Mary Kay Place

Mary Kay Place (born September 23, 1947) is an American actress, singer, director, and screen writer. She is best known for portraying Loretta Haggers on the television series Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, a role that won her a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress - Comedy Series in 1977. Place also recorded one studio album for Columbia Records in the Haggers persona, which included the Top Ten country music hit "Baby Boy." --- Place was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She graduated from Nathan Hale High School and the University of Tulsa, where her father, Bradley E. Place, was an art professor; she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority and received a speech degree. Place moved to Hollywood with aspirations of becoming an actress and writer. She was hired for The Tim Conway Comedy Hour in the 1970s as a production assistant to both Conway and producer Norman Lear. Conway gave her her first on-camera break, while Lear saw to it that Place received her first writing credit on his subsequent All in the Family. On the episode, she sang “If Communism Comes Knocking on Your Door, Don’t Answer It.” Lear then cast her in the role of would-be country and western star Loretta Haggers on the satirical soap opera Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976–1977). She won an Emmy Award for her work as Loretta, and was later nominated for a Grammy Award for her spin-off musical album Tonite! Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman was one of the biggest cult television programs of all time. The show ended when Louise Lasser left the show in 1977, but the remaining cast stayed on for one more year to tape Forever Fernwood. The series ended with Loretta finding out Charlie was not sterile immediately before giving birth to quintuplets conceived by artificial insemination. While working on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, Place also wrote scripts for several TV situation comedies, including The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Phyllis and M*A*S*H, usually in collaboration with Linda Bloodworth-Thomason (who would later create Designing Women).