Biografia

She was a founder and longtime national spokesperson for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, which she continues to be involved with as an honorary member of the board of directors (through 2013), and works assertively with many organizations that deal with mental illness. Her father, uncle, and cousin all committed suicide.

She was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Television at 7020 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.

In 2006, she performed her one-woman show "If You Get to Bethlehem, You've Gone Too Far", which is based on her bestselling biography "Breaking the Silence" (1990). Mariette enacts 11 characters from her memories as a child living in a home beset by acute depression and alcoholism.

Her celebrity got a significant boost from a notable, much praised, and much parodied series of television commercials and print ads for Polaroid cameras and film, with James Garner that ran from 1977 to 1984. She and Garner were so naturally convincing as a couple that she had a variety of T-shirts made, proclaiming "I am not James Garner's wife!", "I am not James Garner" (for her then-husband), and "I am not James Garner's son!" (for her young son). In response, James Garner's real-life wife had a shirt made that declared "I am James Garner's wife!" More than 250 commercials were produced.

She was not allowed to show her belly button in the third season episode All Our Yesterdays (1969) of Star Trek due to censors. But Gene Roddenberry got even: he had her show TWO belly buttons in the television movie Genesis II (1973).

I believe in the expression "Many of us get to heaven by backing away from hell.".

I have learned that one's deepest wounds, integrated, become one's greatest power. Helping other survivors [of suicide] is my mission.

I know I am associated with television and I can't seem to break that. It seems to be my lot. You could do worse. I could be not working at all!

[on acting in the Polaroid television commercials] I absolutely wasn't going to do them. I said I was tired of doing scale commercials. I had done 75 commercials by then and I had nine wardrobe changes in my car -- the Ali MacGraw look, the Candice Bergen look, the housewife look, the person who feeds the dogs dog food look, the shopper look. I was ready to change at a drop of a hat.

I wasn't even going to do commercials. I thought they were demeaning. I used to sit in front of the television set with my little glass of whatever and say "That poor sucker, look at what he's doing." He was making a living, that's what he's doing. I finally broke down and said to myself "Hartley, you have a thousand bucks in the bank; you better get your tush out there and see if there's any commercial interest in you.".