Mary Perkins, On Stage
Mary Perkins, On Stage is an American newspaper comic strip by Leonard Starr for the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate. It ran from February 10, 1957, to September 9, 1979, with the switch to the longer title in 1961. Some papers carried the strip under the shortened title Mary Perkins.
The strip came to a conclusion when Starr left in 1979 to take over Little Orphan Annie.
Origins
Having previously worked on comic books, Starr decided to try to publish a newspaper comic strip. Starr submitted his concepts to Moe Riley, a vice president at the Chicago Tribune Syndicate. Riley chose two of Starr's ideas: one about a missionary who worked in foreign countries and the other about a young woman who comes to New York to become an actress. The syndicate chose the second idea, and Starr was hired to produce On Stage.Characters and story
Starr's scripts mixed soap opera, adventure and broad humor, while the art was characterized by a studied line and often innovative storytelling. The strip offered a Broadway backstage drama as it followed the career of actress Mary Perkins in New York, Hollywood and on various international film sets and locations. A host of supporting characters joined Mary, including her photographer beau, Pete Fletcher. The two married on December 13, 1959.The first On Stage Sunday strip was launched February 10, 1957. That is generally considered the start date for the strip, but in 1970, comics historian Raymond Miller wrote that internal evidence in the first Sunday page suggested the strip had at least a week's worth of prior daily strips.