Mary Therese Cadorette was born on March 31, 1957, in East Hartford, Connecticut. She began taking dance classes at the age of five and later participated in dance competitions, crediting her love of dance for her career milestones.
Cadorette was crowned Miss Connecticut in the 1975 Miss America pageant and graduated from the University of Connecticut in 1979. She then performed in dinner theaters and with the United Service Organizations (USO) before spending three and a half years on Broadway as an understudy in the musical 42nd Street.
In 1990, she landed the recurring guest role of Margaret Turner on the popular television show Night Court. She also owned her own restaurant, Mary's Lamb, in Los Angeles during the 1990s, which was frequented by many celebrities.
Cadorette has appeared in a few films, including Stewardess School and The Rat Pack. During the 1980s, she was a frequent guest on various game shows, such as The $25,000 Pyramid, Super Password, and Body Language.
After leaving California and moving back to Connecticut in 1999 to care for her mother, who had suffered a stroke, Cadorette returned to her roots in dance. She and two friends, whom she had known since they were children, formed the "The Chapeau Rouge Dance Project" to encourage former and older dance students to attend classes in their rented dance studio.
In her personal life, Cadorette has been married twice, first to Michael Eisen in 1982 and then to William Harris in 1997, taking the newly-married name Mary Cadorette-Harris. Her first husband passed away, and her second husband, William Harris, passed away on October 15, 2010.
In 2011, Cadorette directed and choreographed Hairspray at Glastonbury High School in Glastonbury, Connecticut, and in 2012, she directed 42nd Street at the same school, incorporating some of the original choreography.
Today, Cadorette teaches at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts Tap and Ensemble Class in Hartford, Connecticut.
