Mundy, Meg

Biography

by Jeremiah Favara and Carol Stabile

Overview

Meg Mundy was a British-born model, singer, and actress. She had a successful career as a model, as a stage actress on Broadway, and in television. She was best known for her appearances as a model in the pages of Vogue, her breakout performance in the 1948 play The Respectful Prostitute, and her roles in soap operas.

Mundy was born on January 4, 1915 in London, England. Her parents, John Mundy and Clytie Hine, were musicians. Mundy was a cellist and Hine was a soprano. Mundy moved to the United States with her parents and brother, John Hine Mundy, in 1921.1

Career

Mundy had a varied and prolific career as a singer, model, and actress      in theatre, television, and film. Mundy was a soloist with the New York      Philharmonic beginning in the 1930s and also performed in the chorus      in several Broadway shows, including Hooray for What!2

Mundy loved acting. To support herself in acting school, she looked for   employment in modeling. In 1939, renowned fashion photographer John   Robert Powers told her she was no beauty, “but I bet you   photograph.”3 Told that she needed to do something   about her “dreadful” hair, chided by fashion photographer Horst P. Horst   that “you're too ugly” to model, Mundy persisted and was eventually   signed by Vogue fashion editor Sally Kirkland. Despite the criticisms of   male photographers, she became a highly successful model in the   1940s, appearing frequently in Vogue, and was named one of the “12 all-time great fashion models” in Life Magazine.4

• 1“John Mundy Dies; Met Opera Aide”, New York Times, June 2, 1971.
• 2Angela Taylor, “A Chic Model of the 40s Now Plays ‘One of the   Nastiest Ladies That’s Ever Been,’” New York Times, August 21, 1973,     p. 24, https://www.nytimes.com/1973/08/21/archives/a-chic-model-of-  the-40s-now-plays-one-of-the-nastiest-ladies-thats.html.
• 3Ibid.
• 4Julie Byrne, “Expert’s View: Beauty Starts at Top, Goes to Toe,” Los Angeles Times, November 27, 1964, p. D12.

The blacklisting publication, Red Channels, identified Meg Mundy as an “Actress, lead in ‘Respectful Prostitute,’” a play by Jean-Paul Sartre. Her break-out role in a play loosely based on the case of the Scottsboro case directed anti-communist attention to her: when the play premiered in the U.S., Sartre was accused of anti-Americanism. Red Channels also reported that Mundy had provided a recorded message to a rally in support of the Hollywood Ten in March 1948, as well as allowing her name to be listed in an advertisement in Variety in support of the Ten later that year. Of course, like other Broadcast 41 members, Mundy’s progressive record had a longer history, including her participation in the experimental collaborative production company New Stages, Inc., along with Hester Sondergaard and Betty Winkler, both of whom would also be listed in Red Channels.1

Mundy went on to play numerous roles in television during the 1950s, although—like many blacklisted actresses, her recurring roles were mainly in soap operas. After the blacklist, she did not appear in Hollywood films until the 1970s.

• 1Louis Calta, “ET Gets Theatre for Dec. 7 Opening,” New York Times, October 28, 1947, 29.

Television

The Ford Theatre hour (1949)

Starlight Theatre (1950)

Suspense (1949-1950)

Nash Airflyte Theatre (1950)

The Billy Rose Show (1950)

Lights Out (1950)

The Web (1951)

Somerset Maugham TV Theatre (1951)

Kraft Theatre (1951)

Tales of Tomorrow (1951)

Celanese Theatre (1952)

Guiding Light (1952)

Broadway Television Theatre (1953)

Justice (1955)

Star Stage (1956)

Playwrights ’56 (1955-1956)

Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1956)

The Alcoa Hour (1957)

Studio One in Hollywood (1954-1957)

The United States Steel Hour (1954-1958)

Moment of Fear (1960)

Naked City (1961)

Special for Women: The Glamour Trap (1961)

First Ladies Diaries: Edith Wilson (1976)

Breaking Up (1978)

The Doctors (1972-1979)

Loving (1983)

Great Performances (1984)

Law & Order (1990-1997)

All My Children (1997-2001