page_title: Mary Martin
section_title: Broadway
hierarchical_section_title: Mary Martin / Broadway
caption_attribution_description: Mary Martin with children, during production of the Broadway musical The Sound of Music.
context_page_description: Mary Virginia Martin was an American actress, singer, and Broadway star. A muse of Rodgers and Hammerstein, she originated many leading roles over her career including Nellie Forbush in South Pacific and Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music. She was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1989. She was the mother of actor Larry Hagman.
context_section_description: Martin was cast in Cole Porter's Leave It to Me!, making her Broadway debut in November 1938 in that production. She became popular on Broadway and received attention in the national media singing "My Heart Belongs to Daddy". With that one song in the second act, she became a star 'overnight'. Martin reprised the song in Night and Day, a Hollywood film about Cole Porter, in which she played herself auditioning for Porter (Cary Grant). "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" catapulted her career and became very special to Martin—she even sang it to her ailing father in his hospital bed while he was in a coma. Martin did not learn immediately that her father had died. Headlines read "Daddy Girl Sings About Daddy as Daddy Dies". Because of the show's demanding schedule, Martin was unable to attend her father's funeral.  In 1943 she starred in the new Kurt Weill musical One Touch of Venus and then Lute Song in 1946.
  As nurse Nellie Forbush, Martin opened on Broadway in South Pacific (musical) on April 7, 1949.  Her performance was called "memorable ... funny and poignant in turns", and she earned a Tony Award. Richard Watts Jr. of the New York Post wrote: "nothing I have ever seen her do prepared me for the loveliness, humor, gift for joyous characterization, and sheer lovableness of her portrayal of Nellie Forbush .... Hers is a completely irresistible performance." She opened in the West End production on November 1, 1951.
  Her next major success was in the role of Peter in the Broadway production of Peter Pan in October 1954 with Martin winning the Tony Award. Martin opened on Broadway in The Sound of Music as Maria on November 16, 1959, and stayed in the show until October 1961. She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. The musical gave Martin "the chance to display her homespun charm". In 1966, she appeared on Broadway in the two-person musical I Do! I Do! with Robert Preston and was nominated for the Tony Award (Leading Actress in a Musical). A national tour with Preston began in March 1968 but was cancelled early due to Martin's illness.
  Although she appeared in nine films between 1938 and 1943, she was generally passed over for the filmed version of the musical plays. She herself once explained that she did not enjoy making films because she did not have the connection with an audience that she had in live performances. The closest that she ever came to preserving her stage performances was her television appearances as Peter Pan. The Broadway production from 1954 was subsequently performed on NBC television in RCA's compatible color in 1955, 1956, and 1960. Martin also preserved her 1957 stage performance as Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun when NBC television broadcast the production live that year.
  While Martin did not enjoy making films, she apparently did enjoy appearing on television as she did frequently. Her last feature film appearance was a cameo as herself in MGM's Main Street to Broadway in 1953. Martin made an appearance in 1980 in a Royal Variety Performance in London performing "Honeybun" from South Pacific. Martin appeared in the play Legends with Carol Channing in a one-year US national tour opening in Dallas on January 9, 1986.
caption: Martin in promotional photo for the original production of The Sound of Music
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