- Born
- Died
- Birth nameMary Irene Weaver
- Mary Dodson was born on September 24, 1932 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. She was an art director, known for Thief (1981), Murder, She Wrote (1984) and Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack (1979). She was married to Jack Dodson. She died on February 15, 2016 in Woodland Hills, California, USA.
- SpouseJack Dodson(August 28, 1959 - September 16, 1994) (his death, 2 children)
- RelativesFritz Weaver(Sibling)
- Widow of Jack Dodson.
- Moving from New York, Mary Weaver had been at the NBC's Network Studios as a Union #829 member Scenic Designer. New York's Network standard credit for art direction was designated as a Scenic Designer. In Los Angeles, Mary transferred by accepting Milt Altman's various job offers at the Burbank NBC Studio. John Shrum was the Art Director on "Days of Our Lives" (day-time drama soap pilot and subsequent series). Mary took over Art Direction duties on the series "Days Of Our Lives" relieving Shrum to accept other Network assignments. Mary Dodson joined "IATSE #876 - The Society of Motion Pictures and Television Art Directors". Mary was the first woman to become a member of this male dominated membership roster. (Note: #876 became #800, The Art Directors Guild. This consolidated representation, putting crafts under one umbrella, initiated by the International IA Board, now includes all art department related personnel including: Set Designers, Continuity-story Board Artists, Matt Artists, Set Illustrators, Scenic Artists, Graphics and Sign Painters).
- Working as a Set (Scenic) Designer (NY Union #829) with NY-Network NBC TV Studios, Mary Weaver (Dodson) was Johnny Carson's Tonight Show Art Director. When Carson's interview show visited Burbank for a series of bicoastal Network appearances, Mary traveled with the production, usually having a West Coast (NBC-Burbank) Art Director acting as a liaison studio assistant, who was John Shrum. Jack Dodson, Mary's actor husband, became a permanent series regular on Andy Griffith's "Mayberry" family. Mary Weaver and Jack resettled in Los Angeles living in the San Fernando Valley, raising two daughters, Amy and Cristina. Mary's NY-Network affiliation made her West Coast move accepting Network TV projects and commercials. After moving West, Mary added (Jack) "Dodson" for her credit, dropping "Weaver" explaining why her name appears, sometimes, Mary Weaver Dodson.
- In 1975-76, the film Producer's Roster was opened, allowing television art directors and designers to be listed on the Art Director's #876 (IATSE) Film Roster "available listing", which allowed active television artists-union-members for employment in the film industry. Mary Dodson made the move into film-television series production. Universal-MCA Television's Art Deparrtment, with Bill DeCinzes and Ray Brandt in charge, hired many art directors from NBC's TV art department to fill the film studios Art Director and Assistant Art Director positions. Universal-MCA's prolific television series, pilot and Movie of The Week (MOW) projects provided product to the three networks (ABC TV, CBS TV, and NBC TV) during the 1970s-1990s. Mary Dodson's career encompassed many diverse television projects bouncing from varied production companies and network affiliations.
