Mary Loretta "Mariette" Hartley (born June 21, 1940) is an American character actress.
Hartley was born in Weston, Connecticut, the daughter of Mary Ickes "Polly" (née Watson), a manager and saleswoman, and Paul Hembree Hartley, an account executive. Her maternal grandfather was psychologist John B. Watson (through Watson's daughter from his first marriage) and her maternal grandmother was the sister of politician Harold L. Ickes. In her autobiography, Breaking The Silence, written with Anne Commire, Hartley talked about her struggles with psychological problems, pointing directly at Watson's practical application of his theories as the source of the dysfunction in his family. She has also spoken in public about her experience of bipolar disorder, and was a founder of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
Hartley began her career in her teens as a stage actress, coached and mentored by the noted Eva Le Gallienne. Her film career began with Ride the High Country (1962), a western with actors Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea; and directed by Sam Peckinpah. She also had a supporting role in Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie (1964).
Hartley with Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley in Star Trek
She has worked with Rod Serling and Gene Roddenberry, two famed creators of television and film science fiction. She first appeared in Serling's 1964 The Twilight Zone episode "The Long Morrow". In 1969, she acted in the next-to-last Star Trek episode, "All Our Yesterdays". She appeared in several science fiction films, Marooned (1969), Earth II (1971), and the pilot for the post-apocalyptic Genesis II (1973), another Roddenberry production.
On television, she portrayed Dr. Claire Morton, the daughter of Kent Smith's character on the primetime adaption of Peyton Place. In 1978, she appeared in the TV series Logan's Run, based on the film of the same name, and in The Incredible Hulk alongside Bill Bixby in two episodes. As Dr. Carolyn Fields, she marries the title character; for her performance, Hartley won an Emmy Award. Hartley appeared in an episode of M*A*S*H as Dr. Inga Halverson. She also co-starred with Bixby in the 1983 sitcom Goodnight, Beantown. In 1979, she portrayed the Witch in ABC's holiday telefilm The Halloween That Almost Wasn't (aka The Night Dracula Saved The World).
During the late 1970s, Hartley also appeared with James Garner in a popular series of television commercials advertising Polaroid cameras. The two actors worked so well together that it was often erroneously supposed that they were married in real life. Her biography contains a photo of her in a T-shirt proclaiming, "I am NOT Mrs. James Garner." Hartley also guest-starred in a memorable episode of Garner's TV series The Rockford Files during this period. The script required them to kiss at one point. Unknown to them, a paparazzo was photographing the scene from a distance. The photos were run in a tabloid trying to provoke a scandal, causing a good deal of attention. (An article that ran in TV Guide was titled, "That woman is not James Garner's wife!")
In the 1990s, she toured with Elliott Gould and Doug Wert in the revival of the mystery Deathtrap. Hartley stars in her own one-woman show, If You Get to Bethlehem, You've Gone Too Far, currently running in Los Angeles. In addition, she plays Dorothy Spiller, the mother of Courteney Cox's character on the hit drama series, Dirt, on FX Networks and is featured as Ceptembre Sage Weller in Guruyouu.com's Shhh ... a spoof based on "The Secret" DVD. Hartley has also had a recurring role on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as Lorna Scarry.
