Famous Needlepointers: Mary Martin

Everyone remembers the flight. The green tights, the crow of a boy who refused to grow up, eight shows a week suspended above a Broadway stage. What almost nobody remembers is that Mary Martin spent just as much time with a needle in her hand as she did in the air.

She originated Nellie Forbush in South Pacific. She originated Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music. She was the definitive Peter Pan, on Broadway and on television, for an entire generation. And for more than thirty years, she was also a serious, prolific needlepointer, so devoted to the craft that she published her own book about it.

If you've ever wondered whether needlepoint and a demanding career can coexist, Mary Martin is proof they can. Here's her story.

It Started With a Front-Hall Rug

Every needlepointer remembers their first project. Mary Martin's began backstage.

In 1950, her husband Richard brought a piece of canvas to her dressing room at the Majestic Theatre. She was appearing as Nellie Forbush in South Pacific at the time, mid-run of one of the biggest hits on Broadway. The canvas was for a front-hall rug, a serious undertaking for a total beginner. As Martin put it herself, "that is how I started."

She didn't finish that rug quickly. It took two and a half years, and by the time she stitched the final square, she was in London, still performing the same role in the same show.

Needlepoint Found Her at the Right Moment

Martin's relationship with needlework had an unlikely beginning. As a child, her mother was a gifted seamstress who made her elaborate handmade clothes, and young Mary hated every minute of it. The endless fittings. Being told to stand still. She swore she would never sew anything for the rest of her life.

Decades later, in the middle of a career that kept her on stage for hours a day, she found herself wanting something different: a quiet, unshowy project that belonged entirely to her during off-stage hours. Needlepoint became that outlet. The same woman who once refused to touch a needle ended up devoted to one for the rest of her life.

She Stitched Everywhere the Work Took Her

Martin's needlepoint traveled with her. She worked on projects during freighter trips to Brazil, her favorite way to vacation. She stitched during a Far Eastern tour that included a stop in Vietnam. Wherever her career or her personal life took her, from New York to Brazil, a canvas usually came along.

She wasn't precious about who received the finished pieces, either. Unlike some needlepointers who keep their work close, Martin loved to give hers away. She stitched for her children, for friends, for producers, directors, and composers, and for Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein themselves. She once said the real pleasure of needlepoint was knowing exactly who would receive the piece when it was done.

The Dream That Became the Theatre Sampler

The most remarkable story from Martin's needlepoint life happened almost by accident.

While touring in I Do! I Do!, she woke up one morning in San Francisco from a dream. In it, she saw herself painting tiny figures representing the roles and moments that meant the most to her across her career. She wasn't someone who typically dreamed about needlepoint, by her own admission, but the dream stuck with her. That same day, she started stitching what she called her "Theatre Sampler."

The finished piece includes small stitched icons pulled directly from her stage career: her dress and guitar from The Sound of Music, and a tiny figure of Peter Pan and his shadow. It's a needlepoint autobiography, stitched square by square.

She Wrote the Book, Literally

In 1969, Martin published Mary Martin's Needlepoint through William Morrow and Company. The book isn't a dry how-to guide. It's part memoir, part project journal, filled with 37 color photos and 54 black-and-white photographs documenting decades of her work, alongside her own account of why she made each piece and who it was for.

In her own words, from the book's foreword: "Jump right in. Don't be afraid to try anything, even a front-hall rug. If your husband doesn't understand and doesn't bring one home to you, he'll understand later. Go out and get it yourself."

Broadway Royalty, Original Peter Pan, and One of Us

Mary Martin spent her career convincing audiences she could fly. Off stage, she was doing something a little more grounded: working a needle through canvas, one stitch at a time, turning down moments from a legendary career into something she could hold in her hands.

She's proof that needlepoint isn't just for quiet afternoons. It travels. It survives freighters and foreign tours and thirty-year careers. And sometimes, it even shows up in your dreams.

Looking for your own canvas to get lost in? Explore hand-painted needlepoint designs at Georgie & Lottie Co.

Sources: Celebrity Needlepoint by Scobey & McGrath; Mary Martin’s Needlepoint by Mary Martin; newyorktheater.me; npr.org