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Mary Anne McGarry held dual citizenship in the US and Ireland. She was born to Irish-American parents in Cincinnati, Ohio. She began acting when she was 14 years old; and her first professional role was Irina in Chekhov's "Three Sisters" at St. Louis' Gaslight Theater. She describes theater as her drug of choice: in order to assure a steady supply, she acted, directed, wrote, and produced theater across the USA.
For years, she had parallel careers in theater and academia: she studied at Quebec's Universite Laval, Britain's Cambridge University, St. Louis University (USA), and had a theater/film Ph.D from Northwestern University. She was the former head of the MFA acting program at UC Irvine. Theater credits include 6 seasons with the Tony award-winning South Coast Repertory; the Mark Taper Forum of Los Angeles, the Pasadena Playhouse, Steppenwolf, Northlight Rep, and Court Theaters of Chicago; DC's Folger Theater, NYC's Public Theater, People's Light & Theater Co (PA), Sacramento Theater Company, and her own summer Shakespeare Festival in Geneva, Illinois.
In 1988, she began working in TV and film. She held the distinction of being fired, along with George Clooney, from the first season of "Roseanne", for reasons known only to Roseanne Barr. After that temporary setback, she worked with many wonderful people.
Her one-woman show, "Honeymoon in Galway", was named "Best of the Year" by the Los Angeles Times, and was in development for film, with Arthur Lappin as Exec Producer. Her screenplay, "Craving for That Kind of Love," set in Harlem and London in the 1920s, is in development for UK television. Her first mystery novel, "Homicide Nun", featured an Irish nun as a reluctant homicide detective, transplanted to Riverside, California.
Her family included her daughter, three grandchildren, and three siblings.
