The True Story of Mary Todd Lincoln: What Broadway's "Oh, Mary! "Got Right and Wrong About the Troubled First Lady Meredith KileNovember 1, 2025 at 12:00 AM 0 Bettmann Archive/Getty; Michael Loccisano/Getty The real Mary Todd Lincoln vs. Cole Escola in the original cast of 'Oh, Mary!' Cole Escola's Tonywinning play, Oh, Mary!, has cast a satirical new light on the life and legacy of former first lady Mary Todd Lincoln, who is currently portrayed on Broadway by 30 Rock's Jane Krakowski Despite her marriage to one of the most revered presidents in U.S.
- - The True Story of Mary Todd Lincoln: What Broadway's "Oh, Mary! "Got Right and Wrong About the Troubled First Lady
Meredith KileNovember 1, 2025 at 12:00 AM
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Bettmann Archive/Getty; Michael Loccisano/Getty
The real Mary Todd Lincoln vs. Cole Escola in the original cast of 'Oh, Mary!' -
Cole Escola's Tony-winning play, Oh, Mary!, has cast a satirical new light on the life and legacy of former first lady Mary Todd Lincoln, who is currently portrayed on Broadway by 30 Rock's Jane Krakowski
Despite her marriage to one of the most revered presidents in U.S. history, Mary's life was marred by personal tragedy and mental health struggles
While Escola's play presents a manic caricature of the historical figure, it has opened up new interest in the real-life woman who was unsurprisingly overshadowed in life and death
While much is known and documented about the early American presidents, especially those as noteworthy as Abraham Lincoln, far less history has been recorded about their wives.
However, with the recent success of Cole Escola's Tony-winning Broadway comedy, Oh, Mary!, a new door has been opened to curiosity about Lincoln's enigmatic wife, Mary Todd Lincoln.
Escola's Mary is a farce: a boozy, mercurial, wannabe cabaret star with a closeted husband.
"I wrote myself an email in 2009 with an idea: Abe's assassination wasn't such a bad thing for Mary," the playwright shared in a 2024 interview with W Magazine. "That was the seed."
Bruce Glikas/WireImage
Cole Escola as Mary Todd Lincoln and Conrad Ricamora as Abe during the opening night of 'Oh, Mary!' on Broadway on July 11, 2024
Escola admittedly did zero research on the real-life first lady, instead starting with the question, "What would be the dumbest thing that first lady Mary Todd Lincoln could dream of and want with her life?"
"It wasn't like, 'Let me turn history on its head.' It was more like, 'What's a fun frame for what's in my head?' " they told Out in another interview about the show.
Within the comic exaggeration, however, there are some grains of truth. Abraham's sexuality has long been debated, and his wife's deteriorating mental health caused real-life problems during their time in the White House.
So, who was Mary Todd Lincoln, in truth?
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Abraham and Mary Lincoln depicted with sons Thomas (left) and Robert (center)
Born in Lexington, Ky., on Dec. 13, 1818, Mary was the fourth of seven children born to Robert Smith Todd and Elizabeth "Eliza" Parker Todd. Her mother died in childbirth when Mary was just 7 and her relationship with her stepmother, Elizabeth "Betsy" Humphreys, has frequently been described as difficult or strained.
Mary's father was a strong advocate of girls receiving an education, and the future first lady was said to have even more schooling than her older sisters when she proved to be an exceptional student. She spent ages 8 through 13 at the strict Ward's Academy before attending boarding school at Madame Mentelle's French School for Girls.
When Mary was 21, she moved to Illinois to live with her sister, Elizabeth Edwards. It was here that she met her soon-to-be husband, then just an Illinois state representative.
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Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln
Mary and Abe's relationship wasn't happily ever after right away. In fact, biographer William H. Herndon wrote that, early in their relationship, Mary would make it a point to be seen walking "arm-in-arm" with Stephen Douglas, Abe's political rival, "in order to fire his passion for her."
Their relationship was also controversial because of the class difference between them. Mary grew up privileged, while Abe was born into poverty and had worked his way to the middle class. Their first engagement was broken off, but they finally married on Nov. 4, 1842. Todd was 23 and Lincoln was 33.
Mary ran their household in Springfield, Ill., while Abe worked and traveled as a lawyer and politician until 1860, when he was elected president.
From there, however, Mary's life seems to have become a series of tragedies, ranging from heartbreaking to life-changing. Two of the couple's four sons, Eddie and Willie, died before reaching adulthood. Only one outlived his mother: her eldest, Robert Todd Lincoln.
Being the first lady during the Civil War was not exactly a glamorous task. Mary was castigated by the public for spending money to redecorate the aging White House during wartime. Her loyalty was questioned as a native of a Confederate state, and her family was forever divided by their allegiances, which was also scrutinized in the press.
When Willie died of typhoid fever at age 12, in 1962, the White House was draped in black, and Mary was inconsolable. Her friend and dressmaker, Elizabeth Keckly, wrote that, "The pale face of her dead boy threw her into convulsions."
And of course, on April 14, 1865, Mary was seated next to her husband at Ford's Theatre when John Wilkes Booth shot him in the back of the head. She did not attend the funeral, and it took her six weeks to move out of the White House, with the grace of her husband's successor, Andrew Johnson.
In a letter to Sen. Charles Sumner shortly before her departure, Mary wrote, "I go hence, broken-hearted, with every hope almost in life—crushed."
Mathew Brady/MPI/Getty
Mary Todd Lincoln, in mourning dress
Mary's later years seem to have been equally bleak, plagued with financial trouble and declining mental health. Historians have attempted to diagnose her in retrospect. Some believe she had bipolar disease or narcissistic personality disorder, while others think the circumstances of her life simply began to crush her with depression.
In 1875, her only remaining son, Robert, took her to trial to have her institutionalized against her will. Mary languished in a facility for several months before being released into the care of her sister, Elizabeth.
She fled to France to prevent Robert from locking her up again, but when her health began to decline, she returned to the U.S. and died on July 16, 1882.
Far from the tragedies of dead husbands and domineering sons, Escola's Oh, Mary! allows the troubled first lady out of her historic tomb, allowing her to prance around onstage, chug paint thinner and flash her knickers.
The casting thus far has been gender and race-blind. Following Escola's Tony win for originating the role, GLOW star Betty Gilpin took the reins, followed by Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt's Tituss Burgess, two-time Drag Race winner Jinkx Monsoon and, most recently, 30 Rock alum Jane Krakowski.
Emilio Madrid
Jane Krakowski's bratty Mary Todd Lincoln in "Oh, Mary!"
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It's a freeing show, for the performers onstage, the enraptured audience and the memory of a long-suffering, sometimes-forgotten figure.
"Mary is just me," Escola, who is non-binary, told W Magazine. "She cares so deeply about what people think of her, but she has a huge blind spot and doesn't realize that people actually find her grating and annoying and hate her. And that is me."
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Source: Entertainment
Published: November 01, 2025 at 01:36AM on Source: VOXI MAG
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