- Hub Braden, in the spring of 1982, was asked by the Lorimar art department supervisor Richard "Dick" Haman to prepare and to work with - in the best Hollywood tradition - a family-off-spring group of Lorimar Production executives' junior siblings who were placed in production show department positions for a "video-taped" Lorimar Productions-CBS TV network pilot. Lorimar was primarily a "film-union-production-unit." Dick Haman, department supervisor of the Lorimar Production's art department, hired Braden specifically - because of Braden's video-tape design background - to work on the Lorimar television network video-tape pilot "Cass Malloy - She's The Sheriff" - for CBS TV. Hub brought in art director and set decorator, as his collaborator, Mary Dodson, to help develop the project's scenic elements and set decorating; to deal with - in the best Hollywood tradition - the Lorimar producers' family of "kids" learning how to produce as the show-pilot's production team. The comedy pilot was primarily a Lorimar first adventure to test the "video tape" production arena outside of the Warner Brothers and MGM "film" lot environments, instead of utilizing the usual "filmed type" comedy television-film show program format; to train the Lorimar executive's fresh young - relatives, sons and daughters, entering the television-film producing and directing ranks. The pilot was rehearsed and "video-taped" at the Paramount Television KTLA facility in Hollywood, instead of being produced at the MGM Film studio union controlled Culver City lot, a Lorimar Production - film lot headquarters, avoiding union jurisdictional (off-sight) staff requirements in the producing and directing departments. Hub and Mary, although sharing a MGM/Lorimar Production's art department office, located above the MGM Commissary, had to meet the Lorimar family production team, off-lot-mid-day, at the Hollywood KTLA parking lot, working off the trunk decks of their automobile to show-and-tell, discuss set wall-paper, paint color sample-choices, set drafting plans, sketches and illustrations, cardboard 1/4 inch scale set models - for approvals by the "family's" first time director and first time producing team. In other words, Hub and Mary were the professionals collaborating, teaching the "Judy & Mickie" kids to put the spring pilot project into the works! The Braden-Dodson team designed the Sheriff Cass Malloy station-office set's floor plan specifically like a television day-time "soap" drama set. A left side corridor-hall way acted as a camera aisle allowing the TV color camera to video upstage angle (and reverse angle) shots deep within the main stage sheriff's bull-pen set's depth. The right stage of the Sheriff's pit-office provided another camera aisle for a fourth camera to video the shots of the main sheriff bull-pen's deep central set's entrance, office desks, booking desk-station counter and the up-stage jail cells. The first time inexperienced director did not know how to coordinate five video cameras and camera-operators. He set his video color cameras on a rail-road-path horizontal tracking aisle, rarely moving his camera team up into the deep set's camera aisles for reverse angle shots and scene coverage. The actors blocking and motivation was staged on the stage set's apron path area, on the same parallel camera track path, rarely allowing the actors to move upstage to perform within the set's central focus production stage area. The lady Sheriff Cass Malloy role was performed by comedian and newcomer Annie Potts. Upon completion of the pilot, the sets were struck and stored in the Hollywood KTLA scene dock. After several years, Lorimar art department supervisor Dick Haman retired from Lorimar Productions, replaced by art director Frank Grieco Jr. The CBS network decided to pick-up the forgotten "Cass Malloy - She's the Sheriff" pilot, recasting Priscila Burnes in the Annie Potts role. During early production of the renamed series "She's The Sheriff," Suzanne Somers was brought in to replace Priscila Burnes. Frank Grieco, after taking over Dick Haman's Lorimar Culver City studio's production art department supervisor position, initially cleaned out all of the Lorimar art department's (archive-storage) show drafting file drawers in the MGM art department. Dick Haman's office had been the original MGM art department office of Cedric Gibbons. Haman had saved all of his special pet projects' original show drafting's beneath his desk, on his desk's left side. Upon the transition of the art department supervisor position, Grieco Jr. ordered a dumpster where everything was cleared out of Haman's office and in the MGM art department file drawers. Hub Braden received an urgent telephone call from Grieco Jr. requesting the original drawings for the "Cass Malloy - She's The Sheriff" stage-set designs. Braden was on a distant location for a current assignment, instructing Grieco to look under Haman's desk for the original drafting and prints. Afterwards, Hub called the department's secretary to find out if Frank Grieco Jr. had found the original drawings. The secretary giggled, telling Hub - "the Lorimar art department's 'clean-out' included Dick Haman's private 'show-hold-print-original drawings collection gallery' - that piles of drawings and drafting were the first things thrown into the dumpster when Frank took over Dick's office." The Hollywood KTLA studio scene dock charged Lorimar for the on-hold scenery, where the scenery had been stored and held for two years. These charges for the scene dock storage were closed by Lorimar, with orders that the TV show's four stage sets and set dressing be demolished. Braden and Dodson were not offered a "Lorimar return engagement replicating the original set designs." Frank Grieco Jr. and his art director Bill Brzeski had to design all new stage sets and scenery for the new CBS TV's "She's The Sheriff" series, (1987-1989-a-two year flop).
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