Today we’d like to introduce you to Mary Ann Cherry.
Hi Mary Ann, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I am the youngest of five children to Irish immigrants, raised in Bergen County, NJ. Moved myself to Los Angeles in 1977 and happily landed in Venice where I stayed for the first two years. This was before they accepted Visa and Master Charge on the boardwalk and long before the proliferation of homelessness. Venice was still cool, we called it Camp Venice.
From there, I moved into Hollywood (Hancock Park to be sure) and answered an ad looking for waitresses for a “new private restaurant.” Turned out, it was a new commissary on the Paramount lot. There were over 400 applicants, they hired and trained 30 of us, with attrition, there were nine of us on opening day. Thus began my twelve years career at the studio where I worked in just about every department and I learned something every day. The last four years, I worked in television development. Two weeks after leaving Paramount, I got a job writing for a half-hour sitcom on what was then the Family Channel. And thus began 30 years of freelance writing and independent contracting gigs which led to my befriending Morris Kight. I knew Morris was an interesting cat and sensed that he had a story worth telling. The day before he died, he called me and we talked about me writing his biography. He had thought about it and had a few things he wanted to tell me and then he gave me his blessing. Oh boy. Researching Morris Kight was a unique journey of a lifetime. I fell down rabbit holes and met some of the most fascinating people. It was a blessing. It continues to be a blessing.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
It hasn’t been a smooth road, but I’d say areas were certainly blessed. Leaving home at such a young age, barely knowing how to boil water much less about taking care of myself, I was blessed with the people in my life. I had a very good friend in Venice who led me and protected me from myself along the way.
Not too many years later, AIDS ended that friendship through death. AIDS did that to a lot my friendships from that time. It was devastating. I grieved for years and was surrounded by grief. Many people never recovered from the psychological weight of so much grief. I don’t know how many of us did survived to laugh and sing and dance another day. But we did survive. And we do sing and dance and laugh with a ferocity that I don’t remember from our carefree youth. That’s what surviving looks like.
Along the way, I was graced with learning viniyoga (right teacher at the right time). In addition to becoming a second career, it has opened up my life in ways I never could have imagined. Sharing the gifts of yoga with people in need continues to provide wonderful experiences and relationships.
There have been ups and there have been downs. I’ve been poor and I’ve been comfortable and much prefer the latter. I’ve struggled and at times, I’ve skated. I’ve made some humdinger mistakes and bad decisions always paid the price and learned my lesson (if there was any). I have also made some very strategic, long-term brilliant decisions that have paid off immensely. I’ve been ill and that has strengthened my resolve to be healthy. Every problem is an opportunity to learn, to grow, to become a better version of ourselves.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
When I first began to freelance, it was more ‘free’ than anything else. I quickly learned that the first canvas for any artist is their own life. The nuts and bolts of day-to-day living must be taken care of before one can properly concentrate. Writing afforded me a lot of flexibility and it also required a lot of discipline. I’d write your shopping list if it’d pay a bill. I found my way to nonfiction mainly because I do find truth to be much stranger than fiction. Good nonfiction is research-based and I love research, it’s getting ‘dirt under my fingernails’ kind of work that can make a difference between a good story and a gripping story. I allow the research to dictate the narrative and that can sometimes lead to falling into a rabbit hole or two. It’s all in the journey. A few months ago, USC Libraries came to my home to pick up all my research for the Morris Kight biography (plus a few other projects that I have done). The material will be processed and catalogued and become a part of the ONE Archives as the “Mary Ann Cherry Collection.” This will outlive me and add to many other researcher’s work, work that I can’t even imagine at this moment. I’m very proud of this.
Do you have any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
I grew up in the suburbs of northern New Jersey, just a bike ride away from Harlem. On Sundays, my family would often drive into New York to visit extended family in Queens or Brooklyn. Driving over the George Washington Bridge was always a thrill (driving through the Lincoln Tunnel was a little scary for young me). As we passed the tenement apartment buildings, I’d image all sorts of stories behind the windows. Sometimes there were plants on the window sill or a pair of woman’s underpants hanging outside to dry. There might be new curtains in one window and suddenly no curtains on another. I could piece together characters and what their lives might be like. On the way home, a light would be on or perhaps someone sitting outside on the large window ledge smoking a cigarette. I felt a part of their lives. T they wouldn’t know me from a hole in the ground.
Pricing:
- 22.95 price of the Morris Kight biography
- 3.00 for domestic shipping
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: https://maryanncherrywriter.com/
- Instagram: macherry1111
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MorrisKight
- Twitter: @oneMACherry
Image Credits:
1. Jamie Biver 2. Don Saban
