film writer N. Richard Nash.[11] Her second marriage was to television and film writer Robert Thom in 1956;[12] they had one daughter, Kate, before divorcing in 1961.[13] Her last marriage was to actor Ben Gazzara in 1961, having one daughter together before their divorce in 1979.[3]
In the 1960s, she became interested in psychoanalysis. She began her formal studies in 1973, specialising in treating her fellow actors,[2] and received her PhD 10 years later from the Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute in Los Angeles. She practiced in New York and Los Angeles, and continued to act occasionally until her death from a cerebral hemorrhage in 2003. She was cremated after her death.[14]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1951 | Fourteen Hours | Bit part | Uncredited | |
| 1951 | Goodbye, My Fancy | Virginia Merrill | ||
| 1951 | Starlift | Nell Wayne | ||
| 1952 | Holiday for Sinners | Susan Corvier | ||
| 1953 | Rogue's March | Jane Wensley | ||
| 1956 | A Woman's Devotion | Stella Stevenson | ||
| 1957 | Gun for a Coward | Aud Niven | ||
| 1958 | Bell, Book and Candle | Merle Kittridge | ||
| 1960 | Roxanne | |||
| 1964 | Invitation to a Gunfighter | Ruth Adams | ||
| 1966 | Emily Stewart | |||
| 1966 | Alvarez Kelly | Liz Pickering | ||
| 1967 | Welcome to Hard Times | Molly Riordan | ||
| 1967 | Sheila Sommers | |||
| 1968 | Shirley Abbott | |||
| 1971 | Doctors' Wives | Amy Brennan | ||
| 1971 | Gumshoe | Mrs. Blankerscoon | ||
| 1973 | Kid Blue | Janet Conforto | ||
| 1977 | 3 Women | Willie Hart | ||
| 1982 | Missing | Kate Newman | ||
| 1985 | American Flyers | Mrs. Sommers | ||
| 1985 | Rainy Day Friends | Elaine |
| Year | Title | Episode | Role | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1954 | Jenny Brinker | In "You Are Never Away" from Allegro | ||||
| 1955 | Appointment with Adventure | "Design for Trouble" "Masquerade" | "Girl who helps French dress designer trap men who pirate his designs" | [15] [16] | ||
| 1957 | Schlitz Playhouse of Stars | "The Life You Save" | Lucy Nell Crater | [17] | ||
| 1957 | Playhouse 90 | "Four Women in Black" | Sister Martha | [18] | ||
| 1957 | Wagon Train | "The Zeke Thomas Story" | Maggie | [19] | ||
| 1957 | Have Gun – Will Travel | "Three Bells to Perdido" | Nancy | Pilot episode | [20] | |
| 1960 | Playhouse 90 | "Journey to the Day" | Karen Andrews | [21] | ||
| 1960 | "Nightmare as a Child" | Helen Foley | [22] | |||
| 1960 | Route 66 | "A Lance of Straw" | Charlotte Duval | [23] | ||
| 1961 | Route 66 | "Once to Every Man" | Prudie Adams | [24] | ||
| 1963 | Dr. Kildare | "Whoever Heard of a Two-Headed Doll?" | Lila Gregg | [25] | ||
| 1963 | Route 66 | "But What Do You Do in March?" | Sidney Brookes | [26] | ||
| 1966 | "Wife Killer" | Barbara Wells | [27] | |||
| 1967 | "The Walls of Night" | Barbara Webb | [28] | |||
| 1968 | Journey to the Unknown | "Stranger in the Family" | Paula Wilde | [29] | ||
| 1968 | Shadow on the Land | Captain Everett | TV movie | [30] | ||
| 1969 | Trial Run | Lucille Harkness | TV movie | [31] | ||
| 1971 | Sarah Turner | ABC Movie of the Week | [32] | |||
| 1972 | "The First Day of Forever" | Beverly Landau | [33] | |||
| 1973 | Barnaby Jones | "To Catch a Dead Man" | Diane Stewart | [34] | ||
| 1978 | Barbara Randall | Miniseries | [35] | |||
| 1986 | "Rockabye Baby" | Mrs. Bennett | ||||
| 1989 | Murder, She Wrote | "Alma Murder" | Margaret Stone | |||
| 1992 | "Some Live Like Lazarus" | Anna (age 60) | Final appearance | [36] |
