By PAM WIGHT Special to the Daily Press
Albert Lea, Minn., is a long way from Hollywood.
But that didn’t stop actress Marion Ross from leaving her tiny home town and forging ahead with her Tinsel Town dreams.
Best known as Mrs. Cunningham on the classic 1970s sitcom “Happy Days,” Ross will be the guest of honor for the annual Christmas lighting ceremony on Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade on Dec. 3. She will officially turn on the holiday lights above the Promenade, which will be lit through January.
Despite growing up in a town of only 15,000 people, far from the bright lights of Hollywood, Ross was determined to someday see her name on the marquee.
“My mother was an Irish-Canadian immigrant who raised me very much on ‘You can be anything,’” Ross said. “I realize now as a grown up that I had a lot of inner drive. I think part of it was being the middle child, and the well child — my brother was crippled in his leg so I was always like, ‘I’ll do it, I’m fine, I’m fine …’ But that gave me tremendous drive. Like, ‘By golly, I’m going to get out of here.’”
Ross’ father worked for the interstate power company, and her mother had been a teacher before concentrating on raising her three children.
She credits her mother’s progressive ideas and active involvement in civic organizations such as the League of Women Voters for planting the first seed of belief that she could aspire to bigger things.
And dream she did, through all of those long, cold Minnesota winters.
“It was a secret that I wanted to be an actress,” Ross said. “My arm would shoot up when a teacher said ‘Who would like to memorize this monologue from Shakespeare?’ I used to think, how would I ever get out? I would read about actors, and it seemed like they were born and then all of a sudden they were famous. I would think, ‘How did they get like this?’”
Rather than a hindrance, Ross believes that dreaming of stardom from afar was what kept her from giving up.
“If I had been raised in Hollywood or Santa Monica, seeing the industry close up, I might have thought, ‘Well, I can’t do this,’” Ross said. “But because I was so far away, I didn’t quite know how impossible it really was.”
When she was in the 12th grade, Ross’ family moved to San Diego.
The following year Ross began attending San Diego State University, where she majored in drama and earned the title of “Most Outstanding Actress” during her freshman year.
While in college, Ross began performing at the renowned Old Globe Theater in San Diego.
After her performance at the La Jolla Playhouse, director Mel Ferrer was impressed enough with Ross to introduce her around Hollywood, and by the time she was 22 years old, she was under contract with Paramount Pictures.
But life was not without its bumps.
At 40 years old, Ross endured a painful divorce and was left with two children to support.
“I had this terrible sense of being a failure because of my divorce,” Ross said. “In fact, I found that I was prejudiced against divorced people, and I would think, ‘Surely you can work on that,’ and, ‘Can’t you just get along?’ And then there I was, and it was like, ‘Look at you Miss Smarty Pants.’”
Now at 76 years old, Ross lives with her long-time companion, actor Paul Michael. She is still busy as a successful actress.
She has recurring roles on “The Gilmore Girls” and as Drew Carey’s mother in the “Drew Carey Show.”
Most recently, Ross managed to squeeze in time to film the 30-year anniversary reunion show of “Happy Days” with the original cast. It will be aired in February.
The Daily Press caught up with Ross at her chalet-style home in the San Fernando Valley.
What made you want to be an actress?
“I don’t know the moment. But I’m always curious about people, especially kids who are like 13. They’re very malleable, and they have a lot of dreams that can get squashed during that uncomfortable teenage period. And maybe if you’re not dating and you’re not the most popular kid in school, you need to find something where you’d be special. I wanted my name on the marquee. There’s this story, when I was 12, I got this little prayer book for my confirmation with my name in gold letters. And it said ‘Marian.’ And I didn’t like the way it looked. I thought this is not going to look good on the marquee. So I changed the spelling to ‘M-A-R-I-O-N.’
“And now I’m the spokeswoman for the town of Marion, Ill. They saw this story on the Internet and asked me to be the spokeswoman, because you know, there’s the water tower with the name ‘Marion’ on it, and the ‘Bank of Marion.’”
What was your most challenging role?
“I think ‘Brooklyn Bridge’ was the most challenging. Because my character was so totally different from me. The director would say it’s a miracle. He said, ‘You walk into your dressing room Marion Ross and you come out Sophie Berger.’ In that show I played a Jewish grandmother.”
How did you prepare for that?
“I would say to Paul, take me down to Canter’s on Fairfax, take me there so I can see those Jewish people, and listen to them talk. I have tremendous sympathy for them. That character was easy in a way … I have a theory that we carry within us the cells of everyone, so as an actor, you can tap into so many different kinds of people. You sap up things. The research is very unconscious. If I’m talking to a clerk or something, I’ll say, ‘Where are you from? What’s your accent? Who are you?’ And my children always say, ‘Mother, you always stare at everybody.’ And I say, ‘I’m sorry, but I’m thinking maybe I’ll play them someday.’ How interesting people are, the way they move, and the way they talk … it’s not always conscious.
