Mary Alice Young (formerly Angela Forrest) is a fictional character on the ABC television series Desperate Housewives. The character is played by actress Brenda Strong and narrates the series from beyond the grave; the character's suicide in the pilot episode served as the catalyst of the series. The narration provided by Mary Alice is essential to the tale of Wisteria Lane, as the show revolves around her sharing the secrets of her friends and neighbours. Her narration technique is akin in style to Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology. She is the matriarch of Wisteria Lane and is the most important character to the show's development.
Mary Alice is the most mysterious of the housewives because only bits and pieces of her story are known. A loving, doting wife and mother who was generous to her family and neighbours, she was the last person any of them expected to commit suicide. In death, Mary Alice sees things she would not have seen in life: her friends' vulnerabilities, lies and secrets. She does not judge them so much as love them more because of their foibles, pitying them for the ways they manipulate and hurt those they care about most. Although deceased since the first episode, Mary Alice continued to have a leading storyline throughout the first and second seasons of the show, with the story being led by her husband and son, Paul and Zach Young respectively.
For her performance as Mary Alice Young, Brenda Strong was nominated for two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance.
Read more about Mary Alice Young: Appearances
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“A fine-looking mill, but no machinery inside.”
—Hawaiian saying no. 1702, ‘lelo No’Eau, collected, translated, and annotated by Mary Kawena Pukui, Bishop Museum Press, Hawaii (1983)
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—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
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