Kathryn Card

Who was Kathryn Card?

Kathryn Card was an American radio, television and film actress who may be best remembered for her role as Mrs. McGillicuddy, Lucy's mother on I Love Lucy.

Born in Butte, Montana, Card did radio roles in the late 1930s, notably Uncle Walter's Doghouse, broadcast on NBC from 1939 to 1942. Her first screen credit was in 1945 for her role as Louise in the Corliss Archer movie Kiss and Tell, starring Shirley Temple as Corliss Archer. The next year she appeared in Undercurrent with Robert Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, and Robert Mitchum. Then, in 1949, Card gave an interesting albeit brief performance as an extremely polite but no-nonsense loan processor for prospective borrower Joan Bennett in The Reckless Moment.

Card also had a small role as a landlady of The Oleander Arms Hotel in the 1954 Warner Brothers remake of A Star Is Born. Her part consisted of one scene early in the film when movie actor Norman Maine is desperately trying to find Esther Blodgett, a girl singer he had only met briefly. Shortly after the movie's release, Warner Brothers made extensive cuts of the film and Card's role was deleted entirely until 1983 when film historian Ronald Haver found the original monaural three-hour soundtrack along with most of the missing footage and restored the scenes. Even though Card's scene with James Mason had been preserved aurally, there was no existing footage or stills of their scene together, so Haver "manufactured" stills of the scene using another actress to stand in for Card to accompany the dialogue with Card and Mason on the soundtrack.