IN September 1946 the great Irving Berlin arrived in Glasgow for the trade screening of Blue Skies, a musical-comedy starring Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby and Joan Caulfield, and for which he had written the music and lyrics.Berlin met Lord Provost Hector McNeill prior to the screening at Green’s Playhouse. He also met two bona fide Scottish stars - Sir Harry Lauder and Mary Gordon (above).
Gordon, a Glasgow-born actress who had long been resident in the United States, starred in a formidable number of films, including several directed by John Ford. Her most celebrated role was as Sherlock Holmes’s housekeeper, Mrs Hudson, in the Basil Rathbone series of Holmes thrillers. Her other films ranged from Bonnie Scotland to Mr Smith Goes To Washington. The IMDb film site notes that she was “often typecast as an Irish mother despite being a native of Scotland. This used to drive Irish film-goers crazy, who could easily detect the Scottish accent.”
On her 1946 visit Gordon made a point of getting re-acquainted with friends and returning to her old haunts in the East End. She recalled singing in the choir at one parish church.
“Ah’m no’ really a star,” she told The Bulletin. “Ah’m just one o’ the small fry, just a character actress in Hollywood. America has been very kind to me, but I’ve had my heartbreaks since I was last here.”
Mary Gordon died in Pasadena, California, in August 1963, aged 81.
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