One night
when I apparently had too much (way too much) time on my hands, I decided that
there was no reason that I couldn’t link any Hollywood actor by six degrees to
Mary Kay Place. Most folks are aware of the silly parlor game “The Six
Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” connecting him to just about any other actor by no
more than six co-stars, any two having worked together in one film.
So, I started thinking about two of my favorite old Hollywood
actors and easily came up with these examples of the Mary Kay Six Degrees
potential.
Rita Hayworth
>Lady from Shanghai
Orson Welles
>Citizen Kane
Joseph Cotten
>Shadow of a Doubt
Teresa Wright
>The Rainmaker
Mary Kay Place
Montgomery Clift
>Lonelyhearts
Maureen Stapleton
>Reds
Diane Keaton
>Annie Hall
Woody Allen
>Bananas
Louise Lasser
>“Mary Hartman, Mary
Hartman”
Mary Kay Place
Then I started getting some random names out of the back of my
film guide.
Christopher Lee
>The Three Musketeers
Geraldine Chaplin
>A Wedding
Carol Burnett
>The Four Seasons
Alan Alda
>A New Life
Mary Kay Place
Bela Lugosi
>The Raven
Vincent Price
>The Ten Commandments
Anne Baxter
>The Magnificent
Ambersons
Joseph Cotten
>Shadow of a Doubt
(sorry that I got redundant)
Teresa Wright
>The Rainmaker
Mary Kay Place
Ava Gardner
>The Barefoot Contessa
Humphrey Bogart
>To Have and Have Not
Lauren Bacall
>The Mirror Has Two
Faces
Jeff Bridges
>Jagged Edge
Glenn Close
>The Big Chill or Nine
Lives or The Safety of Objects
Mary Kay Place
Jerry Lewis
>The King of Comedy
Robert DeNiro
>New York, New York
Mary Kay Place (I had no idea that this one would be so easy to
get.)
So, since that one turned out to be easier than I’d expected, I
decided to try my Kevin Bacon game ender. Of course, I was cheating all
the way here with my film guide, and at parties we don’t allow such luxuries.
Anyway, here was my most difficult connection.
Fatty Arbuckle
>Our Congressman
Will Rogers
>Judge Priest
Hattie McDaniel
>Since You Went Away
Jennifer Jones
>Ruby Gentry
Karl Malden
>The Cincinnati Kid
Ann-Margaret
>A New Life
Mary Kay Place
Then, I went back to some random choices.
Trevor Howard (I don't really even know who he is.)
>Mutiny on the Bounty
Marlon Brando
>The Young Lions
Dean Martin
>Pardners
Jerry Lewis (so easy to fall on the above mentioned crutch)
>The King of Comedy
Robert DeNiro
>New York, New York
Mary Kay Place
Paul Henreid
>Now, Voyager
Bette Davis
>Hush…Hush, Sweet
Charlotte
Agnes Moorehead (yes, I skipped the Joseph Cotten thing; Citizen
Kane’s too easy)
>Alice Through the
Looking Glass
Nanette Fabray
>Harper Valley P.T.A.
Ronny Cox
Now, here, I could end it with Bound for Glory in which Mary Kay
Place appeared, but instead I wanted to see what else I could do and came up
with six degrees by using
>Robocop
Kurtwood Smith
>Citizen Ruth or Girl,
Interrupted
Mary Kay Place
(and wasn’t Robocop worth it?)
Richard Kiel (He was in Eegah! for any “MST 3K” fans out there.)
>So Fine
Ryan O’Neal
>What's Up Doc?
Barbra Streisand
>The Mirror Has Two
Faces
Jeff Bridges
>King Kong
Jessica Lange
>How to Beat the High
Cost of Living
Dabney Coleman
>“Mary Hartman, Mary
Hartman” or Modern Problems
Mary Kay Place
OR...
>How to Beat the High
Cost of Living
Fred Willard
>“The History of
White People in America” or Sweet Home Alabama
Mary Kay Place
(I purposefully went a different route than the Glenn Close
thing since it becomes such a crutch once you divine a path.)
And to end this inanity, here’s the near-mandatory Kevin Bacon
connection. There are probably more than 100 routes to link the two
actors, but the easiest, and certainly the shortest, is:
Kevin Bacon
>Starting Over
Mary Kay Place
These are co-stars with whom Mary Kay has worked often:
Alan Alda – “M*A*S*H;” A New Life; “The West Wing”
Anne Archer – Leslie’s Folly; Waltz Across Texas
Bess Armstrong – “My So-Called Life;” Pecker
Orson Bean – Being John Malkovich; “Forever Fernwood;” Just My Imagination;
“Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman”
Candice Bergen – Starting Over; Sweet Home Alabama
Eileen Brennan – “The History of White People in America;” “Portrait of a White Marriage;” Private Benjamin
Bill Campbell – “Further Tales of the City;” “Tales of the City”
Pamela Tice Chapman – Death and Texas; The Rainmaker
Glenn Close – The Big Chill; Nine Lives; The Safety of Objects
Dabney Coleman – “Forever Fernwood;” “Mary Hartman, Mary
Hartman;” Modern Problems
Chris Cooper – Bed of Lies; Silver City
Claire Danes – The Rainmaker; “My
So-Called Life”
Laura Dern – Citizen Ruth; Smooth Talk
Olympia Dukakis – “Further Tales of the City;” “Tales of the City”
Charles Durning – Death and Texas; Leslie’s Folly; Starting Over
Clea DuVall – Committed; Girl, Interrupted; How to Make the
Cruelest Month
Hector Elizondo – “Chicago Hope;” Samantha
Ethan Embry – How to Make the Cruelest Month; Sweet Home Alabama
Tippi Hedren – Citizen Ruth; Teresa’s Tattoo
Christine Lahti – “Chicago Hope;” Crazy from the Heart; Judgment
Day: The Ellie Nesler Story; My First Mister (directed Mary Kay)
Jared Leto – Girl, Interrupted; “My So-Called Life”
Laura Linney – “Further Tales of the City;” “Tales of the City”
Martin Mull – “The History of White People in America;” “Portrait of a White Marriage;” “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman”
Dermot Mulroney – Bright Angel; The Safety of Objects; Samantha
Brittany Murphy – Girl, Interrupted; “King of the Hill”
Ken Olin – Telling Secrets; “thirtysomething”
Martha Plimpton – Eye of God; Pecker; Samantha
Burt Reynolds – Citizen Ruth; Starting Over
Wayne Rogers – The Girl Who Spelled Freedom; “M*A*S*H;” Nobody
Knows Anything
Mickey Rourke – Act of Love; The Rainmaker
John Shea – Leslie’s Folly; A New Life
Harry Shearer – “The History of White People in America;” “Portrait of a White Marriage” (also directed Mary Kay in these HBO
movies)
Jean Smart – Just My Imagination; Sweet Home Alabama
Kurtwood Smith – Citizen Ruth; Girl, Interrupted
Lili Taylor – Bright Angel; Pecker
Sam Wanamaker – “Baby
Boom” (Mary Kay directed him on the “Baby
Boom” TV series); Private Benjamin
Fred Willard – “Forever Fernwood;” “The History of White People in America;” “Portrait of a White Marriage” Killer Diller; Nobody Knows Anything
I think that Fred gets the award for the most individual titles
associated with Mary Kay Place.
She has worked with director Lisa Krueger twice in Committed and
Manny & Lo. She also worked with writer Charlie Kaufman twice for
Being John Malkovich and Human Nature.
