Meet Mary Gordon: Glasgow's first film star actress who starred in 300 Hollywood films

Mary Gordon featured in over 300 films, she’s one of Glasgow’s earliest and most accomplished film actors, and most Glaswegians in 2024 don’t even know her name.

Gordon was a legend in her day, beloved in both Glasgow and Hollywood, now time has seen her overshadowed by the likes of Gerard Butler, Peter Capaldi, and James MacAvoy.

Born in May 1882, Mary was brought up in Bridgeton and she worked as a dressmaker in the city before chasing the bright lights of Hollywood.

At the same time she showed a great interest in the theatre, spending her free time as a concert singer as well as in her local church choir.

She separated from her husband during the First World War and decided she could make a better life for herself and her young daughter in America.

Shortly after the end of the First World War she made her way to Los Angeles, with her mother and daughter, at this point only in her early 20s. She got work where she could, in travelling theatres, on Broadway, in small-scale productions, but it was only later in life that she made a name for herself.

After decades of hard graft, including time as a chartered actor in the Hollywood Canteen entertaining servicemen throughout the Second World War - she became one of Hollywood’s first ‘character actors.’

A character actor is an actor that plays essentially one type of role - think modern actors that get typecast as policemen or lawyers - her role was that of the mother. Often she was typecast as an Irish mother, as most of the American audience couldn’t tell the difference between a Scottish and Irish accent.

She would star alongside some of the biggest stars of the era, Laurel and Hardy, James Stewart, Cary Grant, Mae West, and Katharine Hepburn to name just a few.

Her biggest role was that of Sherlock Holme’s housekeeper, Mrs Hudson, in the Basil Rathbone series of detective movies - in total she starred in 10 films in the role and further radio plays.

She starred in over 300 films between 1925 and 1950. She would return to Glasgow only once after moving to America, in 1946.

According to a now lost news source, the Glasgow Bulletin, she was mobbed by fans anywhere she went in the city while she went about her business meeting old friends and returning to sing in her church choir.

She told the Glasgow Bulletin: “Ah’m no’ really a star

“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 died a star, passing away from a long illness after a long and happy life in 1963 in Pasadena, California.

Mary’s relative, Alison Kerr, who has researched her life story says: “She took her daughter and her mother and set off to make a new life in a new continent - what a woman! I am working on getting her a plaque.”