Marla Gibbs as Mary Jenkins
“227” was an amazing show, and was so due to great writing and characters, and Marla Gibbs’s portrayal as Mary Jenkins. Marla was in the center of all the entertainment. As the main matriarch, and the epicenter of all the action, Mary Jenkins was the woman with all the answers, while being a mother to her daughter, Brenda (portrayed by Regina King).
After “227” Marla Gibbs continued acting, and being the amazing force that she is. Some of her roles were in shows and movies like “The Hughleys,” The Meteor Man, voiced Duchess in “101 Dalmatians,” Madea’s Witness Protection, “The First Family” and she just finished shooting The Man in 3B.
“What’s Happening!!” was a fun show about the teenage trials of inner city teenagers from Watts in Los Angeles. While Raj, his sister Dee, and their friend Rerun were trying to navigate their way through teenaged peril, Raj’s mother, Mama was able to always steer them in the right direction.
After the show went into a direction that Mabel King didn’t agree with, she left “What’s Happening!!” and was cast as “Evillene” in the motion picture version of the hit musical, The Wiz. She was also in films and shows like The Jerk, “Fantasy Island,” “Tales from the Darkside,” “Wiseguy” and “Dead Men Don’t Die.”
The former theater heavy hitter sadly died from complications from diabetes in 1999 at the age of 66.