SHIRLEY KNIGHT (Little Mary Sunshine") received an Academy Award nomination for her performance in "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs." she has played a naive girl in a prison full of women in "House of Women," the girl-friend of a killer in "The Couch," a southern heroine in "Sweet Bird of Youth." (all to be released) and now warm and sunny Mary...all a long way from Kansas where she was born in the country about ten miles from Lyons.
After graduating from Lyons High School, half of her univeristy education and two seasons of ssummer stock, she enrolled at the University of Witchita, appeared in 32 plays, sang on a daily television program and with a dance band in a local night club, did a weekly disc jockey show for the college radio station, plus taking opera lessons twice a week. On top of all this, she went to finishing school in her little spare time and wrote the society section of the Wichita Beacon.
In an interview with Norman Cousins, editor of the Saturday Review, he told her that if she wanted to be an actress she should go to New York and learn how to be one. Her father contended that New York was too big a city for a young lady, and she came to the west coast instead to study at the Pasadena Playhouse. Two months after her arrival here she was signed to play the leading role opposite Michael Landon in NBC's Matinee Theatre.
From this first effort Shirley progressed in roles in "Cheyenne," "Playhouse 90," "GE Theatre," "Rawhide," "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," "77 Sunset Strip," and a list too long for print.
Her first film role was that of the young num in "Five Gates to Hell," This brought her to the attention of Warner Bros., where she was signed to portray the daughter of Richard Burton and Martha Hyer in Edna Ferber's "Ice Palace," and subsequently placed under contract in 1959- the same year she married producer Gene Perrson.
Though known for her dramatic performances this is Miss Knight's first opportunity since her arrival on the west coast to return to her first love, singing.

The front cover of The Playgoer is a black and white photo of Shirley as Little Mary Sunshine.