1939 Queens, New York
Mary Lou Burgess
Born in 1935
Jamaica, Queens, NY
Interviewed on January 29, 2025
by Kiernan Liberman
The first movie I remember seeing was The Wizard of Oz. I must have been around four years old when it was released in 1939. My parents took me and my brother to see it because it was supposedly a children’s film, but it scared me to death. I was so scared that I hid under my seat in the theater, and my mother tried to comfort me. The flying monkeys were especially frightening—they felt so real.
Looking back, what stood out to me about Dorothy was her confidence. She made decisions with certainty, and I admired that. I wanted to be her, to have an adventure like hers. As I got older and rewatched the film, I realized that much of the story was about Dorothy being in an unconscious state, experiencing a dreamlike journey. In the end, she comes to the conclusion that there’s no place like home, a sentiment that resonated with me. Home was the only place where I ever felt truly safe, confident, and happy.
I saw the film in a theater with my parents and brother, likely in Jamaica, Long Island. We didn’t often buy concessions; money was tight, and just going to the movies was an expense that had to be saved for. During World War II, my aunt and cousin lived with us while my father worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He had a position that kept him from being sent overseas, but my uncle was in the Army.
To afford movie tickets, we would collect and return bottles to the store for a few cents each, saving every little bit we could. When we finally had enough, we’d go to the theater as a group. My cousin Kevin, who was eight years younger than me, was still a baby at the time, so my mother or aunt would stay behind with him. After the movie, we used our saved-up money to treat ourselves at the local ice cream parlor. Those were wonderful times.
We lived in Belmore, Long Island, where there was only one movie theater in town. We called it “The Belmore Itch” because it was so old and rundown, but it was the only place we could walk to. Walking was a big part of life during the war.
When I was around ten, my brother and I, along with the other neighborhood kids, would go to Saturday matinees. We’d spend about three hours in the theater, watching two films back-to-back. Most of the movies had adult themes, so I hardly remember the plots, but one that stuck with me was The Red Shoes. Seeing ballet on the big screen was mesmerizing. I must have been around ten or eleven when I watched it, sometime in 1942.
The Red Shoes, Promotion Flyer for the Film, 1948
I idolized the actresses on screen. To me, being an actor seemed like the greatest job in the world. My mother’s family was Irish, and many of them were in the theater. My cousin Phyllis was part of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin and was cast in My Left Foot when Hollywood decided to turn it into a film. They offered her a chance to go to Hollywood, but she refused. She wanted to stay in Ireland and do theater, Irish theatre, and you have to really be an actor to act in Ireland because they were so good.
I, myself, wanted to become an actress. I even earned a scholarship to Ithaca College for theater. But my mother wouldn’t let me go—she didn’t want me to move away on my own. And just like that, my scholarship disappeared. It was a huge disappointment, and I should have fought harder for it. Instead, I stayed local, attending a nearby college while living in the dorms and going home on weekends. My parents kept me on a tight leash.
I had big dreams of being in the spotlight, of going to Hollywood. But, as life often goes—oh well.
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I had the honor of interviewing my fabulous grandmother, Mary Lou Burgess.
