Martha Raye

Known for ActingBorn 1916-08-27Died 1994-10-19Butte, Montana, USA

Martha Raye (born Margy Reed), nicknamed The Big Mouth, was an American comic actress and singer who performed in movies, and later on television. She also acted in plays, including Broadway. She was honored in 1969 at the Academy Awards as the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award recipient for her volunteer efforts and services to the troops. In the early 1930s, Raye was a band vocalist with the Paul Ash and Boris Morros orchestras. She made her first film appearance in 1934 in a band short titled A Nite in the Nite Club. In 1936, she was signed for comic roles by Paramount Pictures, and made her first picture for Paramount. Her first feature film was Rhythm on the Range with crooner Bing Crosby. She was a featured cast member in 39 episodes of Al Jolson's weekly CBS radio show, The Lifebuoy Program, also called Cafe Trocadero. In addition to comedy, Martha sang both solos and duets with Jolson. Over the next quarter century, she would appear with many of the leading comics of her day, including Joe E. Brown, Bob Hope, W. C. Fields, Abbott and Costello (in Keep 'Em Flying), Charlie Chaplin (in Monsieur Verdoux), and Jimmy Durante. She joined the USO in 1942, soon after the US entered World War II. She was known for the size of her mouth, which was large in proportion to her face, earning her the nickname The Big Mouth. She later referred to this in a series of television commercials for Polident denture cleaner in the 1980s: "So take it from The Big Mouth: new Polident Green gets tough stains clean!" Her large mouth would relegate her motion picture work to supporting comic parts, and was often made up so it appeared even larger. In the Disney cartoon Mother Goose Goes Hollywood, she is caricatured while dancing alongside Joe E. Brown, another actor known for a big mouth. In the Warner Bros. cartoon The Woods Are Full Of Cuckoos (1937), she was caricatured as a jazzy scat-singing donkey named 'Moutha Bray'. She often appeared as a guest on other programs, particularly those which often featured older performers as guest stars, such as ABC's The Love Boat, and also on variety programs, including the short-lived The Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Show. She appeared from the third to the ninth seasons as Carrie Sharples on Alice, making two or three appearances a season. She made guest appearances or did cameo roles in such series as Murder, She Wrote on CBS and The Andy Williams Show and McMillan & Wife, both on NBC. She appeared again as Agatha for the six-episode run of the retooled McMillan, taking over for Nancy Walker, who had left the series. Her last film appearance was as an incontinent airline passenger in the disaster film The Concorde ... Airport '79. Later in her career, she made television commercials for Polident denture cleanser, principally during the 1970s and 1980s.Read more

Movies & web series

Showbiz Goes to War

Clown Alley

The Judy Garland Show

The Adventures of Errol Flynn

Sid & Judy

The Carol Burnett Show

Murder, She Wrote

Pippin

Monsieur Verdoux

The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

Bing Crosby: Rediscovered

The Gossip Columnist

The Red Skelton Show

Alice

Skinflint: A Country Christmas Carol

Alice in Wonderland

Never Say Die

McMillan & Wife

Hellzapoppin'

What's My Line?

The Oscars

The Bob Hope Show

The Dick Cavett Show

Show-Business at War

The Colgate Comedy Hour

Hideaway Girl

Four Jills in a Jeep

The Bugaloos

College Swing

Double or Nothing

The Love Boat

This Is Your Life

Pufnstuf

Burke's Law

The Boys from Syracuse

Chaplin Today: Monsieur Verdoux

The Big Broadcast of 1938

Pin Up Girl

The Steve Allen Show

Artists & Models

Billy Rose's Jumbo

The All-Star Christmas Show

Tropic Holiday

The Big Broadcast of 1937

Give Me a Sailor

Keep 'Em Flying

College Holiday

The Mike Douglas Show