Mary Grace Canfield obit

She was not on the list.

Mary Grace Canfield dies at 89; character actress was on 'Green Acres'

The New York native also appeared, in movies and in the television shows 'Bewitched,' 'General Hospital' and 'The Love Boat.'

Mary Grace Canfield, a character actress best known as part of the daffy Ralph-and-Alf brother-sister carpenter team on the TV comedy "Green Acres," died Saturday in a Santa Barbara hospice. She was 89.


The cause was lung cancer, her daughter Phoebe Alexiades said.


On "Green Acres," Canfield was Ralph Monroe, who, with her brother Alf, was perennially working on the bedroom of a city slicker couple (Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor) at their newly acquired farm near Hooterville. She was a down-home gal in bib overalls and a white painter's cap worn backward, a funny, plain-spoken woman doing "man's work" before feminism made the term quaint.


The show ran from 1965 to 1971. Looking back at it, Canfield had mixed feelings.


"To be remembered for Ralph kind of upsets me — only in the sense that it was so easy and undemanding," she said in a 2006 interview with the Bangor Daily News in Maine, where she lived for many years. "It's being known for something easy to do instead of something you worked hard to achieve."


Canfield also appeared on TV in "Bewitched," "General Hospital," "The Love Boat" and other shows. In a memorable 1963 episode of "The Andy Griffith Show," she was Gomer Pyle's blind date; the two socially awkward, lovable bumpkins defied everyone's expectations and had a wonderful time, jitterbugging.


Born in Rochester, N.Y., on Sept. 3, 1924, Canfield attended an acting school run by famed teacher Jason Deeter in Rose Valley, Pa.


"I didn't want to go to college because I knew exactly what I wanted to do," she said. "Later, when I asked my parents what they thought of this little skinny girl wanting to be an actress, they said they were so relieved that I wanted to do something.''


Canfield appeared in Broadway and off-Broadway plays before heading to Hollywood. Her early TV shows included "The Hathaways," a 1961-62 sitcom about a Los Angeles couple and their three performing chimps. Canfield played the housekeeper.


Her film work includes a role as the ironically named Angelica, a sourpuss upstairs maid in "Pollyanna" (1960). In "Something Wicked This Way Comes," a 1983 adaptation of a Ray Bradbury story, she plays a seventh-grade teacher whose world is shattered by a diabolical traveling circus.


Canfield lived in Montecito from 1968 to 1984 and then moved to Sedgwick, Maine. She had fallen in love with the state during summer stock productions there years before, her daughter said.


She relocated to Santa Barbara in 2011, when her health was declining.


Her first marriage, to Charles Carey, ended in divorce in 1955.


In addition to daughter Phoebe, Canfield is survived by John Bischof, her husband of 25 years; daughter Alison Carey; and three grandsons.

Filmography

Film

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1959      That Kind of Woman       WAC on Train     Uncredited

1960      Pollyanna            Angelica              

1962      The Interns         Pharmacy Nurse               Uncredited

1963      Come Blow Your Horn    Mildred - Looking for JFK at Party              Uncredited

1967      Don't Make Waves          Seamstress        

1967      The St. Valentine's Day Massacre              Mrs. Doody         Uncredited

1975      Half a House       Thelma

1983      Something Wicked This Way Comes         Miss Foley          

1988      South of Reno    Motel Manager                

1993      Young Goodman Brown                Goody Cloyse     (final film role)

Television

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1954      Goodyear Television Playhouse Frances                 Episode: "Native Dancer"

1955      The Best of Broadway     Liesl       Episode: "The Guardsman"

1956      Robert Montgomery Presents    Abigail Lewis      Episode: "Goodbye, Grey Flannel"

1959      The Play of the Week      Sidonia Episode: "The Waltz of the Toreadors"

1961      Thriller Celia Perry           Episode: "A Good Imagination"

1961–1962          The Hathaways Amanda Allison                 Episodes: "Elinor's Guilt", "TV or Not TV", "The Paint Job", "A Man for Amanda"

1962      Thriller Ally Rose              Episode: "The Hollow Watcher"

1962      Hazel     Miss Simmons   Episode: "Rock-A-Bye Baby"

1962      Poor Mr. Campbell          Grindl    TV movie

1963      The Joey Bishop Show    Mrs. Bennett      Episode: "The Baby Formula"

1963      The Eleventh Hour           Mrs. Dobkin        Episode: "The Middle Child Gets All the Aches"

1963      The Andy Griffith Show Mary Grace Gossage       Episode: "A Date for Gomer"

1964      Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre                Juliet     Episode: "Wake Up, Darling"

1965–1971          Green Acres       Ralph Monroe   Recurring role (41 episodes)

1966      The Farmer's Daughter Alice Goodall      Episode: "Twelve Angry Women"

1966      Bewitched           Harriet Kravitz   Episodes: "Follow That Witch: Parts 1 & 2", "A Bum Raps", "Man's Best Friend"

1967      Vacation Playhouse         Mildred                Episode: "Heaven Help Us"

1970      Adam-12              Susie Fisher        Episode: "Log 135: Arson"

1973      Love, American Style      Bridgette             Episode: "Love and the Games People Play"

1973      General Hospital               Lucille March     TV series, replacement for Lucille Wall

1976      Family   Mrs. Hanley        Episodes: "Coming Apart", "Home Movie"

1978      Tabitha                 Dr. Morrison      Episode: "Paul Goes to New York"

1984      Burning Rage     Nettie McFadden             TV movie

1985      Alice      Ruthie   Episode: "The Night They Raided Debbie's"

1990      Return to Green Acres   Ralph Monroe   TV movie

1993      The Jackie Thomas Show               Jane       Episode: "Aloha, Io-wahu"