Mary Jane Ffolkes

1930 - 2011

An actress, costume designer, and world traveler, Ventura resident Mary Jane Ffolkes recently passed away at her niece's home with the help of Rose Room Hospice.

As Mary Jane Evans, she was born on March 15, 1930, in Marion, Ohio, to Bettina June Bristol and John Roberts Evans. She was baptized in and was a practicing Episcopalian her entire life. She was a member of St. Thomas the Apostle Episcopal Church, Hollywood, since 1987. Starting out as an actress, she was later a designer who worked in the British film industry after meeting her second husband, British set and costume designer, David Ffolkes. They met while she was attending graduate school at Boston University where the British Ffolkes was a visiting professor. The couple moved to Hollywood, and often went on location together, to the Bahamas, Spain, Monte Carlo and elsewhere. Eventually, they moved to London where she lived for over nine years, and became a movie costumer and assisted on such classics as Darling and Women in Love. In 1966, after working overseas in Japan for an entire year on the James Bond film You Only Live Twice, David Ffolkes died of a massive heart attack in London. When the British film unions insisted Mary became a British citizen in order to keep working there, she returned to the USA. Relocating to Seattle she worked for 14 years with the Seattle Symphony as a box office assistant.

She moved back to LA in 1986 where she began work on a screenplay based on her Seattle experience. Based on her costuming experience she also took a day job at the Fur Salon at Neiman Marcus, but continued to work on her script, a dream that would sustain her throughout the next 26 years. Retirement came at the age of 67. She traveled to England twice, and to Asia to visit the place where David had spent time as a prisoner of war during WWII. She rode the Orient Express. Her final trip was to Egypt and down the Nile. At age 77, after many health challenges, especially years of rheumatoid arthritis, the world traveler finally agreed to move to Ventura to a retirement center where she came to enjoy the older folks at Cypress Place.

Mary Ffolkes died on the day after her mother's birthday, June 27, 2011. Surviving are sisters, Libby Williams and Dee Milbank of Camarillo and Salem, Ore., and numerous nieces and nephews. We will miss our whimsical Aunt Mary!

Service will be held 5 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 20, at St. Thomas the Apostle Episcopal Church-Hollywood, 7501 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90046. Arrangements are under the direction of the Ted Mayr Funeral Home. Condolences may be left at TedMayrFuneralHome.com.