Biography
Born in Mississippi, Mary Alice is a prolific actress on stage and television who is underutilized in feature films. She got her start with the Negro Ensemble Company and worked off-Broadway for several years. Her theater credits include The Vagina Monologues, A Raisin in the Sun, and Richard III. She received a Tony for her work in Fences and she appeared on Broadway in 1995 in Having Our Say: The Delaney Sisters' First 100 Years.
Alice may be more widely known for her guest appearances on television during the '70s and '80s on shows like
Sanford and Son,
Good Times,
The Cosby Show, and
A Different World. She was also featured on the star-studded TV movie
The Women of Brewster Place, directed by
Donna Deitch, and the HBO miniseries
Laurel Avenue, directed by
Carl Franklin. She eventually won an Emmy for her work on
I'll Fly Away. On the big screen, her breakthrough role came in 1990 with
Charles Burnett's psychological drama
To Sleep With Anger. She played Gideon's wife, Suzie, who is initially suspicious of the sinister Harry, played by
Danny Glover. In the late '90s, Alice found some roles in independent films like Maya Angelou's
Down in the Delta and Chi Moui Lo's
Catfish in Black Bean Sauce. Well into her sixties, she started to play many estranged mothers. She was
Alfre Woodard's mother in
The Wishing Tree, Harold Perrineau Jr.'s mother on the HBO series
Oz, and
Angela Bassett's mother in
John Sayles' ensemble film
Sunshine State. In 2003, Mary Alice joined up with the Wachowski brothers to take over for the late
Gloria Foster (her Having Our Say co-star) as The Oracle in
The Matrix Revolutions. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide