Devoted sister, mother, wife, and aunt. Successful model and actress. Generous philanthropist and explorer of the world.
Maria appears in a blurb about that night’s episode of the Groucho Marx Show on which she is set to appear as a contestant. The same blurb appeared in a column in the St. Petersburg Times and the Fort Lauderdale News on the same day.
Maria appears in a blurb about that night’s episode of the Groucho Marx Show on which she is set to appear as a contestant. The same blurb appeared in a column in a variety of newspapers on the same day.
Maria appears in a blurb about that night’s episode of the Groucho Marx Show on which she is set to appear as a contestant. The same blurb appeared similar columns in multiple newspapers on the same day.
Maria appears in a blurb about that night’s episode of the Groucho Marx Show on which she is set to appear as a contestant. The same blurb appeared similar columns in multiple newspapers on the same day.
Maria appears in a blurb about that night’s episode of the Groucho Marx Show on which she is set to appear as a contestant. The same blurb appeared in a number of newspapers that day.
Maria appears in a blurb about that night’s episode of the Groucho Marx Show on which she is set to appear as a contestant. Unfortunately the author of the blurb couldn’t help himself and threw in a bunch of sexist language.
Maria appears in a blurb about that night’s episode of the Groucho Marx Show on which she is set to appear as a contestant. The same blurb appeared in a column in the Miami Herald as well as in the St. Petersburg Times on the same day.
| Director | Walter Doniger |
| Producer | Art Wallace |
| Production Company | 20th Century Fox Television |
| Aired | January 25th, 1961, ABC |
| Cast | Rod Taylor (Glenn Evans), Lloyd Bochner (Neil Campbell), Liam Redmond (Marriott), Michael David (Bartley), Antoinette Bower (Laura), Dean Harens (Hal Spencer), Maria McClay (Sou Mei), Peter Chong (Old Chinese Man), Barney Phillips (Crane), Victor Sen Yung (Tung Poy) |
Where is Rod Taylor? The headlining star is almost completely absent during the one episode of the series that Maria played in. Instead this episode is about his friend, Inspector Neil Campbell (Lloyd Bochner in official Hong Kong police shorts) who must track down a bad cop who kills guy and then frames an old friend of the police chief.
Maria’s character, Sou Mei, helps out by pretending to blackmail the murderous cop in order to get him to confess or give himself away otherwise. While this is definitely one of her shorter appearances in a TV show, she actually not only has a lot of lines but is able to show off a considerable range all the way from sweet and submissive to hard-nosed and intense as she clearly enjoys squeezing her victim for all he’s worth.
This is also the first time, at least as far as what we’ve been able to determine, that she appears in the credits as Maria McClay rather than Maria Tsien or Maria Tsien McClay.
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| Director | John Rich |
| Producer | Frank Pittman, Andy White |
| Production Company | Ziv Television Programs, Metro Goldwyn Mayer |
| Aired | October 1st, 1959, NBC |
| Cast | Gene Barry (Bat Masterson), Myron Healy, Audrey Dalton, Jack Hogan, Ernestine Barrier, David Thursby, James Hong, Maria Tsein (sic) (Card Dealer) |
An old friend asks Bat to San Francisco to look into the background of her daughter’s fiancée. Bat learns she is a frequent visitor at a casino where she seems to win but her fiancée seems to lose – even his life. Maria appears as a card dealer employed by the casino who refuses to hand more chips to the dubious fiancée, when he busts out and finds himself broke at the table.
This is one of Maria’s more limited roles with very few lines and not a lot of screen time. On the other hand she gets to wear a rather fancy outfit while staring down Bat Masterson as she deals the House 21 and takes his money.
One thing that must be pointed out is that whoever was responsible for proof reading the credits messed up greatly and left her name on screen as “Maria Tsein” instead of “Tsien”.
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Maria is mentioned in a quick blurb as part of a Hollywood gossip column that does a run-down of various bits of more or less newsworthy items. In the case of Maria it mentions her playing a Japanese role in Alcoa Theatre‘s “Medals for Harry”. A very similar blurb had run a couple of weeks earlier in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
