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Born Marie Anne Boland in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she was the daughter of an actor and was performing on stage by the age of fifteen. She debuted on Broadway in 1907 in the play The Ranger with Dustin Farnum and had appeared in eleven Broadway productions, notably with John Drew, before making her silent film debut for Triangle Studios in 1915. After appearing in nine movies, she left filmmaking in 1920, devoting herself to the stage and appearing in a number of Broadway productions. Beautiful in her youth, and in her own way, the naturally blond Boland matured into a matronly type comedienne, not unlike Marie Dressler or Margaret Dumont, from which film audiences best remember her. She developed a witty speech with rapid style delivery which became popular in screwball film comedies of the 1930s.

Her greatest success on the stage in the 1920s was the comedy The Cradle Snatchers (1925-26) in which she and Edna May Oliver, abandoned by their husbands, take on young lovers, Boland`s paramour being Humphrey Bogart in one of his first roles.
Mary Boland c. 1915 taken during her tenure in silent films

After an eleven year absence, in 1931 she was lured back to Hollywood by Paramount Pictures, attracted by the fact that all films were then being made with sound and the film studios lucrative offerings to stage trained stars with voices. She achieved far greater film success with her second try, becoming one of the 1930s most popular character actresses, always playing major roles in her films and often starring, notably in a series of comedies opposite Charles Ruggles.

Of her film work, the 1935 production Ruggles of Red Gap is probably the most noted. However, she is likely best remembered for her role as Countess DeLave in the movie The Women (1939) and that of Mrs. Bennett in Pride and Prejudice (1940). Although she performed in another forty-nine films and later television productions, Boland also continued to work in live theatre, making her last Broadway appearance in 1954 at the age of seventy-four. That play, Lullaby, was not a success. Her last acting was done in the 1955 television adaptation of The Women recreating her film role. She never married or had children.

For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Mary Boland has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6150 Hollywood Blvd.

In 1965, Mary Boland died as the result of a heart attack and was interred in the Great Mausoleum, Sanctuary of Vespers in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.