haverpopper wrote:I was just looking at the FAQ and noticed that Mary has a real sister named Babe!!! I had always assumed that the mere existence of Babe was part of the Mary Livingstone legend, along with her being from Plainfield, New Jersey. So what did the real Babe think of being made fun of so often?
An interesting note is that Babe actually looked almost like a twin sister of Mary. So all those stories about her being a large or mannish woman were completely untrue. Someone once told me that in the family, most people thought that Babe was prettier than Mary!
haverpopper wrote: I love Mary, but could you pinpoint her "character"?
It evolved over time. She started off in the "dumb" role, with her being ultimately hired as Jack's secretary and an on-air romance between them in 1932. Then by the late 30s, she was a flirt. By the 1940s, she was an acid counterpart. There were always lines here and there about her being Jack's "girlfriend", although he went out with other women, like Gladys Zybysko. And Jack does things like hang mistletoe over the door so that he can kiss her when she comes in (usually ending up kissing Dennis or someone else instead).
George Burns said that he retooled his show with Gracie into a show about married life because people knew they were married and not just chasing each other. Jack and Mary never had that problem, but I think that people accepted the characters as a sort of implied "couple" since they were married in real life. And Mary's sarcastic comments even smack a bit of the Bickersons.