an actress, I'm not talented, leave me alone, let me get on with my life!" In 1933, longtime Our Gang director Robert McGowan wrote in a Los Angeles Times feature that they normally preferred to cast children who had no previous acting experience, but Jackson was a rare exception: "Mary Ann proved a real find and was my ideal little gang leading lady. She wasn't pretty, but she was intelligent and willing and had just a touch of pathos in her makeup. She proved a rare find for me." Later life Jackson eventually took a job at the May Company department store in downtown Los Angeles, and made only a few brief forays into acting. In 1941, she doubled for Edith Fellows. Mary Ann Jackson married at age 20, but was widowed. She married again, and spent many years with her second husband and her two children in the San Fernando Valley. Later in life, Mary Ann (dressed in '50s attire) and her sister Peaches would stop by Santa Monica bars and drink vodka martinis. Upon recounting her Our Gang years, she laughed at the many women who laid false claim to being Mary Ann Jackson. They often cited their Louise Brooks-style bangs, which she loathed and had chopped off as soon as she left her acting career. In 1990, she was delighted and amused to learn that during their stint with Our Gang, Jackie Cooper had been "desperately in love with her". She did have fond regard for her days at the Hal Roach Studios and was impressed with her large fan following. Asked to recall her thoughts on the gang, she responded, "Everything I have to say about [Hal] Roach and the gang is 'nice'. There's not one bad thing I can think of. It was just fun and fun and fun." Death Mary Ann Jackson died of a heart attack at her home in Los Angeles on December 17, 2003. References Further reading External links American silent film actresses 1923 births 2003 deaths 20th-century American actresses Actresses from Los Angeles American child actresses American film actresses Hal Roach Studios actors Our Gang 21st-century American women