WHEN Mary Fawcett Watko treads the boards in an American production of Calendar Girls she will be returning to her Yorkshire roots.

Mary, who grew up in Guiseley, moved to the US half a century ago - but she has maintained her links with frequent visits to family back home.

Now her regular contact will stand her in good stead when she appears as Jessie in the Colonial Players of Annapolis production - giving the rest of the cast a little help with their accents.

She said: “Yorkshire dialect is not the easiest to learn or to teach for anyone, although, I do visit home quite often, so my accent is always brushed up by my family on our visits. I have been coaching the cast a little but as I said, it’s a tough accent to teach but we are working at it.”

Mary’s lifetime passion for live theatre began when she appeared in the Yeadon Town Hall Pantomime in 1953, going on to sing and dance on the BBC show Talk of the Town at the age of 11.

When she was 24 she moved to the United States where she has won numerous awards for both acting and directing - including Outstanding Achievement in a Play from the British Embassy in Washington DC. She was also a runner up in Ms Senior America 2006 after competing and performing in Las Vegas.

Looking back on her formative years she said: “BBC television at the age of 11 years was quite an event for us Yorkshire lasses. The small chorus of the Yeadon Pantomime in 1953 had been asked to audition for Talk of the Town, a talent show that was a competition against other towns and performed in Manchester Studios. Harry Corbett, of Sooty, I believe organised the auditions and may have been a producer. We, a 12-girl chorus, sang and tap danced to Mr Taptoe and Michael Kelly of Yeadon was the great lead tap dancer for us. I remember we did not have a television in our house and I believe the only television on the street belonged to Mrs Gardener and that is where the neighbours all gathered to watch the show.”

While her theatrical work has been mostly amateur she has sung professionally in Leeds. In America her professional work has included a bit part as a business woman in the 1989 Tom Selleck movie Her Alibi, which also featured the famous model Paulina Porizkova.

Now 74, and appearing in Calendar Girls until March 11, she added: “I feel I have come full circle. Beginning in my beloved Yorkshire and ending in Yorkshire - on the opposite side of the ‘big pond’. It doesn’t get any better than that!”

“But if this is to be my last play - I can’t think of a better way to go out than being a Calendar Girl from Yorkshire, in the United States of America.”

Mary has no regrets about her move to the US.

“I now have a wonderful husband Greg, two sons Shawn and Steven, two step-children Jennifer and Eric and in all six grandchildren and I love them all. America has been good to me and for me.”

“However, you can take a lass out of Yorkshire but you’ll never take the Yorkshire out of a lass. I will always have my dual citizenship and visit my family in Yorkshire as much as I can.”