“A lot of people aren’t interested in people. They know every dog and horse, and they don’t look at you in the eye. What’s more interesting than someone’s life story? I’ll think, ‘How did you get like you are? Where did you come from?’ It’s fun. In fact, this is an interesting thought. I read that men like to look at pictures of women, like the outside of women, like Playboy magazine, but women, we are worse because we look at the inside. We want to know everything inside of them. Inside their brains. Isn’t that interesting? Talk about a snoop, huh?”
Did you experience any life-altering events in your life?
“Oh, yes. My divorce. I really think you have to hit rock bottom and be broke, and be so up against it that you look at this lump of coal in your hand from every angle and you say, ‘Oh, it’s as bad as that. Well it can’t get any worse, can it? And then how can I make this better? How can I work my way out of this?’ There’s no where to go but up. Just little by little … but you know, I had a wonderful mother, a lot of good background in my life. So I was thinking if a woman was in a jam like that, she might not have that kind of reference. And I was also very spiritual. I was reading the Bible a lot during that time … to rebuild myself.
7AD,“Usually divorce comes after a long wearing down … the sense of failure was kind of a surprise, though. But because I did it, oh, I gained a sense of being indestructible … you’re stronger in the end. Nobody really helped me. My mother would say, ‘Bye darling, you’re going to be just fine.’ I thought what a wonderful attitude. In other words, you can handle it. But I would go on interviews (for parts) … I love this … they always would say, ‘Tell me about yourself.’ They wanted to know your credits, of course. And I would cry and say I’m getting a divorce. And they’d say, here, take the part. It’s a saga. And ‘Happy Days’ of course really saved the day.”
How did you get the part in “Happy Days?”
“Well by then I had been an actress for years and years, and I had stopped a while and had children, and then got divorced. Then I went on an interview to play Ron Howard’s mother on ‘Happy Days.’ And the part consisted of ‘Oh, Howard, you’re not eating.’ That kind of thing. And then the part got better and better and better as the years went on, and we did 11 seasons.”
Do you ever keep in touch with the cast?
“Oh very much. In fact we just filmed the ‘Happy Days’ reunion show, our 30th anniversary show. And it will be on in February. We filmed a softball game, and then we had everybody come here because I call this house ‘Happy Days Farm’ — so I said I want everybody to come, and they said it might be 150 people, and I said, that’s OK, come straight from the ball game, no cleaning up, and when they were all here we had a big party. You know, they’re all so wonderful. Henry Winkler’s a wonderful guy. Ron Howard is a wonderful guy. Tom Bosley is a wonderful man. And Gary Marshall who created the whole thing … In fact he is just now preparing a ‘Happy Days’ musical in which we’ve all been re-cast by younger people. And I saw a version of it a couple of years ago, so it should be very good. And it will have all new music by Paul Williams.
4D5,“We’re all in contact very much.”
Are sitcoms fun to do compared with movies?
“Comedy’s hard. But I like the feel of sitcoms. I play Drew Carey’s mother on his show. I like the family that’s created on the sitcoms, and working together. It’s like you’re making a little play every week. And I like that form. I’m very good at working with other people. There’s a lot of give and take. You’ve got to roll with the punches. Like ‘Friends’ was like that —- my daughter, Ellen Plummer, was writing for ‘Friends.’ That was before she moved on to the new show ‘Joey.’ But it takes a long time before a series is at that point that the audience knows them so well. And they don’t want the show to be over.”
How did you end up being the Santa Monica switch flipper?
“They asked me to do it. It’s wonderful. The older I get, the more I appreciate Christmas. I love the lights. And you get worried a lot because you never think you have enough money. But it’s such a good time to think about who was I with who was wonderful to me? Who should I try to remember? I think it’s better than the New Year for that. I love the festivities and the fact that it makes people think of other people. You know, like Toys for Tots and things like that.”
Do you have any other connection to Santa Monica?
“Do you know that I lived in Santa Monica for the first years of my marriage on Ocean Avenue, along the park … I love Santa Monica. I lived there for five or six years, until I had babies.”
What do you love about it?
“I love the ocean, I love the lifestyle, it’s different from the Valley. But we got more house for the money living in the Valley. But Santa Monica has a great ambiance. It’s more bohemian, more beachy … it feels vacationy. When we first moved there, we went to the beach every day. Every year we went down less and less. But there it is, it’s beautiful. I love the air. It’s always so festive with lots of tourists. There’s always something going on down there.”
Box:
Marion Ross
Age: 76.
Residence: San Fernando Valley.
Hobbies: Gardening, having family around, acting.
Education: San Diego State University, drama.
Family: Long-time companion, Paul Michael, actor; son, Jim Meskimen, actor; daughter, Ellen Plummer, writer for sitcom ‘Joey.’
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 29, 2004. Read the original PDF.