Mary Pat Gleason of GL
Credit: Image: Jill Johnson

Prolific film and television actress passes away.

Mary Pat Gleason, a character actress with over one hundred film and television credits, has passed away at the age of 70 on June 2. The cause of death was cancer according to a statement on her Facebook page. The actress had been in hospice for the past several months.

Gleason was born in Lake City, Minnesota. She was an actress and writer and known her roles in Intolerable Cruelty, The Crucible and A Cinderella Story. She got her start playing Doris Hodges in an episode of the NBC soap opera Texas in 1982 and later Jane Hogan for a year on CBS’s Guiding Light. She also wrote for the soap opera and won a Daytime Emmy as part of the writing team. She later appeared as Mother Superior on an episode of General Hospital in 2002 and as one of a trio of witches on NBC’s Passions in 2007.

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On television she made a career as a character actor, appearing on shows such as Full House, Murphy Brown, Will & Grace, Highway to Heaven, Who’s the Boss, Night Court, LA Law, Sister Sister, The Blacklist and Nip Tuck among others. She also has recurring roles on Desperate Housewives as Elenora Butters, 1600 Penn as Patty the presidential assistant and most recently a Mary, an Alcoholics Anonymous member, on Mom.

On film she had roles in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Basic Instinct, Bruce Almighty, 13 Going on 30, The Island, and Killing Kennedy and Nina. Her final film role was as Mary Williams in the yet-to-be-released Pencil Town. The film stars Johanna Brady, William Moseley, Bill Cobbs and Paul Dooley. The movie focuses on a ruthless corporate raider in New York who is forced to return to his small-town roots when he suddenly inherits his father’s nearly bankrupt pencil factory, which is the heart and soul of the depressed community.

Our thoughts are with Gleason’s friends and family at this time. Browse a gallery of other daytime stars we’ve lost in 2020.

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