Marjorie Guthrie

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Marjorie Guthrie (née Greenblatt; October 6, 1917 – March 13, 1983), who used Marjorie Mazia as her professional name, was a dancer, dance teacher, and health science activist. She was the daughter of American Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt (née Waitzman) and the second of three wives of folk musician Woody Guthrie, to whom she was married from 1945 to 1953. Her four children with Guthrie include folk musician Arlo Guthrie and Woody Guthrie Publications president Nora Guthrie. She was a principal dancer with the Martha Graham Company. With Graham's permission, she started her own dance studio where she taught Graham methods and style. Woody Guthrie began experiencing symptoms of Huntington's disease in the 1940s, although his condition remained undiagnosed until 1952. After he and his third wife divorced in 1956, Marjorie Guthrie cared for him for the remainder of his life. Following his death in 1967, she became an activist, founding a predecessor of the Huntington's Disease Society of America in that year. She headed a Federal Commission for control of the disease in 1976 and 1977 and convinced President Jimmy Carter to form a Presidential Commission to study neurological diseases, including Huntington's. Her advocacy work also included serving on the National Committee for Research in Neurological and Communicative Disorders, the New York State Commission on Health Education and Illness Prevention, and the advisory council of the National Institute of General Medical Science. She died in Manhattan in 1983, aged 65.