Marian Mercer
actress and singer (1935-2011)

Marian Ethel Mercer (November 26, 1935 – April 27, 2011) was an American actress and singer.
Career
Born in Akron, Ohio, Mercer was the daughter of Samuel and Nellie Mercer. She graduated from the University of Michigan, then spent several seasons working in summer stock. She made her Broadway debut in the chorus of the short-lived musical, Greenwillow in 1960.
She drew critical notice for her performance in New Faces of 1962, and won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance, and the Theatre World Award for her performance as Marge MacDougall in Promises, Promises (1968). Additional theatre credits include Hay Fever and the short-lived 1978 revival of Stop the World – I Want to Get Off with Sammy Davis Jr. In 1979, she starred as Deirdre in Bosoms and Neglect.
Mercer was a regular on television, appearing in The Dom DeLuise Show, The Wacky World of Jonathan Winters, The Sandy Duncan Show, A Touch of Grace (starring Shirley Booth), The Andy Williams Show, and the sitcom It's a Living, in which she played piquant restaurant hostess Nancy Beebe Miller. (Mercer was one of four members of the cast who lasted through the series' network and syndicated runs; the others were Gail Edwards, Paul Kreppel, and Barrie Youngfellow). She had recurring roles on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman; its sequel, Forever Fernwood; St.
The public source identifies “Marian Mercer” as actress and singer (1935-2011). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Marian, Mercer and actress.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6761944. VIAF identifies the subject as 61080995. The Library of Congress control number is no00002321. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1935, 2011, 1960 and 1962.
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This entry incorporates text from “Marian Mercer” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.