Mary Gross
Mary Gross is an actor, born 1953.
Four seasons on Saturday Night Live, from 1981 to 1985, then a second career playing the nice, slightly fussy woman standing at the edge of somebody else's comedy. Gross, born in Chicago in 1953, has one of the most distinctive instruments in the business: a soft, prim, faintly apologetic voice that makes any line sound like it is being said by somebody hoping not to cause trouble.
The joke, repeatedly, is what she puts inside that voice. Charlotte Elkman in Baby Boom, Judy in Big Business, Annie Herman in Troop Beverly Hills, Vera Maitlin in The Couch Trip, Jackie in Club Paradise: these are women being politely appalled, and Gross times the appalled part beautifully. The film moment most people know is Ms. Daniels in The Santa Clause, a small part played entirely on politeness under strain. Ma Klapper in A Mighty Wind is the sharpest thing she has done in an ensemble that could all improvise.
Television gave her the longest run of the later years, Mrs. Quick in Sabrina, the Teenage Witch from 1997 to 2000, plus a voice career that includes Animaniacs, The Rugrats Movie and Detention.
It is a filmography of small parts, and it is worth being honest that the parts got smaller. What did not shrink is the precision. She never once plays these women as stupid, which is the difference between a supporting comic performance and a punchline.
Movies (16)
- Practical Magic (1998)
- The Rugrats Movie (1998)
- The Santa Clause (1994)
- Mixed Nuts (1994)
- Tremors 3: Back to Perfection (2001)
- Baby Boom (1987)
- 40 Days and 40 Nights (2002)
- Casual Sex? (1988)
- A Mighty Wind (2003)
- Club Paradise (1986)
- The Couch Trip (1988)
- Big Business (1988)
- Troop Beverly Hills (1989)
- Jailbait! (2000)
- The Evening Star (1996)
- There Goes the Neighborhood (1992)
TV (7)
Where to start with Mary Gross
You have probably already met her in The Santa Clause, and it holds up: a couple of scenes played entirely on polite alarm.
The stronger showcase is A Mighty Wind, a film built out of performers who can improvise in character, and she survives that company comfortably. For her eighties run, Big Business and Baby Boom both use her against much louder performers, and Troop Beverly Hills is the one to watch if you want the sweetness weaponised. The Couch Trip and Club Paradise are lesser films with good Gross moments in them. On television, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch gave her the biggest audience of her career and a character built exactly to her strengths, while Animaniacs is the best of the voice work.