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Landings resident stars in Super Bowl ad
COMING SOON POOL PARTY
Latest achievement in storied acting career By Hannah Wallace
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page DAY TRIPPING: SARASOTA’S ROUNDABOUTS
On the May 24, 1983, episode of The Tonight Show, Johnny Carson introduced guest Mary Denham as, “Someone you all have seen, but you don’t know who she is.” Chances are, you’ve seen her, too. On Feb. 9, Denham, a parttime Sarasota resident, appeared as David Beckham’s mother in a Stella Artois commercial that aired during this year’s Superbowl LIX. Her storied acting career includes dozens of commercials, 100-plus episodes on a daytime soap, and countless notable theater roles over several decades as a professional actor in New York City. And Denham’s career continues today, as she spends part of the year in New York and part in the Sarasota home she purchased with her husband in 2017. Here, she loves to play tennis and attend local theaters and other cultural institutions—in between gigs, of course. Growing up in England near a “wonderful repertory theater,” Denham said, “From a very, very young age, I was completely obsessed with theater and acting.” Though she landed a spot in London’s Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, Denham instead followed her soon-to-be first husband to New York, where she began working as a model. “Modeling was an easy venue to get into theater, commercials, and so forth,” she said. “I did extremely well in commercials. They wanted people who looked like models and could act. And I could do a lot of different accents. I had to be a dog
in one. I had to be a witch for Pond’s cold cream.” From there, she landed a role OffBroadway in Tom Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound, opposite Ted Danson. The show ran for more than a year. “He and I became really good friends,” she said of Danson. “We took it to the Kennedy Center. Then he went off to California to do Cheers, and I went to The Doctors.” For two years and 106 episodes, Denham played Margo Stewart on The Doctors, a long- running soap opera on NBC. “I was a bitch!” she laughed. “Which was wonderfully funny. I had the best time on it.” And while Denham also appreciated the training she got in memorizing lines—up to five scripts a week—she encountered a particularly difficult acting challenge: “The storyline was that my husband wanted me to have a baby, and [my character] was taking birth control,” she remembered. “I was pregnant at the time. They wrote a scene for me in a bathing suit in my eighth month! And they asked me, ‘Will it show?’” She filmed the whole scene sitting down in the sand, with her knees up to cover her belly. After that, it was back to doing theater, with the occasional TV guest role and “masses of commercials” in between. She understudied for both Meryl Streep and Christine Baranski, alongside Jeremy Irons, in the original Broadway production of The Real Thing (an-
Mary Denham and co-star David Beckham share a hug on the set of their Super Bowl commercial. (photo submitted)
other Stoppard play), directed by Mike Nichols. Her role in the play Greek, which transferred from Los Angeles to New York, was what prompted The Tonight Show appearance. “Also, I had done so many commercials, so I was well known for that,” she said. People who work in television commercials are essentially “30-sec-
ond actors,” she said. “People talk about what a difficult job it is, to do a 30-second spot in one day, and get it right, and still not be known.” Despite all her experience, the Superbowl ad came with a few surprises—not least because she didn’t expect much in the beginning. Story continues on page 26
Bringing health, hope & heart to Hondurans
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NEWCOMER’S SOCIAL
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J: How was your trip? R: Absolutely wonderful! J: What does the Honduras Hope Mission do? R: Our mission is to break the cycle of poverty in the La Villa de San Francisco central mountainous region of Honduras. We’re doing this by providing medical care, food, water filters and housing as well as educational opportunities for impoverished Hondurans.
KID’S CORNER LUCY GARD, 7
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For twenty years, Dr. Rob Potter and his wife Cindy, have journeyed to Honduras annually to bring medical and educational support to poverty-stricken Hondurans. Each year, Rob, a retired family physician who practiced in Pittsburgh, and Cindy, a physical therapist, take part in a week-long volunteer project which serves nearly 2,000 rural children and adults. Rob is the President of Honduras Hope Mission, a 501-c3 located in Pennsylvania. I spoke with him a few days after they returned from their mission.
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J: Tell me more. R: Thirty-five years ago, a group from a Presbyterian Church in Western New York started The Promise Children Mission in La
Villa de San Francisco. Originally, they worked with an orphanage in town. About twenty years ago they added the medical portion of the mission. That’s when I joined. Through the years many different churches have been involved in the project. Honduras Hope Mission eventually spun off and is now a non-affiliated non-profit. J: Why Honduras? R: Honduras is an extremely poor country. It’s estimated that 73% of the population lives in poverty and 53% live in extreme poverty. Our goal is to make a significant difference toward improving Hondurans’ lives. The village we support is in an extremely poor area. J: How did you get involved? R: We learned about the project from a medical assistant that worked for me. Cindy and I felt compelled to participate. The rest is history. We believe that working with the Hope Mission gives us much more back than we give. It’s an honor to be part of this work. J: What is the scope of the program? R: Year-round we focus on three main areas: Healthcare, food and education. Once a year we travel to
Honduras and work one-on-one to provide customized medical care. J: Tell me about your recent trip. R: Nineteen North American volunteers, ranging in age from sixteen to their seventies, flew to Honduras. As always, everyone paid their own way. Once there we teamed up with twenty local Hondurans. It was a great group! Half of us were healthcare professionals and the others helped to administer the program, distribute water filters, medicine and medical devices. J: Is working in Honduras dangerous? R: Well, on the U.S. website for Honduras it states, “Consider alternative plans.” However, we feel safe there; we always stay in a group which includes Hondurans; and we take security measures. J: What services do you provide during your clinical week? R: This trip we visited seven clinics. Our healthcare professionals included a dentist, two physician assistants, two physicians, two nurses, a pharmacist and two physical therapists. A retired lawyer was trained to assess which prescription glasses patients need. Villagers
Rob and Cindy Potter with Nashly, the Honduran child they sponsor.
lined up as early as the night before our clinics to make sure they would be seen. J: That’s amazing. They must have been very happy to see you. R: Oh yes. They are incredibly grateful. For some it’s their only chance to see a doctor all year. The patients’ issues range from minor problems to major ones such as out of control diabetes or blood pressure. We also refer people for surgery if necessary. Story continues on page 25