Reta Shaw was an American character actress known for playing strong, working women in film and on many of the most popular television programs of the 1960s and 1970s in the United States. She may be best remembered as the housekeeper, Martha Grant, on the television series The Ghost & Mrs. Muir and as the cook, Mrs. Brill, in the 1964 filmMary Poppins.
Birth and early life
Reta M. Shaw was born in South Paris, Maine, on September 13, 1912, to Edna M. and Howard Walker Shaw. Her father was an orchestra leader. Shaw's younger sister was actress Marguerite Shaw. The daughter and granddaughter of women who believed in spiritualism, Shaw reportedly once told a newspaper interviewer that she had been "brought up on a ouija board." She was a graduate of the Leland Powers School of the Theater in Boston, Massachusetts.
Career
Shaw's first credited appearance on the Broadway stage was in 1947's It Takes Two. She then appeared in Virginia Reel and on Broadway in a comedic role as Mabel in the original production of The Pajama Game in 1954, as well as in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Picnic, and Annie Get Your Gun, the last on tour with Mary Martin. She had featured roles in several motion pictures, including Picnic, The Pajama Game, 'Mary Poppins', Pollyanna, The Ghost And Mr. Chicken, Bachelor in Paradise and Escape to Witch Mountain. She appeared in the first season of The Ann Sothern Show in the role of Flora Macauley, the overbearing wife of Jason Macauley, played by Ernest Truex. She appeared in Pollyanna in 1960 as Tillie Langerlof. In the 1960–61, she played the housekeeper Thelma on The Tab Hunter Show. She played a housekeeper in the 1961-1962 series Ichabod and Me. In 1961, Shaw was cast as Cora in the episode "Uncle Paul's New Wife" of Pete and Gladys, starring Harry Morgan and Cara Williams. In that installment, Uncle Paul is played by Gale Gordon, a semi-regular on the series. Shaw appears in a 1962 episode of the series Outlaws with Barton MacLane. She also plays a comic role for The Lucy Show as a grandmother who sits on a $500 bill that Lucy lost and soon after sits on Lucy's hand in the episode "Lucy Misplaces $2,000". Thereafter, she guest starred in the CBS anthology seriesThe Lloyd Bridges Show. She appears too as the bar hostess Tenney in the 1964 episode "The Richard Bloodgood Story" of the series Wagon Train. Shaw's character of Bertha/Hagatha, a matronly witch, is a recurring character on TV's Bewitched, and she performed as Miss Gormley in an episode of The Brian Keith Show. Shaw plays escaped convict Big Maude Tyler in "Convicts at Large", an episode of CBS's The Andy Griffith Show. She also appears in season four of the comedy series as Eleanora Poultice, the educated voice teacher of Barney Fife. She guest-stars as well as Aunt Clara in the 1965 episode "Return from Outer Space") of Lost in Space. In the 1966 feature filmThe Ghost and Mr. Chicken Shaw portrays the banker's wife and leader of the "Psychic Occult Society," Mrs. Halcyon Maxwell On television, Shaw was seen on Mister Peepers, Armstrong Circle Theater, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Millionaire. In 1965, she appeared on The Dick Van Dyke Show as an unemployment office worker. In 1965, she also appeared in an episode of My Three Sons. She played a housekeeper named Fredocia whom Steve had hired after Bub took a trip to Ireland. That particular episode was Uncle Charley's first appearance. In 1966, she appeared in a bit part on That Girl as a department-store organist. In 1966, she appeared as Bessie, an undercover agent, in the episode of I Spy titled "Lisa". Shaw co-stars on the sitcom The Ghost & Mrs. Muir where she played housekeeper Martha Grant. The show took place in the fictional fishing village of Schooner Bay, Maine while Shaw was born in South Paris, Maine. Shaw also appeared on an episode in season 4 of I Dream of Jeannie titled "Jeannie and the Wild Pipchicks", in which she played a strict dietician who has her innermost inhibition released. In The Odd Couple, she appeared as a nanny who was a former army colonel in the episode "Maid for Each Other", which aired on November 23, 1973. In 1973 she played country nurse Ozella Peterson in the Emergency! episode "Snakebite". In 1974, on Happy Days, she played the babysitter Mrs. McCarthy in the episode titled "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do". Her final performance came in the 1975 film Escape to Witch Mountain in the role of Mrs. Grindley, owner of the orphanage where Tia and Tony are sent after the death of their foster parents. Reta Shaw also appeared in the second season of Barnaby Jones; episode titled, "Death Leap".
