MARY CARVER : HER MEMORIES ADD TO ‘A CHRISTMAS MEMORY’

“I went to Hollywood High,” Mary Carver said breezily, “but I was never one of those ladies who was discovered at an ice cream parlor.”

Instead, Carver ventured to New York, established herself on the stage, did a few movies and also taught acting for 20 years. Then six years ago, she auditioned for her first pilot--and landed the role of the Simon brothers’ mom on CBS’ long-running “Simon & Simon.”

“The rest, as they say, is history,” said the smiling actress, who was gearing up to begin rehearsals for her third appearance in the Mark Taper’s annual production of Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory.”

Presented as a staged reading, “Memory” opens Sunday at the Itchey Foot Ristorante.

“It’s really Truman Capote’s best short story,” she continued. “He wrote it when he was 27: about his life (at age 7) with this woman--a cousin, who became his surrogate mother, friend, everything. And they’re doing all these things together: getting the Christmas tree, chopping it down, hunting for ingredients for fruitcakes--the only present they could afford.”

The restaurant’s spare setting (the characters deliver their performances from a reading stand) does not take away from Carver’s appreciation of the work.

“Of course, it’s a different type of acting--all imagery, creating images. And it is a reading format, so I stay with the book. I don’t do it (the emoting) all up front, and I don’t talk to him (her young companion, played by Michael Tulin, who also serves as narrator), but the level of writing here is special. It’s one of the most gratifying things I’ve done and, over a 40-year period, that’s saying quite a lot.”

Indeed, over 40 years, Carver has known many aspects of show business, beginning with a secretarial post at Columbia Pictures.

“That was a great job,” she reminisced. “I’d say, ‘Midge, I’m finished. Can I go?’--and then I’d go on the set and watch. I saw Paul Muni work, Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell. I saw Orson Welles direct Rita Hayworth in ‘The Lady From Shanghai.’ But I never felt comfortable with it (movie-making), never fell in love with it as others did. I started on the stage--and I just loved that feedback.”

A move to New York in the late ‘40s netted some lean days, but in 1952 she landed her first Broadway show. “Unfortunately, it lasted two nights: we had an opening night party and a closing night party.”

Returning to California in 1956 with her then-husband (“In those days, the wives went where their husbands wanted to go”), Carver began working again--in both theater and film. It was in the latter that she had one of her least-happy experiences: playing a dance-hall girl opposite Frank Sinatra in 1953’s “From Here To Eternity.”

“I think one of the reasons they hired me was that I was small,” she reflected. “There’s a big fight scene with Fatso (Ernest Borgnine’s character), and they wanted somebody small for Sinatra to hold onto. Now I had been in a Broadway show, I’d done films. And he (Sinatra) does this to me (she snapped her fingers): ‘C’mon honey. Here’s your mark. Get over here.’ Well, I almost bit my tongue not to say, ‘You’re a little one, aren’t you?’ He was terrible .”

But by and large, the acting experiences have been happy ones. A cherished role as a cancer victim in Michael Cristofer’s “The Shadow Box” at the Taper was followed with the part of 65-year-old Aunt Sally in the Broadway staging of Lanford Wilson’s “Fifth of July.” (“I thought the minute the director saw how adorable I was, he’d say, ‘Too young,’ ” she deadpanned. “Well, he didn’t say a word.”)

Since then, Carver has become more comfortable with film work, playing Goldie Hawn’s mother in “Protocol” (a part which mostly ended up “on the cutting-room floor”) and the upcoming “Hard Cover,” where she plays mother to hit man James Woods (“a real sweetie potato”).

Her role on “Simon & Simon” has clearly been the real bonus.

“I’m so happy to have a series at this age,” Carver said seriously. “So many of my actress friends are just sitting around, unable to get work. I’m having a wonderful time, working with wonderful people.

“But ‘Memory’ is a great contrast to what I do on the series. I look forward to it all year.”