Mary Pat Gleason, Eleanor in ‘A Cinderella Story,’ ‘Mom’ actress, dies at 70

Mary Pat Gleason, who starred in the cult classic romantic comedy “A Cinderella Story” and CBS sitcom “Mom,” died Tuesday night at age 70 after a five-year battle with cancer, according to a family statement released by her manager, Todd Justice.

With more than 170 roles to her name, and a 1986 writing Emmy Award for the daytime drama “A Guiding Light,” Gleason was best known onscreen as the kind-hearted waitress Eleanor, a frequent source of encouragement to the downtrodden Sam (Hilary Duff), in 2004’s “A Cinderella Story.”

Other film roles included 2003’s “Intolerable Cruelty” and Martha Corey in 1996’s “The Crucible” as well as the comedies “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” in 2007 and “Bruce Almighty” in 2003.

Gleason had a recurring role on the Chuck Lorre sitcom “Mom,” playing Mary, an AA member who told long, often bizarre anecdotes in group sessions. Mary died of a brain aneurysm during an AA meeting in an October 2019 episode, which was Gleason’s final TV appearance. 

Other TV roles spanned “Friends,” “Will Grace,” “How to Get Away With Murder,” “Sex in the City,” “The Blacklist,” “Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life,” “NCIS: Los Angeles” and “The Middleman.”

Gleason’s one-woman stage production, “Stopping Traffic,” detailed her personal experiences with bipolar disorder “that changed how her industry deals the issue of mental health,” her nephew John Brostrom said in an email to USA TODAY. The film is now used as a teaching aid for the Mayo Clinic’s mental health programs and her “advocacy created changes in mental health policies that resounded through various entertainment unions,” Brostom wrote.

Her work will be featured in the upcoming Jay Silverman drama “Pencil Town.”

Actor Ron Fassler posted a tribute on Facebook calling Gleason, “one of the dearest and sweetest people I have ever had the pleasure to know.”

“She was so much more than a wonderful actress: she was one of a kind. So caring, so funny, and so delicious to be around, that I find it hard to imagine a world without her shining presence and smiling face,” Fassler wrote. 

Off camera, Gleason was “a force of truth, humor, and heart,” Brostrom wrote. “She was equally dedicated to her large extended family and an even larger non-DNA family. She will be missed. But because of the breadth of her work, we will get to see her forever.”

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